Sending my story to an editor.

[dangolf]

My story was rejected, so I want an editor to look it over and tell me what to do to make it right. Can I send my story to an editor via the story submission form or do I have to convert it into an email or a file?
Cheers,
Dan.

 

[KeithD]

Literotica doesn't have its own editors. You'll have to find one yourself, either through the pretty-much-defunct Volunteer Editor program (where its not that likely that an "editor" has any more editing expertise than you do) or, better, by seeking one by request here on this board, providing the category and length of your story and the reason given to you on why it was rejected. Then you'll have to get an en-mail contact address from the editor you connect with via the Private Message system here and arrange to send an e-mail attachment version to the editor.

Sometimes, when the rejection is because of content (e.g., underage sex) or formatting (e.g., bad dialogue punctuation or paragraphing), the issue can be resolved yourself by discussing it here and providing a few paragraphs of the content, if the problem is a technical formatting/punctuation issue.

Quite often (especially with challenges on underage sex), there's nothing really wrong with the story as claimed in the rejection--the submissions editor doesn't actually read the submissions. Sometimes it's just a matter than the problem queried doesn't exist in the original submission, and by discussing it out here, you are able just to refile and point out that the reason for rejection just doesn't exist in the story.

 

[dangolf]

It was rejected for misspelling. I read it through again and was unable to find a misspelt word. I do have a small worry about punctuation in speech, whether to use a full stop during a character's speech. Example: "Goodness!" Cried Digby, "what a lovely pair!" Or is it ; "Goodness!" Cried Digby. "What a lovely pair!"
Other than that, I could not see a problem. Also is it Sir Digby or sir Digby? Is it Master Robert or master Robert?
If I can just iron out these little niggles, I'm sure I would not be rejected, ever.

 

[KeithD]

What's proper in your example depends on how long a pause you want between the elements. Both of these would be correct:

"Goodness!" cried Digby. "What a lovely pair."

"Goodness," cried Digby, "what a lovely pair."

Where you put the dialogue slug, though, makes the first more proper, because you provided a pause there.

"Goodness, what a lovely pair!" cried Digby." is also correct.

In the context you give, it would be "Sir Digby" and "Master Robert" (directly appended personal titles).

As far as the spelling, if you check each and every half-way suspect word in the dictionary, you should be covered. Also, this is an American usage site. It's remotely possible that the submissions editor/or program won't recognize some British spellings. Rejection for spelling isn't very common here.

 

[dangolf]

Should I not use a capital letter after an exclamation mark? Or a question mark? Do the speech marks negate this rule?

 

[ElectricBlue]

My story was rejected, so I want an editor to look it over and tell me what to do to make it right. Can I send my story to an editor via the story submission form or do I have to convert it into an email or a file?
Cheers,
Dan.

You sort that out with your editor - either email or something like DropBox, but not the Lit submission form.

Either: "Goodness!" cried Digby. "What a lovely pair!"

Or: "Goodness," cried Digby, "what a lovely pair!"

Either would do. The first is two emphatic spoken parts, the second is a less emphatic run-on sentence. Either way, 'cried' is the speech tag for "Goodness!" so it's lower case.

It would be Sir Digby and Master Robert, because in this context, they're both titles.

 

[KeithD]

Should I not use a capital letter after an exclamation mark? Or a question mark? Do the speech marks negate this rule?

In this context, this can go either way with exclamation points and question marks. If you follow with a "he said" type of dialogue slug, as I did in the first example above, the sentence end comes at the end of the slug. If you had something other than a "he said" type of dialogue slug, the exclamation or question mark would end the sentence. Thus:

"Damn, you're irritating!" he said, as he shot her and walked off.

"Damn, you're irritating?" He shot her and walked off.

"Does this necklace make me look fat?" she asked.

"Does this necklace make me look fat?" She looked up at Chester, daring him to answer that.