Why are my stories constantly rejected ?

[cuninglinguist61]

Why are my stories being rejected because I have two people speaking in the same paragraph ? Every book I have EVER read has two or more people speaking in a paragraph, yet my stories are rejected for that reason.
I have spell-checked, gone over the grammar and punctuation, etc., and they are fine. I have read stories lately that have blatant mis-spellings, and grammar so bad that they are unreadable, yet MINE are rejected ???

 

[LadyCibelle]

Why are my stories being rejected because I have two people speaking in the same paragraph ? Every book I have EVER read has two or more people speaking in a paragraph, yet my stories are rejected for that reason.
I have spell-checked, gone over the grammar and punctuation, etc., and they are fine. I have read stories lately that have blatant mis-spellings, and grammar so bad that they are unreadable, yet MINE are rejected ???

Hi,

Your answer lies here "I have two people speaking in the same paragraph"...that's as simple as that. Every character speaking is a new paragraph. Might sound stupid to you, you might think that it's stupid when looking at stories that are really poorly written compared to yours but it's how it's supposed to be and no amount of complaining, bitching or crying will change it.

 

[cuninglinguist61]

So you're telling me that the way we were ALL taught to write, and what is normal and accepted in literature throughout the ages, from Beowulf down to the trashy romance novels, is wrong on Lit., but bad spelling and poor grammar is acceptable ? Seems to me that priorities are a bit screwed up !

 

[Weird Harold]

Hi,

Your answer lies here "I have two people speaking in the same paragraph"...that's as simple as that. Every character speaking is a new paragraph.

In fact, that is part of the definiton of what a paragraph IS.

Paragraph breaks in general, not just those containing dialogue, either make a story easy to read, or make it virtully unreadable; not just because of poor writing technique, but literally and physically "hard to read" -- as in "causes eyestrain headaches from trying to maintain your place in the text.

Short paragraphs with white space between them are especially important in a submission intended to be read online, because reading from a computer screen is physically fatiguing when text is formatted for ease of reading.

Might sound stupid to you, you might think that it's stupid when looking at stories that are really poorly written compared to yours but it's how it's supposed to be and no amount of complaining, bitching or crying will change it.

The problem with rejections could be a formatting problem or it could be a grammar and spelling problem -- either can result in rejection, but poor formatting will result in a faster rejection than bad writing.

In either case, it is mostly a matter of how hard it is to read the story -- rules of grammar and definitions of terms, like one speaker per paragraph and seperating dialogue into its own paragraphs, exist to make communication easier and it doesn't matter how good the story is if it's hard work to read it, it wont communicate anything except a desire to back-click.

 

[LadyCibelle]

In fact, that is part of the definiton of what a paragraph IS.

Paragraph breaks in general, not just those containing dialogue, either make a story easy to read, or make it virtully unreadable; not just because of poor writing technique, but literally and physically "hard to read" -- as in "causes eyestrain headaches from trying to maintain your place in the text.

Short paragraphs with white space between them are especially important in a submission intended to be read online, because reading from a computer screen is physically fatiguing when text is formatted for ease of reading.



The problem with rejections could be a formatting problem or it could be a grammar and spelling problem -- either can result in rejection, but poor formatting will result in a faster rejection than bad writing.

In either case, it is mostly a matter of how hard it is to read the story -- rules of grammar and definitions of terms, like one speaker per paragraph and seperating dialogue into its own paragraphs, exist to make communication easier and it doesn't matter how good the story is if it's hard work to read it, it wont communicate anything except a desire to back-click.

Once again WH you've managed to say precisely and very clearly what I wasn't able to convey

 

[Weird Harold]

Once again WH you've managed to say precisely and very clearly what I wasn't able to convey

The particular point about paragraphs and readbility comes easy after repeatedly explaining to new editing clients why I was adding paragraph breaks to their story. It's one of the reasons I burned out on editing.

 

[LadyCibelle]

The particular point about paragraphs and readbility comes easy after repeatedly explaining to new editing clients why I was adding paragraph breaks to their story. It's one of the reasons I burned out on editing.

Oh yeah I know ALL about burning out on editing. What I meant is in a few sentences you managed to say what it would have taken me much more longer to say. It's easy to see that you've done your homework well and know all the intricacies of editing

 

[Weird Harold]

It's easy to see that you've done your homework well and know all the intricacies of editing

If just reading everything I could get my hands on for last fifty years or so counts as homework, then, yeah, I've done my homework. That, and thinking about why I like something or didn't like something and applying some nominally unrelated principles about how people perveive things from various leadership and mangement classes the USAF sent me to.

