Submission rejected because of spelling?

[MrFoxwood]

I'm kind of shocked, I'm aware that a story could be rejected for any reason but spelling seems so... petty. I'll freely admit that my writing style isn't typical of this site and I will occasionally abandon convention with regard to structure, but that didn't cause my first submission to be rejected.

I'm probably coming across as a whining little prick, afterall I'm not entitled to have my work published here, I'm just not sure what I could do to rectify a problem I don't see.

Any ideas?

 

[A_Little_Show]

[deleted]

 

[johneb87]

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=175666

Did I check to make sure everything was spelled correctly?

Yes, Literotica rejects people for spelling errors. Yes, you can click open just about any category and find dozens of stories with spelling errors. How come some people make misspellings and others can't? Are you being singled out?

The answer is that Literotica rejects when the spelling errors are noticable. If the editor notices a pattern of bad spelling or the spelling detracts from the story significantly, the story will berejected. Ifyou've written using chat shorthand, such as "u" for "you", then your story will be rejected. Some bad spelling comes from trouble with homonyms. "Wont" and "won't" are both spelled correctly, but they mean very different things. Your word processor won't pick it up. If you have spelling issues, find someone else to do a quick proofread for you.

Make sure that you don't have any short-hand in your story, make sure you have swapped homonyms, and look for easily confused words such as its and its. A few commonly misspelled words: tongue, ecstasy, hers.

The easiest solution if you've already run your story through a spell checker is the grab an editor to give your story a look over. You can find one here on the forums or through the volunteer editor program. http://literotica.com/faq/06028833.shtml

 

[RejectReality]

Was the rejection for spelling, or perhaps spelling and grammar.

Seems those were lumped together ( at least at one point )

The most common rejection is for punctuation in dialogue. For whatever reason, Laurel is a bloodhound with those.

What you'll probably want to look for are things like this:

"I don't know", she said.

"I don't know.", she said.

"I don't know" she said.

"I don't know," she said.

"What?", she asked.

"What?" she asked.

The punctuation needs to be inside the quotes.

If it was a dual spelling/grammar rejection, that's your most likely culprit.

 

[MrFoxwood]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I was pretty sure it was spellchecked to perfection, I proofread until I'm sick of it.

I guess I need an editor.

 

[TxRad]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I was pretty sure it was spellchecked to perfection, I proofread until I'm sick of it.

I guess I need an editor.

Send me a PM and I'll send you an e-mail. I'll need a copy of the rejection slip and part of the story. I'll see what i can see.

 

[LadyVer]

I'm kind of shocked, I'm aware that a story could be rejected for any reason but spelling seems so... petty. I'll freely admit that my writing style isn't typical of this site and I will occasionally abandon convention with regard to structure, but that didn't cause my first submission to be rejected.

I'm probably coming across as a whining little prick, afterall I'm not entitled to have my work published here, I'm just not sure what I could do to rectify a problem I don't see.

Any ideas?

No, you're not coming across as a whining little prick. Don't know where the "I'm not entitled to have my work published here," comes from. Some authors who have published on Lit are whining little pricks. Your stories may be better than theirs, without the attitude...

 

[LucyH]

You can try to look on the bright side - this is something that should be simple to fix (if not for you, for an editor) without having to change your story substantially.

 

[Acktion]

I've had it happen. I'm pretty sure everyone has had it happen once.

1) You can't really rely on spell check. I do understand that grammar and spell checkers have gotten more advanced, but they still aren't perfect.

2) When you read what you wrote, you know what you said. Even if it isn't the word that was typed. You wrote it. You've read it. You've read it again. Eventually, your eyes do not see the word that is actually there.

Example; In my only anal submission to date, I wrapped it up with a rousing blast of sperm deep in her bowls. Obviously, I meant bowels or it would have been submitted in a completely different category.

This is why it just makes sense to have someone else read it over. A good editor won't try to change the story and you shouldn't ask for suggestions unless you both agree ahead of time that is the relationship you will have. But, fresh eyes that don't know what you meant will most likely see mistakes.

3) Even editors enlisted for just that purpose will occasionally miss. It's been proven (and I hope someone else can cite the research because I can't recall who it was) that so long as the first letter and the last letter are in the correct places, people can still make out what most words are. The faster you can read and the more rushed you are, the more likely this will happen.

4) Regional usage and dialect will cause issues if not watched for. In one submission that was rejected, I had four different editors look at it between submissions. The only thing that each of them tried to knock was "playa lake". My spelling was actually correct and confirmed by three different sources. Eventually, I gave up and changed it to "pond" even though that's actually a different body of water and guess what. It was accepted.

Here's the thing in a nutshell.

a) What you wrote isn't you. Some asshats write a good story and some good people couldn't write paper bagging instructions. Don't take criticism of the work as criticism of you.

b) You've done the hard work. You've written it. Now, just get someone to glance over it to shee what you missed and fix it and resubmit. If it gets kicked back again, get someone else to look over it, fix, and resubmit. If it gets kicked back a third time, then maybe the problem is with the story.

