Punctuation

[Iainmore]

I just had my stories rejected for not having periods at the end of my sentences. What in the eff?????

As far as I am concerned there is nothing wrong with my punctuation and the stories are quite understandable in the preview window. So right now I have steam coming out of my ears at what I see as total BS!!!!!!!!

I am definitely out of bed on the wrong side this morning!!!!

 

[Blind_Justice]

Calm down, take a deep breath and relax. Then have another look at your story. Maybe have someone else take a look. If there's nothing wrong on your end, resubmit and put a request for clarification into the NOTES field of the submission.

Patience, young grasshopper. You'll get there eventually.

 

[gordo12]

It seems to me that the only way you could get away without periods is a series of one line sentences. Generally that's not much of a story. Might as well put it in bullet points and be done with it.

If it's not a series of one liners, then it becomes a wall of text and the readers have to struggle with the story. Not much happiness there and your ratings will suffer accordingly.

This is a site for readers and writers. Readers needs should be respected and writers need to learn how to write. That includes periods!

 

[MelissaBaby]

I just had my stories rejected for not having periods at the end of my sentences. What in the eff?????

As far as I am concerned there is nothing wrong with my punctuation and the stories are quite understandable in the preview window. So right now I have steam coming out of my ears at what I see as total BS!!!!!!!!

I am definitely out of bed on the wrong side this morning!!!!

Here's a crazy suggestion. I know it's off the wall, but hear me out.


Put the periods in and resubmit it.

 

[TxRad]

In dialog, make sure the period is inside the quotation mark at the end.

 

[MelissaBaby]

My punctuation was awful when I started. I found this essay very helpful.

How To Punctuate Like A Pro

 

[SimonDoom]

As far as I am concerned there is nothing wrong with my punctuation!

No one can give you useful advice or guidance because we can't see your punctuation. "As far as I am concerned" is not the standard for this site. My guess is there are some punctuation problems in what you submitted. You might want to have some people look at it and give you advice.

Punctuation is not that hard. There are relatively few rules one must master to do it right. It's a matter of paying attention. There are plenty of good examples and links to articles on this Site about how to punctuate properly. Good punctuation makes a big difference to the readability of one's story.

 

[OmnislashXX]

Eh, this site is really restrictive when it comes to punctuation. I've faced many rejections because of it, though I find it really to be not that big of a deal.

 

[Iainmore]

Microsoft Word/Ta for the inputs folks

Well using Microsoft Word doesnt seem to worry about what is classed as a period or not. Saving it in RTF doesnt seem to have a problem with what I have writTen erm grammatically or not.

Resorting to an eyesore of huge sentences is well pretty limiting in my view and that is what i would be doing to include all those periods that are to me non essential for the reader to grasp what character is saying what.

I have submited the first chapter of another story but that has virtually zero dialogue in it and if that passes then I just dont think I can write stories without dialogue, it is pretty dry without the character interactions.

What gets me is that I see and read plenty of stories published that arent well punctuated and there are missing periods all over them.

P.S Ta for the inputs anyway folks.

 

[KeithD]

Is this maybe the first time in life you've encountered a situation that isn't all about you? The Web site, like most any other publisher in the world, requires end punctuation to ease reader comprehension and the following of other standard presentation conventions. It also requires following some accepted convention of dialogue punctuation (the kicker here is that conventions differ. The Web site editor understands American style conventions best, so you might be rejected if you don't use those).

As has been noted to you already, it's not clear what your problem is unless you post a couple of example paragraphs. What is clear to the rest of us and you are just spinning wheels here unless it becomes clear to you too is that if you want to post stories at Literotica, you'll follow the posting rules of Literotica. If you don't like that, go submit your stories elsewhere. Ranting about it on the discussion board isn't going to help you--and posting more of what you're posting isn't going to win you friends and supporters here. No one here has any authority in story submission. Take it up, by PM, with Laurel, the sole site intake editor. (And good luck with that.)

 

[SimonDoom]

Well using Microsoft Word doesnt seem to worry about what is classed as a period or not. Saving it in RTF doesnt seem to have a problem with what I have writTen erm grammatically or not.

Resorting to an eyesore of huge sentences is well pretty limiting in my view and that is what i would be doing to include all those periods that are to me non essential for the reader to grasp what character is saying what.

I have submited the first chapter of another story but that has virtually zero dialogue in it and if that passes then I just dont think I can write stories without dialogue, it is pretty dry without the character interactions.

What gets me is that I see and read plenty of stories published that arent well punctuated and there are missing periods all over them.

