Non-con question

[slyc_willie]

What typo? When I went to my submissions page, it suddenly came flying out of the screen.

*snerk*

"We don't want your friggin' story!"



I've been ejected twice, myself.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Was there excessive violence, snuff, or abuse of characters in your story?
Your story was too extreme for our guidelines. These judgments are subjective, and thus we can't give an exact definition of what exactly is "too much". Certain "violence" in a BDSM situation between consenting adults may be allowed, while the same "violence" between strangers in a non-consentual situation will not. Tone and respect for characters, as well as the "violent" scene within the context of the story, are what we make our judgments upon. If your story is rejected for this, feel free to send the story back with a polite request for an explanation and we will tell you why it was rejected. If you disagree with our assessment, you are more than welcome to publish your story elsewhere rather than alter it to our guidelines. We respect your rights as authors to write on whatever you like, however you like. :

If you start off by publishing elsewhere in the Bush Leagues how are you going to get rejected here on Lit? It seems they are telling you rather blatantly, try and see? If we turn you down that's our right and you can ask us why we made a given decision and we will explain our decision and then you can go elsewhere. Why not got Laurel and Manu the chance to reject it?

I did admit that there was a point at which you can be too violent, and I also have stories on othersites when the Lit censors shut me down. It does happen.

My snuff stories have been pointed out to the Lit censors at the very least once (they changed the title from Raped and Eaten to Ravished and Eaten. So they are aware of the story. While I can't prove it I suspect that at least one of the "why can't you just play nice instead of testing the boundaries" people has pointed out my work in the last seventy two hours.

I stand as, and can point out stories by several other authors that proves that the rape rule is nothing but myth. That the violence and snuff rule is a soft and subjective rule. It's like the rating system in movies or video games. You make your work, submit it, see if it makes it past the censors and call it a day. Worst case scenario they reject it and you go someplace else.

 

[Essene]

Just doing a quick flip through the non-con section, I found one at random called "You can cry a river." Not my cup of tea, but it was definitely a rape story, with no enjoyment on the woman's part whatsoever.

The only things Lit explicitly denies in our stories are beastiality, underage sex, and snuff. They leave it up to the readers to decide if a story is worth reading.

Even the snuff part is a soft rule, a guideline if you will. One that I have ran right past before. These are the rules. All of them.

"No sexual activity involving bestiality (you can write stories about supernatural beasts like ghosts, unicorns, werewolves, etc.) or underage persons will be considered. For the purposes of this site, the minimum legal age is 18. This site does not publish stories, articles, essays, or other material supporting, encouraging, or defending child abuse and/or exploitation. "

Those are the only rules here. No animals, no children. Anything else goes. ANYTHING. The editors have the ability to drop whatever they want but it is so rarely used. As I pointed out I've had two stories get rejected presumably for being too graphic. One was a zombie rape scene where a girl was being raped, killed and eaten simotaneously. The other was presumably rejected based on future violence because I claimed it was in line with Dolcett Comics but the first chapter was just a pair of lesbians camped out (I later changed the title, removed the warning and resent it and it got through no problems.)

My question to the prior posters is: why don't you respect Laurel's intent as well as the "letter of the law" when it comes to these stories? In the FAQ you get referred to this posting:



I think this makes it VERY clear that the owners of this site do NOT want snuff or violent rape stories to be posted. You might be able to "squeak" a story through by it being "over looked" or if it is marginally acceptable, but why? Do as suggested and post it on one of the other sites that welcome this kind of story. Laurel and Manu have given us a wonderful opportunity to display our work to thousands and thousands of readers. We should be thanking them for that, not trying how to circumvent their wishes.

*nod*

Yeah. The reason why I asked was because everyone I've spoken to seems to interpret the rules differently. In the rules for writing/submitting section it says one thing, but then the "rules" seem somewhat arbitrary when actually getting things accepted.

Someone argued to me that Lit has hardly any rules at all, and another person said that there were no rules concerning non-con, and gave the "no underage, no beastiality, anything other than that goes" arguement, and I thought I recalled it being a bit more strict than that.

Hmm...

Thanks for the interesting discussion folks.

 

[Weird Harold]

...In the rules for writing/submitting section it says one thing, but then the "rules" seem somewhat arbitrary when actually getting things accepted....

The rules are not so much arbitrary as they are context sensitive and subjective.

