Story Posted With Wrong Title

[SirSinn]

Hi all

I'm hoping some long time authors could offer advice.

I submitted a story which has been posted with the wrong title. My original submission should have been "3 Horny Moms, 4 Horny Sons, 1 Horny Daughter 02" but the title field on the submission form is too small to take that many characters. I included a note asking for the full title but whoever processed it decided to ignore that and post it as "Two Horny Moms, Two Horny Sons - Sequel" which is confusing the hell out of the readers!

I've emailed the help address asking what to do but wanted to get some thoughts from other authors.

Should I wait to hear back from the help line? Should I remove the story and re-submit?

If I submit by sending a txt or doc file in future, would that get around the problem of long titles?

Any thoughts gratefully received.

SirSinn

 

[NaokoSmith]

Hullo sweetheart.

You must make sure you PM Laurel, not email, cuz she doesn't actually use email, LOL.

I think the number of characters for titles, descriptions, etc are very strictly limited. What you can do, is give your story a short title for readers to quickly check in the listings, then in the text of your actual story give the long title as a sort of subtitle. I think I did that once.

Welcome to the board.


You can get very good answers to all writing questions here. Sometimes the trolls do come and nibble at your toes - they are supremely intelligent trolls and at first they throw you a little bait, you think they are just being a bit silly and you say something patiently and then they leap on you with snarls of joy and chew you up, LOL. Do not be offended if this happens, just brush it off and snigger and say, "OK, next time I will give you chocolate not a polite answer." Chocolate can sometimes do it.

Mmmm - chocolate!

 

[damppanties]

There is no way you can get around the character count for the title. The site is designed to have a specified character count and you cannot have a title longer than that.

That said, if you'd like to change the title to something else that still fits in the space designed for the title, then you can either edit your story or delete and resubmit. The instructions for doing so are here.

Lastly, if you want help from the site owners, please PM them. Do not use email.

 

[SirSinn]

Hullo sweetheart.

You must make sure you PM Laurel, not email, cuz she doesn't actually use email, LOL.

I think the number of characters for titles, descriptions, etc are very strictly limited. What you can do, is give your story a short title for readers to quickly check in the listings, then in the text of your actual story give the long title as a sort of subtitle. I think I did that once.

Welcome to the board.


You can get very good answers to all writing questions here. Sometimes the trolls do come and nibble at your toes - they are supremely intelligent trolls and at first they throw you a little bait, you think they are just being a bit silly and you say something patiently and then they leap on you with snarls of joy and chew you up, LOL. Do not be offended if this happens, just brush it off and snigger and say, "OK, next time I will give you chocolate not a polite answer." Chocolate can sometimes do it.

Mmmm - chocolate!

Thank you very much for the advice and the warm welcome! I've already had my share of Anonymous troll commenters on my stories but try not to pay them any attention!

There is no way you can get around the character count for the title. The site is designed to have a specified character count and you cannot have a title longer than that.

That said, if you'd like to change the title to something else that still fits in the space designed for the title, then you can either edit your story or delete and resubmit. The instructions for doing so are here.

Lastly, if you want help from the site owners, please PM them. Do not use email.

Thanks for the link to the instructions on how to change titles - I've resubbed both stories with new titles so I really hope they'll get posted correctly now!

 

[damppanties]

Thanks for the link to the instructions on how to change titles - I've resubbed both stories with new titles so I really hope they'll get posted correctly now!

You're welcome. Just a little note on edits too. Wait a couple of days after the edits appear as the site takes some time to update the edited documents.

 

[sr71plt]

As Damppanties has noted, the character limit on titles is a hard system requirement. You can change the title, but it's really up to you to devise the one you want within the limits. The editor actually had to take unusual extra time to try to devise one for you that fit.

 

[lovecraft68]

As others have said there is a firm character limit. The owner did what she felt was best with what you presented.

I've never run into a trouble with titles, but the one for the tag lines has caused me to struggle sometimes.

 

[Darkniciad]

Actually, Laurel has overridden the character limit for titles on very rare occasions. It was only by a character or two, though. You're not going to get to add two or three words - only two or three letters.

One example I can think of off the top of my head was a contest story several years ago where the last word of the title was cut off. Somewhere about mid-contest, Laurel added the last couple of missing letters.