P.S Ta for the inputs anyway folks.

I don't mean to be snarky, but if this post is an indication of the way you punctuate in your stories then it's not surprising that it was rejected. It's full of punctuation, spelling, and capitalization errors.

Literotica has a vested interest in making sure that stories are in reasonably good shape in terms of punctuation, basic grammar, spelling, etc. They want happy readers. Many stories with errors get through anyway because this Site is run as a shoe-string operation, but they have a right to set some minimal standards. It's not that hard to meet the standard of acceptability. It requires paying attention, mostly.

 

[yukonnights]

Let's put it another way; Do you want your stories to be well received? Or do you just want to do it your way and ignore what anyone else in the world might think? Punctuation flaws are one of the most common causes of low ratings. I don't think you'll get much sympathy on this issue.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Resorting to an eyesore of huge sentences is well pretty limiting in my view and that is what i would be doing to include all those periods that are to me non essential for the reader to grasp what character is saying what.

There's "essential" and then there's "helpful".

Imagine a world where every traffic sign is different. Sometimes it's a red octagon that says STOP. But sometimes it's a purple triangle that says HALT, and sometimes it's writing on the road that says BRAKE COMPLETELY BEFORE CONTINUING.

All of those are understandable. But it takes more work to process them - because they're not standard, you have to think about them every time to work out what this road sign is saying. If you did that on the roads, people would die.

That's sort of how it feels to read a story that doesn't use proper punctuation. I can still figure out what the writer's saying, if I stop to think about it... but that takes mental effort. I'm no longer gliding smoothly through the story, I'm working my way through it. Nobody's going to die but my attention and my enjoyment might.

 

[myrionomos]

Put the periods in and resubmit it.

Spot on. The first chapter I ever submitted attracted comments on the poor punctuation. The comments were annoyingly correct, but I fixed the punctuation in future submissions. But I never left periods (full stops) out.

And KeithD's comment might get under your skin but there is no writer who gets the technicalities right better than him, so take your medicine and do it again. Properly.

 

[John988]

[This content has been removed due to a copyright violation.]

 

[Iainmore]

American or Brit or European?

Is this maybe the first time in life you've encountered a situation that isn't all about you? The Web site, like most any other publisher in the world, requires end punctuation to ease reader comprehension and the following of other standard presentation conventions. It also requires following some accepted convention of dialogue punctuation (the kicker here is that conventions differ. The Web site editor understands American style conventions best, so you might be rejected if you don't use those).

As has been noted to you already, it's not clear what your problem is unless you post a couple of example paragraphs. What is clear to the rest of us and you are just spinning wheels here unless it becomes clear to you too is that if you want to post stories at Literotica, you'll follow the posting rules of Literotica. If you don't like that, go submit your stories elsewhere. Ranting about it on the discussion board isn't going to help you--and posting more of what you're posting isn't going to win you friends and supporters here. No one here has any authority in story submission. Take it up, by PM, with Laurel, the sole site intake editor. (And good luck with that.)

You were at least constructive. As it happens I am a Brit. As for some of the later posts from others well they weren't constructive at all and some were indeed just snarky for the sake of being snarky. I am thick skinned though so it is a case of if they cant be constructive well !!!!!!!!!!

But thanks for trying to be constructive. I guess I just have to think American. I will dig out my Raymond Chandler collection although I suspect modern America doesn't follow the conventions of that great American writer and I suspect Literotica doesn't either.

 

[SamScribble]

The test of good punctuation is not that it's not there, but that the reader doesn't 'see' it.

Good luck with your re-submission.

 

[RetroFan]

Has anyone ever had a grammar Nazi comment on one of their stories?

I remember getting a comment on one of my stories which was 11 pages long saying I had used a comma when I should have used a semi-colon and that it completely ruined the story, turning it into rubbish that was worthy of 1 star.

 

[jaF0]

As for some of the later posts from others well they weren't constructive at all and some were indeed just snarky for the sake of being snarky.

Oh Chile, you ain't seen Snark! They were being kind compared to the double barrel snark cannon I sometimes let loose with.

 

[thewinedarksea]

My favourite guide to punctuating dialogue, which is the achilles heel of many a developing writer:

http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/

 

[SimonDoom]

As for some of the later posts from others well they weren't constructive at all and some were indeed just snarky for the sake of being snarky. I am thick skinned though so it is a case of if they cant be constructive well !!!!!!!!!!

.

No one on this thread has been snarky with you. Everyone has tried to be helpful, including me. You started the thread with a rant, but without giving anyone an objective basis to evaluate the merits of your rant, because we had no sample of what you'd submitted to the site.

