What the hell does it take to get a story posted?

[AirCop]

I've had a story rejected 3x now. According to the rejection notice it's because of punctuation or formatting the dialogue. Well, I had it reviewed by an editor who caught very few mistakes that I corrected and looking at the dozens of stories I've read here the vast majority of them had far more errors than my first draft did.
There are posts where the characters get mixed up, words are misspelled, or used incorrectly.
Here is a small snippet of how my story is formatted...

She sat down across from him and in a husky Lauren Bacall voice asked "Why is it that you're the only guy in here who isn't trying to put the make on me."
He hesitated for a moment before replying "Maybe because I've never paid for it before and don't plan to start now."
Fire flared in her eyes as she said "Maybe not in cash, but trust me honey, you've paid for 'it' before!"

So tell me, what's wrong with this?

 

[KeithD]

What's wrong is that, if you really did have an "editor" for this, you got scammed. Your example does, indeed, almost totally fail on punctuation. I count six punctuation errors (and only two rendered correctly) in the three sentences.

 

[JJA122]

She sat down across from him and in a husky, Lauren Bacall voice asked, "why is it you're the only guy in here who isn't trying to put the make on me?"

He hesitated for a moment before replying, "maybe because I've never paid for it before and don't plan to start now."

Fire flared in her eyes as she said, "maybe not in cash, but trust me honey, you've paid for 'it' before!"


Try an editor that advertises themselves as an actual writer or editor. Use Grammarly or at least this .


I'll agree I've seen worse on this site, but the missing question mark and commas after the speech tags are fairly in-your-face.

 

[SimonDoom]

She sat down across from him and in a husky, Lauren Bacall voice asked, "why is it you're the only guy in here who isn't trying to put the make on me?"

He hesitated for a moment before replying, "maybe because I've never paid for it before and don't plan to start now."

Fire flared in her eyes as she said, "maybe not in cash, but trust me honey, you've paid for 'it' before!"


.

This isn't quite right, although it dramatically improves the original. The first letter of each quote MUST be a capital letter.

A stylistic point, addressed to the original author/poster: Although not grammatically incorrect, your repetition of the form in which you start each quotation with narrative is less than ideal. Mix it up. This gets so repetitive that it calls attention to itself. It seems like a stylistic tic.

For instance, the last sentence could be changed to read like this:

"Maybe no in cash," she said, fire flaring in her eyes, "but trust me, honey, you've paid for 'it' before!"

 

[KeithD]

The question was on submission rejection based on a specific problem. The problem the justifies rejection on Literotica use pops right out in the examples given--all of them--so there's no real reason to go beyond that. The quotation punctuation isn't correct. Literotica rejects for this. Anyone within ten feet of a real editor can see this, so the "editor" claimed to be used here should be avoided.

 

[AirCop]

Funny thing is I DID have the punctuation "correct" (for the most part) before I changed it on the advice of an editor.
Regardless, for a site that seems to be more about the story, the pickiness over the punctuation is petty considering some of the atrocious pieces of work I've seen posted.
Lit is worried about a comma left out when I can't count the number of times I've seen Lose/Loosing used incorrectly on multiple postings and numerous other words that make me think some 8th grader wrote the piece.

You know, my short story was something I wrote many years ago just as a lark to stir things up with a lady friend. LONG before I even knew of Literotica and had never thought to share it with anyone else. No need to bother publishing it or the sequel(s). Even though they did lead to some fun times

 

[KeithD]

No, the rejection is not petty. The examples you give are simply wrong--basic English publishing standard. This is your mistake, nothing the Web site has done wrong. Own it and submit it correctly or just stop whining and trying to blame someone else. It's your submission.

 

[AirCop]

Then why are you bothering us, if you're not interested in publishing your story?

I guess I was under the impression that an erotic STORY was the main attraction, not that it was a grammar test.

 

[KeithD]

This was the question:

Yes, in terms of the specific rejection (as I posted).

 

[SimonDoom]

Funny thing is I DID have the punctuation "correct" (for the most part) before I changed it on the advice of an editor.
Regardless, for a site that seems to be more about the story, the pickiness over the punctuation is petty considering some of the atrocious pieces of work I've seen posted.
Lit is worried about a comma left out when I can't count the number of times I've seen Lose/Loosing used incorrectly on multiple postings and numerous other words that make me think some 8th grader wrote the piece.