A violent rape scene submitted as a stand alone story might well be rejected while the exact same, verbatim, scene might well pass without comment as part of a longer story because in the context of the longer story it is a necessary plot development.

A BDSM + Incest scene might well be rejected for the incest or non-con categories but pass without comment in the BDSM or erotic horror categories.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Basically Harold is dittoing me. Which means. . .

WRITE YOUR STORY CALL IT A DAY

 

[Weird Harold]

Basically Harold is dittoing me. Which means. . .

WRITE YOUR STORY CALL IT A DAY

No, actually I'm NOT "dittoing" you. You claim the rules are a "myth" and I know that they are not a myth. I am trying to help people understand the rules so they don't get rejected; you advocate ignoring the rules and just living with the rejections.

 

[Essene]

The rules are not so much arbitrary as they are context sensitive and subjective.

A violent rape scene submitted as a stand alone story might well be rejected while the exact same, verbatim, scene might well pass without comment as part of a longer story because in the context of the longer story it is a necessary plot development.

A BDSM + Incest scene might well be rejected for the incest or non-con categories but pass without comment in the BDSM or erotic horror categories.

Ahhhh okay. Thank you for that clarification.

Basically Harold is dittoing me. Which means. . .

WRITE YOUR STORY CALL IT A DAY

Does Harold normally "ditto" you? And if and when he does, is it normally indicative that we should stop discussion of the topic at hand?

No, actually I'm NOT "dittoing" you. You claim the rules are a "myth" and I know that they are not a myth. I am trying to help people understand the rules so they don't get rejected; you advocate ignoring the rules and just living with the rejections.

I personally did not get the impression that you were "dittoing" Sean at all.
I appreciate your clarification as I am not always certain which opinions I should take seriously. I am learning...

 

[Weird Harold]

I personally did not get the impression that you were "dittoing" Sean at all.

That clarification was for Sean, who doesn't understand the difference between censors and publishers. Censors tell you what you cannot publish, publishers tell you what they choose not to publish for you.

I appreciate your clarification as I am not always certain which opinions I should take seriously. I am learning...

There is really only one opinion on this site that counts -- Laurel's. She is the managing editor and final arbiter of what gets published on this site.

The thread that safe_bet took the explanation the FAQs referenced was written by Killermuffin and is a sticky in the editor's forum. It's five years old, but it reflects many discussions with Laurel and other authors about just what is and isn't permissible here at Lit to fit within the "look and feel" Laurel wants for the site.

The bottom line is, squick Laurel, get rejected -- but that's a hard determination to make since she seldom engages in any real discussions because she has so little time nowadays.

 

[Sean Renaud]

The problem is that we are all in agreement that the rules aside from beasts and children are fluid to say the least. You can't just "use your best judgement" to know what will and won't be allowed, least I can't. I would have assumed that every story I put in the Erotic Horror category would have been rejected. But only one was. The fact is you don't know until you know, and the only way to find out is to submit your story. It's been my experience that in order for you to get rejected by the publishers (sorry you're correct they aren't censors in the most technical sense. Though the distinction is effectively so minor as to be pointless. It's like the ESRB doesn't censor games, they RATE them, of course if you get an AO rating no company will allow your game on their hardware which basically amounts to the ESRB telling you what you can and can't make, but you're right TECHNICALLY they aren't censors.) Anyway to get rejected by the publishers you basically have to go out of your way. Very little that you are normally going to think up is going to get kicked back.

Also it's been my experience that if you wrote a story that was in appropriate for the genre you labeled it the editors handle that for you. I've had things I submitted as Incest that became noncon, or Nonhuman that became Erotic Horror. I"m not saying Harold is wrong for claiming that a story might get rejected in one genre and accepted in another I'm merely saying that in my experience the editors aren't that petty, if it could be accepted as X they'll simply change it to X without telling you. It really is that simple.

And yes this conversation should have ended some time ago Essene. Nobody can deny that I have stories on this site where the girl doesn't enjoy her rape and in fact doesn't survive the rape. Multiple stories in fact so it's not that one slipped through when nobody was paying attention. One they saw fit to change the title to so I find it unlikely that the powers that be aren't aware of it. The fact is that as Harold pointed out there is only one person here who can make the ultimate decision on your story. Laurel. There are dozens if not more threads on this exact subject but the truth is that you can only try and see. I find it terribly unlikely that most people are going to go so far into the violence to get rejected but if you do you'll probaby know what happened. It's not like she gets pissy over foul language.