I don't so much edit as explain what doesn't look right to me as a reader and when possible explain WHY it doesn't look right -- or when and why something works well, which is almost as important as pointing out "errors." As one instructor put it, "You have to hand out a few warm fuzzies to make an ass-chewing stick."

 

[snooper]

So you're telling me that the way we were ALL taught to write, and what is normal and accepted in literature throughout the ages, ...

I was taught at school to format my written work with a new paragraph for each new speaker. Taking a random sample of half a dozen novels from my shelves, none are formatted with more than one speaker per paragraph, not even those published in the USA.

However, may I make one point? This has virtually nothing to do with the author. This is a function of whoever did the typesetting. In your case it seems that you did both; that will be true of most submissions to Literotica. It will virtually never be true of books you buy. I submitted my textbook on computing in camera-ready form, but the printer still had someone re-set it because my kerning was different from theirs.

 

[Weird Harold]

However, may I make one point? This has virtually nothing to do with the author. This is a function of whoever did the typesetting. In your case it seems that you did both; that will be true of most submissions to Literotica.

Typesetters don't change the paragraph breaks, just how the paragraphs breaks esablished by the author are formatted -- i.e. font, indents, initial character size, and how much white space is between paragraphs.

In the specific context of Lit, there are scripts that that do the conversion from plain text to Lit's "style" -- the author's paragraph breaks can be lost if the submission isn't formatted in a way the scripts expect. Specifically, if the author relies on the word processer's paragraph formatting for white space between paragraphs instead of ending each paragraph with two paragraph break charcters (by hitting the enter key twice).

The conversion from a full featured, WYSIWYG word processer like MS Word to HTML necessarily involves a conversion to plain/ASCII text format and a lot of the word processer's formatting is lost or gets mis-interpreted.

 

[Weird Harold]

So you're telling me that the way we were ALL taught to write, and what is normal and accepted in literature throughout the ages, from Beowulf down to the trashy romance novels, is wrong on Lit., but bad spelling and poor grammar is acceptable ? Seems to me that priorities are a bit screwed up !

I don't know what you were taught, but I was taught there is a right way and wrong way to punctuate text and that rules of grammar were not suggestions or optional. That was in the 1950's and although the rules have changed a bit and some are considered "optional" now, the basic definition of a paragraph that includes "...or the words of a single speaker" hasn't changed in the forty plus years since I first learned it.

The formal rules of grammar and punctuation and standardized spellings came into being because Beowulf and Shakespeare didn't have any "rules" and their written words have to be "translated" before they can be understood.

I suspect that you're encountering a formatting problem that is rendering your stories unreadable, but your complaint that others' errors justify your errors make me wonder if you care about whether you are communicating with your readers or not.

Lit doesnt expect perfection in spelling or grammar -- and the standards of proof-reading in the publishing industry in general have seriously declined since the invention of electronic spellcheckers -- but they do expect a certain level of readability.

You have a PM headed your way.

 

[snooper]

Typesetters don't change the paragraph breaks, ...

They did mine, when they reset my textbook!

 

[Weird Harold]

They did mine, when they reset my textbook!

The publisher's editors may have, but not the typesetters.

 

[cloudy]

WH, I haven't been out of school as long as you have, but yeah, grammar and punctuation, including a new paragraph for each speaker, were pretty much expected.

I wonder where he learned english?

 

[silverwhisper]

judging from his profile, i'd say margaritaville. :>

ed

 

[Private_Label]

Why are my stories being rejected because I have two people speaking in the same paragraph ? Every book I have EVER read has two or more people speaking in a paragraph, yet my stories are rejected for that reason.

Really? I could use some examples here. I think you may be mistaking one speaker carrying on after a break in speech ("Blah, blab blah," she said, to her good friend GGG, "and blah blab blahbla" single speaker, continuing to speak). When I was in school, I was always taught you start a new paragraph for a new speaker. You can even have multiple paragraphs for a single speaker, by not closing the quote at the end of one paragraph but using an opening quote on the new paragraph to indicate an continuance of speech.

I have spell-checked, gone over the grammar and punctuation, etc., and they are fine. I have read stories lately that have blatant mis-spellings, and grammar so bad that they are unreadable, yet MINE are rejected ???

If you have more than one speaker in a paragraph you did not go over the necessary grammar. I can't talk about why some stories are accepted while yours are not, as I am not the individual responsible for that. Have you run your 'two speakers in one paragraph' by a volunteer editor? what did they say?

 

[Guest]

 

[Rev_Lovejoy]

Go along to get along

Right, VL, the conventions are arbitrary. You follow them in order to please the decision makers. That doesn't make them "correct" or "how it's supposed to be."