You know, my short story was something I wrote many years ago just as a lark to stir things up with a lady friend. LONG before I even knew of Literotica and had never thought to share it with anyone else. No need to bother publishing it or the sequel(s). Even though they did lead to some fun times

Your quarrel with Literotica's inconsistent standards is not entirely unjustified, and it's a common one, but if you want to publish I recommend just letting it go and instead focusing on improving your form. I think Literotica's standards in both content and format are a bit tighter than they used to be, so you can't seek out the lowest-common-denominator stories that were published in the past and say, "That's my standard." Aim higher than that.

Perfection is not required. Don't get discouraged, work at it a little, and you'll be just fine.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I guess I was under the impression that an erotic STORY was the main attraction, not that it was a grammar test.

If you want your story to be published your punctuation needs to be, as a minimum, competent. You have been advised by several people that it isn't, yet still you protest.

You've been advised by folk who have published, collectively, millions of words on Literotica, so they've all managed to get it right. So can you. Recalibrate your approach, punctuate correctly, and you'll get your story over the line. It's really not that hard.

 

[AirCop]

Your quarrel with Literotica's inconsistent standards is not entirely unjustified, and it's a common one, but if you want to publish I recommend just letting it go and instead focusing on improving your form. I think Literotica's standards in both content and format are a bit tighter than they used to be, so you can't seek out the lowest-common-denominator stories that were published in the past and say, "That's my standard." Aim higher than that.

Perfection is not required. Don't get discouraged, work at it a little, and you'll be just fine.

I have no issue with trying to write well. The funny thing is I have been complimented numerous times on how well I express myself verbally and via the written word. The piece I tried to post was written almost 20 years ago, dashed off, and given to a lady friend to have a chuckle over (and get an idea!), and then forgotten until recently when I stumbled on Literotica.
Had I known that the comma police were on duty I would have availed myself of the various spell/grammar check programs, but that was not why I was here.
Again, the STORIES were what interested me, not the English lesson some are so intent on giving me. And yes, it irks me to read drivel that can't even use the correct word or tense, hell, can't even spell sometimes, and people are upset over a comma.
Regardless, (oh, Webster's now says IRREGARDLESS is now acceptable also) I think I'll just keep the couple of scenarios I wrote years ago to share with a certain person and no one else.

 

[SisterJezabel]

I have no issue with trying to write well. The funny thing is I have been complimented numerous times on how well I express myself verbally and via the written word. The piece I tried to post was written almost 20 years ago, dashed off, and given to a lady friend to have a chuckle over (and get an idea!), and then forgotten until recently when I stumbled on Literotica.
Had I known that the comma police were on duty I would have availed myself of the various spell/grammar check programs, but that was not why I was here.
Again, the STORIES were what interested me, not the English lesson some are so intent on giving me. And yes, it irks me to read drivel that can't even use the correct word or tense, hell, can't even spell sometimes, and people are upset over a comma.
Regardless, (oh, Webster's now says IRREGARDLESS is now acceptable also) I think I'll just keep the couple of scenarios I wrote years ago to share with a certain person and no one else.

Have you at all considered your readers? If I started a story with blatant grammatical errors like you initially posted I would not keep reading, even if the context of the story intrigued me.

 

[NotWise]

This isn't quite right, although it dramatically improves the original. The first letter of each quote MUST be a capital letter.

I don't think this is true.

Grammarly cites several instances in which you would not start quoted text with a capital. The case I use frequently is when I place a dialogue tag or parenthetical statement within a quoted sentence. The quotation following the dialogue tag or parenthetical would not be capitalized. Basically, if the beginning of your quoted text isn't a proper noun or the beginning of a sentence, then you wouldn't capitalize it.

I don't think I can comment on the original problem. The OP offers just a short quotation from a story. The example has some problems that, to me, don't interfere with understanding the text. My early stories on Lit had similar problems, but they were accepted without complaint.

In order to justify a rejection, the punctuation problems might be larger than the problems in the example.

 

[KeithD]

I don't think this is true.

No, it's not true. Depends on whether the quote is just a running part of the sentence, e.g.,

He claimed to "know his way around a martini glass," as he put it.

or set up as a separate sentence, e.g.

He said, "I know my way around a martini glass."