In this specific case, I would be changing that title. It's way too close to TxTallTales' title, and that story is wildly popular in the category. You're going to have people down-voting you left and right for "stealing" his title, and probably leaving nasty comments.

You're going to have to brainstorm up something, and I would do it sooner rather than later.

For ease of reference, I'll also add the editing process for Lit here, because this is what I assume is the preferred method to change the title, once you come up with it. ( Rather than sending a PM to Laurel )

• Take note of the url of your story/chapter. That's the address appearing in the address bar of your browser when you view the first page of your story. You really only need the last part after the /s/ that represents your title.
• Start a new submission.
• Use the same title as the original ( or as much as will fit ) plus something such as *EDIT*
• Fill in the same category, then fill description and keywords with placeholders, as they don't matter. ( Unless one of these things are what you're editing )
• If editing the story text, paste/upload the new text in the "story text" section. You need to upload the whole story, not just the edited sections. If editing anything else, copy the "notes" section detailed below in order to fill this section.
• In the "notes" section, say what you are editing. If story text, then put that. If title, then put the requested NEW title here. You can fill in edited descriptions/keywords/category above, but you'll still want to list any such changes here. It's a good idea to list the url that I mentioned in step 1. This is unique to every story/chapter, and can help eliminate the potential for human error. As mentioned above, if you are editing something other than the story text, copy what you put in the notes section to the "story text" as well. This is simply because there must be something in that section for you to submit.
• Click "Review", then "Submit"

Edits are subject to the same wait time as a new story. Laurel has said that edit requests have low priority, but I have also seen edits go up in bulk in far less time than a story usually requires to post, though. So, it could be shorter, or it could be longer than the normal wait for a story to post.

Edits will not appear on the public side immediately. Wait at least 24 hours after the "edited" submission vanishes from your private author list before worrying that your changes haven't been applied. Changes may not all appear at the same time, either. Page 1 may change, while page 2 will remain the same until an hour or so later. Be patient as the system catches up.

If you edit the story in this manner ( as opposed to deleting and re-submitting ) you'll retain your votes, views, comments, etc. The only thing that will be changed is what you say that you want changed. It will not appear on the New List again.

If you wish to delete a story, use much the same method, except put something such as *DELETE* in the title, and say that you want to delete the story in question in the "notes" section.

If you wish to delete all of your stories, an entire series, etc., then use the normal delete process, but explain in the "notes" section that you want to do a mass delete, and what type.

Convoluted, but it does work. It gets a little easier as you get used to it.

 

[SirSinn]

As Damppanties has noted, the character limit on titles is a hard system requirement. You can change the title, but it's really up to you to devise the one you want within the limits. The editor actually had to take unusual extra time to try to devise one for you that fit.

As others have said there is a firm character limit. The owner did what she felt was best with what you presented.

I've never run into a trouble with titles, but the one for the tag lines has caused me to struggle sometimes.

That's fair enough - - as I said, I've resubbed with a shorter title and hope it'll work.

In this specific case, I would be changing that title. It's way too close to TxTallTales' title, and that story is wildly popular in the category. You're going to have people down-voting you left and right for "stealing" his title, and probably leaving nasty comments.

Title's changed in the resub - - if you're referring to TxTallTales' "Two Moms, Two Laps" stories, I'm not sure I'd say my original title was that similar. In any case, TxTallTales stories are from 2012 / 2013; mine's a sequel to a story posted in 2009 so the same could have been said to TxTallTales!

Thanks for the detailed how-to on editing; glad to see I followed the right procedure by resubbing.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Darkniciad]

Title's changed in the resub - - if you're referring to TxTallTales' "Two Moms, Two Laps" stories, I'm not sure I'd say my original title was that similar. In any case, TxTallTales stories are from 2012 / 2013; mine's a sequel to a story posted in 2009 so the same could have been said to TxTallTales!

Thanks for the detailed how-to on editing; glad to see I followed the right procedure by resubbing.

Thanks everyone!

It was the first thing I thought of when I saw that title, so you can rest assured that I'm not the only one Those inclined to complain aren't going to bother with doing any research, they're just going to snap to a conclusion and jump straight on their soapbox.

No matter how bogus it is, it's highly likely because he's posted several entries in that story recently, and the popularity of them means that large numbers of people who see that title will have his in mind. The title change will serve you well, I think.