There's no point in attacking C61 personally because he doesn't follow Lit's arbitrary conventions. William Faulkner would never have made the cut at Lit (paragraphs too long), nor Joseph Conrad (multiple speakers in one paragraph), and they did okay. Many of the replies in this thread contain spelling, punctuation, or grammar "errors" and they're still perfectly understandable.

The language in today's magazines and newspapers doesn't follow Strunk and White or even my high school English teacher with regard to punctuation and grammar. Commas are disappearing and homophones are proliferating ("your" for "you're", "their" for "they're", etc.), and Lit perpetuates these "errors" while rigidly denouncing others.

Language evolves by usage regardless of arbitrary rules. Let the readers decide what is, or is not readable.

 

[Weird Harold]

The language in today's magazines and newspapers doesn't follow Strunk and White or even my high school English teacher with regard to punctuation and grammar. Commas are disappearing and homophones are proliferating ("your" for "you're", "their" for "they're", etc.), and Lit perpetuates these "errors" while rigidly denouncing others.

I have accepted the "everyone else is illiterate, why should I make an effort" argument any more than I accepted my daughters' argument that, "all of my friends going to be there" as a reason to let them go on a unsupervised, mixed-company sleep-over.

Strunk and White, The Chicago Manual of Style, every English or Creative Writing texbook, and thousands of Online Writing Labs and Writing Centers (hosted by various publishers and higher eductional institutions) all agree that there are rules for grammar, puntuation and spelling that should only be ignored with malice forethought and with a specific purpose in mind.

The rules of grammar, punctuation and spelling exist to facilitate communications between writers and readers. The fact that celebrated authors broke the rules deliberately and effectively or that Literotica doesn't restrict submissions to English Majors and famous authors doesn't excuse an author from making his best effort to communicate his story effectively to the reader. Abiding by the commonly accepted rules of grmmar, punctuation, and spelling is the best way to communicte via the written word -- because most of the rules are anything but arbitrary.

 

[Nuggy]

Why are my stories being rejected because I have two people speaking in the same paragraph ? Every book I have EVER read has two or more people speaking in a paragraph, yet my stories are rejected for that reason.
I have spell-checked, gone over the grammar and punctuation, etc., and they are fine. I have read stories lately that have blatant mis-spellings, and grammar so bad that they are unreadable, yet MINE are rejected ???

maybe because you don't have the right people around you.
now go fuck yourself.

 

[LadyCibelle]

maybe because you don't have the right people around you.
now go fuck yourself.

Uh excuse me but I DON'T accept that kind of talk here!!! If you can't be polite and civil to people on this forum I'd recommend you go back to the GB were flaming is allowed and asked for.

 

[Guest]

 

[LadyCibelle]

Yeah, we are supposed to be the voice of reason here aren't we?

BTW... therapist is written in your sig line.

 

[Captain Midnight]

People speaking in paragraphs

It looks like the original author of the post has taken to the hills (not surprising).

I've been writing for Literotica for about a year and reading for sometime longer than that. If I see a very long paragraph, I tend to leave the story without going through it. Someone commented on the very real possibility of eyestrain while reading a long, narrow torrent of narrative on a screen.

I can write some pretty long paragraphs, but I will go back and insert paragraph breaks whenever a thought is completed, and sometimes in the middle of a monologue by one character.

I don't remember being taught specifically to insert a paragraph break when changing speakers, but I do it anyway. I can understand the author's intent if s/he has a short question by one character and a short answer by another. It's not good, but I'd let it pass.

I don't know what to tell this author about using spelling and grammar checkers. Grammar checkers aren't very good, IMHO. I may accept the green-text suggestions at times, but not at other times.

I'd suggest that the author make sure that his/her grammar checker is set for United States English, Canadian English, U.K. English, or wherever he/she lives, and tell the editors at Literotica in advance that the story is written in the English of his/her native country.

Above all, don't be discouraged. If the author looks on this board and wants a volunteer editor, I'll step up if asked.

One time, I tried to write to a Venezuelan friend and set my language in Venezuelan Spanish (first writing in English, having the language checker translate, then typing the translated phrases below the English ones) -- and the spelling/grammar checker registered Venezuelan Spanish as my native language! It still does so on occasion, when I'm adding text to a document started during my Spanish-language efforts.

Best wishes,

Captain Midnight

 

[snooper]

... Someone commented on the very real possibility of eyestrain while reading a long, narrow torrent of narrative on a screen. ...

The standard Literotica page, with the story confined to some 45% of the screen width (and the rest taken up by what can only be described as useless filler) does not help. That is why I always take copies of stories on to my own machine and read them in MSWord using the full width of the screen and a pastel coloured background.

Of course, reducing eyestrain like that does not encourage voting, because one is no longer in the story page on-screen.