As far as the OP's quote setup examples, this is precisely an incorrect punctuation setup that Literotica has rejected stories for in other examples that have been brought to the board.

 

[JJA122]

Okay then.


She sat down across from him and, in a husky, Lauren Bacall voice asked, "Why is it you're the only guy in here who isn't trying to put the make on me?"

He hesitated for a moment before replying, "Maybe because I've never paid for it before and don't plan to start now."

Fire flared in her eyes as she said, "Maybe not in cash, but trust me honey, you've paid for 'it' before!"


And red commas on preference. I would choose just the second comma as personal taste.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Okay then.


She sat down across from him and, in a husky, Lauren Bacall voice asked, "Why is it you're the only guy in here who isn't trying to put the make on me?"

He hesitated for a moment before replying, "Maybe because I've never paid for it before and don't plan to start now."

Fire flared in her eyes as she said, "Maybe not in cash, but trust me honey, you've paid for 'it' before!"


And red commas on preference. I would choose just the second comma as personal taste.

Nope. The test here is to remove the phrase between your added commas, and your sentence should still make sense.

"She sat down across from him and Lauren Bacall voice asked..." makes no sense.

 

[JJA122]

I was implying it could be one or the other not both.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I was implying it could be one or the other not both.

Ah, okay. I don't think either comma is necessary - but hopefully the OP accepts the point made repeatedly, punctuation matters.

 

[KeithD]

Okay then.

She sat down across from him and,[if you begin the clause with a comma here] in a husky, Lauren Bacall voice[you need to end the clause with a comma here. Setting this clause off with commas is optional, though.] asked, "Why is it you're the only guy in here who isn't trying to put the make on me?"

He hesitated for a moment before replying, "Maybe because I've never paid for it before and don't plan to start now."

Fire flared in her eyes as she said, "Maybe not in cash, but trust me[comma. Direct address] honey, you've paid for 'it' before!"


And red commas on preference. I would choose just the second comma as personal taste.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't think this is true.

Grammarly cites several instances in which you would not start quoted text with a capital. The case I use frequently is when I place a dialogue tag or parenthetical statement within a quoted sentence. The quotation following the dialogue tag or parenthetical would not be capitalized. Basically, if the beginning of your quoted text isn't a proper noun or the beginning of a sentence, then you wouldn't capitalize it.

.

That's what I was addressing. All of the examples in the OP's sample contained an introductory narrative line followed by a quotation. In that situation, the first letter of the quotation must always be capitalized. Where the quotation is interrupted by a dialogue tag, that's a different situation. My revised version of his third sentence is an example of that and in that case the first quoted word following the dialogue tag is not capitalized.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I was implying it could be one or the other not both.

The first of those commas (after "and") doesn't work on its own.

If you're using it, then it needs to be paired with another one after "voice".

The comma after "husky" is independent of that one, and serving a different purpose - it's a list separator.

 

[SimonDoom]

The first sentence reads very odd to me. Possibly, the second part of that sentence needs a subject, indicating who asked the question. '... him, and in a husky Lauren Bacall voice she asked, "...' I'm not completely sure if that's the issue; it may also work to put 'asked' forward; 'She sat down across from him and asked, in a husky Lauren Bacall voice, "Why ...'

.

I agree with you on both counts here.

As written, the sentence has a compound predicate/verb: "sat down" and "asked." But the phrase "in a husky Lauren Bacall voice" upsets the parallel construction of it, so one way of fixing it is to turn the compound verb into a compound sentence by adding the comma before "and" and adding "she" before "asked."

Your second revision is fine, too, because by moving the phrase after the verb you better preserve the parallel construction of the sentence. In this version each verb is followed by a prepositional phrase. Version 2 doesn't require a comma after "him" because you don't need a comma between the verbs in a compound predicate.

I'd probably go with number 2 because it's shorter and preserves the parallelism.

 

[SisterJezabel]

So, no-one else is having issues with the second part of

She sat down across from him and in a husky Lauren Bacall voice asked "...

Then I guess it's me.

See, I would get around it by having...

SHe sat down across from him and asked "..." in a husky Lauren Bacall voice.

 

[KeithD]

I do have issues when a writer asks about punctuation technicals on what they've written in their voice and folks drop in trying to get the writer to write in THEIR voice instead in an irrelevant departure from what the OP was asking about.