(Did you catch that "shee"? Just checking. )

 

[sr71plt]

Is there a bottom-line explanation for this specific issue yet? It is a concern about what would be the nature and extent of spelling problems that would generate a rejection here.

 

[mikoli5763]

I don't think it was only spelling

that earned the rejection because I see misspelled words on a majority of the stories I read. Newly posted stories too not just older stuff. My own stories have misspelled words and were still approved.
Punctuation, grammar, or structure or a combination of all three are probably the real reasons for the rejection.
If you can't find the problem and fix it yourself, get a volunteer editor to look at it. The down side to that is the delay it brings before it can be resubmitted.

 

[sr71plt]

It's still a question on whether stories with British spellings, used in abundance, make it through the scrutiny here. Of course they should, but is there a problem with that, or isn't there?

 

[lovecraft68]

Just curious, is it a first submission? They tend to look at new authors more closely. Once you have been around a while you get the "skim" treatment.

 

[patientlee]

Example; In my only anal submission to date, I wrapped it up with a rousing blast of sperm deep in her bowls. Obviously, I meant bowels or it would have been submitted in a completely different category.

That one is much worse in reverse. "I ladled the steaming clam chowder into each of their bowels..."

 

[LucyH]

That one is much worse in reverse. "I ladled the steaming clam chowder into each of their bowels..."

Maybe that's why nobody accepted the invitation to my second dinner party.

 

[Acktion]

That one is much worse in reverse. "I ladled the steaming clam chowder into each of their bowels..."

*cringe*

Well, maybe in BDSM...

 

[MrFoxwood]

Just curious, is it a first submission? They tend to look at new authors more closely. Once you have been around a while you get the "skim" treatment.

Second submission, and the first had the same kind of free-form structure that I'm starting to suspect is the problem.

 

[MrFoxwood]

that earned the rejection because I see misspelled words on a majority of the stories I read. Newly posted stories too not just older stuff. My own stories have misspelled words and were still approved.
Punctuation, grammar, or structure or a combination of all three are probably the real reasons for the rejection.

My thoughts exactly, I see appaling writing here that suggests a relaxed attitude to spelling and grammar. Not to sound arrogant but I'm pretty sure my spelling and grammar are fine, however the style of my writing is fairly free-form so perhaps it's the structure that is the reason for rejection.

 

[_Lynn_]

My thoughts exactly, I see appaling writing here that suggests a relaxed attitude to spelling and grammar. Not to sound arrogant but I'm pretty sure my spelling and grammar are fine, however the style of my writing is fairly free-form so perhaps it's the structure that is the reason for rejection.

Tx offered to check it for you. Is he working on that?

 

[MrFoxwood]

Tx offered to check it for you. Is he working on that?

Yikes, missed that. I found an editor already.

 

[TxRad]

Yikes, missed that. I found an editor already.

No problem

 

[sr71plt]

Hope it wasn't rejected for sentence fragments, because people do talk like that and it's also a narrative technique.

 

[RejectReality]

Just looked at the first submission, and I don't think the style has anything to do with it. A lot of paragraphs are too long for reading on a computer screen, in my opinion, but there's a specific rejection for that, so Laurel obviously considers them within bounds.

Hope the editor can track it down.

Also, something that hasn't been brought up. Laurel speed-reads by necessity when approving stories because there are always so many in the queue. She's the only one approving stories at a rate of around 60-70 a day. It's entirely possible that the rejection could have been a tired-eyes mistake.

If the editor doesn't discover anything, you might want to resubmit as-is and add a note to the "notes" section of the submission form that you believe the rejection may have been in error. Note that you had someone else look over it and that they couldn't find anything either.

 

[sr71plt]

True. I've had a couple of rejections that were cleared up simply by refiling them with a note in the Notes box that what she thought was there wasn't there. They then went through without further question.

 

[MrFoxwood]

Just looked at the first submission, and I don't think the style has anything to do with it. A lot of paragraphs are too long for reading on a computer screen, in my opinion, but there's a specific rejection for that, so Laurel obviously considers them within bounds.

Hope the editor can track it down.

Also, something that hasn't been brought up. Laurel speed-reads by necessity when approving stories because there are always so many in the queue. She's the only one approving stories at a rate of around 60-70 a day. It's entirely possible that the rejection could have been a tired-eyes mistake.

If the editor doesn't discover anything, you might want to resubmit as-is and add a note to the "notes" section of the submission form that you believe the rejection may have been in error. Note that you had someone else look over it and that they couldn't find anything either.

Thanks for having a look, I did consider that the rejection could just be a mistake but another look by a second pair of eyes is a good thing anyway. While the editor looks at it my wife said she'd take a look too. My wife speaks English as a second language but is flawless and can act as a sort of idiot filter, it's starting to look like the problem with the submission is I was trying to be too clever as she keeps pointing at things and saying 'what the fuck is that?'