Then you submitted a post that was rife with errors, reasonably leading those who submitted responses to believe that perhaps you were not being sufficiently aware of the errors you were making.

This is not a matter of Brit v. American style. The post you submitted that I referred to as containing multiple errors would not meet any British English standard.

If we had a sample of what you submitted containing the objected to punctuation, we might be able to help.

I note that the last post you submitted, which I quoted above, contains punctuation errors. You omitted the apostrophe in "can't." You omitted a comma after "others." You omitted a comma after "all." Again, the reasonable inference is that you are not being realistic about the extent of punctuation errors that you are making. I don't know without seeing a portion of what you submitted, but it's a reasonable inference based on the posts you've made to this thread so far.

People are trying to be constructive but you have to give them something to work with.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Spot on. The first chapter I ever submitted attracted comments on the poor punctuation. The comments were annoyingly correct, but I fixed the punctuation in future submissions. But I never left periods (full stops) out.

And KeithD's comment might get under your skin but there is no writer who gets the technicalities right better than him, so take your medicine and do it again. Properly.

My first story was rejected for poor punctuation and formatting. I pouted for a few minutes, gave myself a good spanking, fixed it, sent it back in and got it accepted.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You were at least constructive. As it happens I am a Brit. As for some of the later posts from others well they weren't constructive at all and some were indeed just snarky for the sake of being snarky. I am thick skinned though so it is a case of if they cant be constructive well !!!!!!!!!!

But thanks for trying to be constructive. I guess I just have to think American. I will dig out my Raymond Chandler collection although I suspect modern America doesn't follow the conventions of that great American writer and I suspect Literotica doesn't either.

The British/American thing is largely a red herring. The site doesn't require American English, it's only an issue if the moderator (who is American) doesn't realise that something is British English and not just a mistake. I've heard of that happening occasionally, but it's rare.

I've posted a couple of dozen stories here in Australian and/or British English and never had a rejection for grammar/punctuation. The only times I've ever needed to write in US English was when it was appropriate to the story, e.g. US-based narrator.

 

[Emirus]

I just had my stories rejected for not having periods at the end of my sentences. As far as I am concerned there is nothing wrong with my punctuation.

What gets me is that I see and read plenty of stories that are published that aren’t well punctuated.

As it happens I am a Brit. I guess I’ll just have to think American.

I’ve just taken extracts from three of your comments. As it happens I’m British although to be more correct I’m English. I don’t think American unless I’m writing a story set in America and to fit in with the story it’s necessary to use certain words and phrases. Read Hela - Retribution. I don’t bastardise the English language. It’s not necessary.

There are plenty of stories on here that are so badly written it’s horrifying. But they are printed because they fit within the guidelines of the site and not whether or not they are crap. The ratings of many of them are so unbelievably high it makes you wonder. However the fact that despite them being crap and yet published is unimportant. That has nothing to do with your writing, my writing or any other writer on here.

I couldn’t see anything wrong with my first story and it got published without a problem. Then I put it in story feedback and it got ripped to shreds. A lot of it was about poor punctuation and the criticism was correct. I took all the advice I was given, corrected the mistakes, and submitted an edit.

I note you say “my stories.” So how many stories are we talking about? How many words? What category? If you supply this information you might find that someone will offer to look at them for you and give you constructive advice.

 

[ElectricBlue]

But thanks for trying to be constructive. I guess I just have to think American. I will dig out my Raymond Chandler collection although I suspect modern America doesn't follow the conventions of that great American writer and I suspect Literotica doesn't either.

No, you don't need to "learn American."

I write in Australian English, with 85 stories/chapters posted over four years. Not once have I had a story rejected because of it, not once has anybody commented (well, once a numb-nuts commented on some archaic spelling that was oh so obviously deliberate), because you know why? The content is grammatically correct, punctuation is consistent and correct, spelling is correct (Australian), the technical elements of the writing are correct.

Your posts go on about periods and long blocks of text, which just confuses me. What are you actually talking about? Of course you need periods (by which I assume you mean full stops, but to be honest, I'm not sure), commas, semicolons - they're the fundamentals of sentence structure. I'm reading your posts and I'm scratching my head. I'm seeing poor punctuation and non-sequiturs, and now a shot at modern America vs great writers, and Brit vs America, but I'm mostly seeing poor punctuation.

But one thing is certain, if you write properly in whichever cultural version of English you grew up in, it will get through. It just has propery written, is all. It's not a Brit English vs American English thing, not at all; it's being able to write in English, period.