Very Anoyed

[SisterJezabel]

I have two stories where teen pregnancies are part of the plot and required and both have been approved. In both, I made sure there was no talk of sex happening between the characters and included a note to Laurel to let her know that I knew I was sailing close to the wind.

Glancing through a couple of stories yesterday that mentioned actual schools and schoolgirls engaging in almost non-con deflowering and sex scenes was very, very, close to the line imo, but they both got through.

Of course, on the other hand, I have received messages from people when I make it explicit that nothing happened between a teen couple until both were 18, telling me it was unbelievable and reminding me that the age of consent is 16 in Australia. Like, I know that, but this is not Australia, it's Lit!

 

[SamScribble]

Am I the only person who finds it a bit difficult to whip up too much sympathy for a grumbling author who is even careless in their spelling of Annoyed?

 

[KeithD]

Am I the only person who finds it a bit difficult to whip up too much sympathy for a grumbling author who is even careless in their spelling of Annoyed?

That's sort of irrelevant to what they are complaining about, so, no, I don't make the connection.

 

[PennameWombat]

What's a rejection
<snip>
So tomorrow night, there will be a story published that includes a baby. Babies in stories are a problem that anyone who has ever tried to create a baby tag has or will discover. I told her there was absolutely no juxtaposition between any sex and the baby. Passed for publishing in 24 hours.
<snip>

My Winter Holidays entry had as major set pieces at the beginning, middle and end Christmas Singalongs for the children. Now, my characters were merpeople but it was made very clear late that they were genetically-modified humans from a lost interstellar expedition who’d (crash)landed about 500 years prior to the story’s events on a planet that was 90% ocean. The merpeople’s Christmas tradition was to sing festive songs with all of the settlement’s children as the chorus.

I didn’t include a note or disclaimer. There simply was no sex during the Christmas concerts. Since the children were mentioned in the first paragraph Laurel would immediately know to assign as much attention as she chose to the story and I felt under that situation a disclaimer unnecessary and my feeling agrees with KeithD’s below (I’ve also published around thirty stories so it’s not like I shouldn’t know the rules). It was published within 36 hours of submission (it was the rush at the beginning of posting the contest time frame so lots of stories.)

I think I've had three cases of stories initially being rejected for underage. When I've returned them as written denying they have underage in them and asking for it to be pointed out, they've all just been posted as originally written. I don't see what saying underage isn't there in a proslug or a note to Laurel does anything but raise the question of whether it might be there. Anyone trying to include it can just simply misunderstand what constitutes underage (like here, assuming it's enough to say they've graduated high school) or they can purposely lie in a proslug or note to try to get an underage story through.

OTOH, my Summer Lovin entry had a short (two paragraphs) passage where my male MC who worked at a swimming pool complex had a mother at the kiddy pool flirt with him. Flirt. The female MC was a younger female acquaintance of hers who liked the guy and she wanted to tease him.

It was kicked back. I sent the mother’s children off with their grandmother that day and moved her to the adult’s pool for the flirting. Done. It was my male MC’s summer after high school graduation, the female MC was a year older. All that stayed.

I’ve no plans to set a story at high school. Too restrictive and I’m too lazy to put that much attention into walking the line instead of putting my limited brain power on the story. (And, I was 18 when I graduated high school, but my two best friends were both still 17 so I’m sensitive to that.)

But I have had two characters appear in various stories. They’re an ex-teacher at a high school and one of her ex-students, a male. They encountered each other a few years after his graduation and discovered while talking that indeed, they’d both HAD mutual crushes ‘back then’ but neither had acted on it. Although she noted if she had acted she’d have broken too many laws to count Passed without any issues.

And they DID act on it this time

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Am I the only person who finds it a bit difficult to whip up too much sympathy for a grumbling author who is even careless in their spelling of Annoyed?

You are not.

Especially when one of the complaints mentioned by the author is about technique, rather than content.

 

[gordo12]

a disclaimer unnecessary and my feeling agrees with KeithD’s below (I’ve also published around thirty stories so it’s not like I shouldn’t know the rules). It was published within 36 hours of submission (it was the rush at the beginning of posting the contest time frame so lots of stories.)

To me, it's not about the disclaimer so much. I believe that one person can't possibly read all the stories posted here every day. I suspect they use key software to look for troubling terms and then inspect the story. If there's a trusted author list here, I want to do everything I can to get on it. If a keyword shows up in my story, and it has because SHE made changes, I want to help as much as I can. Upfront! The changes that were made were obviously a global replacement and produced some nonsense sentences that made ME look like an idiot.

Am I the only person who finds it a bit difficult to whip up too much sympathy for a grumbling author who is even careless in their spelling of Annoyed?

I've made too many mistakes myself to wave that flag!