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Unhappy with Story Edits

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Is anyone else unhappy with how their stories are edited?

If a mistake is spotted then fair enough but I find they take stylistic decisions.

They chuck in commas willy-nilly, sometimes changing the meaning of a phrase completely.

Worst of all is that they replace my interesting words with bland clichéd ones.

Are the editors American? Maybe they are taught different punctuation rules in school?

That may also explain why they are unfamiliar with good old British words like 'Thwap!'

If a cock hits you in the face, it doesn't go 'TWANG' unless the character has had some kind of metallic implant.
I'm no mod, but I have disagreed with edits they've made from time to time, and they've been very good at listening to my arguments.

So, maybe try politely writing to the mod who edited it and begging your case. It's worked for me.

Remember, they work hard, and for free. And they are good at what they do.

Dig the nylons.
The verifiers are a variety of nationalities. There was even a Canadian on there at one time (might still be some but not that one). So, yeah, you might get someone who writes different from you making some changes. As Verbs says, drop them a note (the acceptance message comes from their address so you can just reply) and explain why you wrote it as you did and why you think it is write. Frankly, I've never had a problem with someone's editing of my stories. It's mostly just nitpicky things like missed Oxford commas, nothing major.
Quote by nylon_punkie
They chuck in commas willy-nilly, sometimes changing the meaning of a phrase completely.


Most moderators try to uphold English standards that include the Oxford comma, or using them for clarity as in this example from your first story:

By the time I'd caught up with her she was standing in the dark lounge.

By the time I'd caught up with her, she was standing in the dark lounge.

That comma isn't added willy-nilly, it's essential for grammatical correctness and to aid the reader. The same applies to run-on sentences, subjectless sentences, or shifting verb tense mid-story, or even mid-sentence. All rules can be bent of course (e.g. changing tense for flashbacks or for stylistic purposes) but usually we correct them or - if it happens a lot - will send a story back for the author to fix.

As for other things, yes it may depend on the nationality of the moderator. We do try and take the stylistic intentions of authors into account and apply a light editorial touch for clarity only where necessary. And I try to leave dialogue alone unless it's a typo or badly punctuated. A random example:

"Fuck you want?"

vs

"What the fuck do you want?"

The former conveys something about the character, and their use of colloquialisms or incorrect spoken grammar adds texture.

As seeker4 and Verbal say, if you disagree with a particular change or two, either politely take it up directly with the moderator and state your case, or go into the story in the Lush editor and alter those parts you want reverted. Then when you resubmit, please put a polite explanation in the Moderator Notes box and the next mod that reverifies your story will take them into consideration.

The key to it is to be nice. We're trying to be consistent and maintain a high standard, but we're human, volunteers, and make mistakes. Hope that helps.

Please browse my digital bookshelf. In this collection, you can find 112 full stories, 10 micro-stories, and 2 poems with the following features:


* 29 Editor's Picks, 74 Recommended Reads.
* 15 competition podium places, 10 other times in the top ten.
* 21 collaborations.
* A whole heap of often filthy, tense, hot sex.

Well, I haven't ran into this issue lately, but it can depend on what mod you get. Some live in the US, but some in other continents too. Some don't like certain things, like odd words, or ways of saying things. I can tell you for the most part, the mods edit them the way they think the story will flow the best. I've even had a mods PM me as they had my submitted stories asking about things and if I'd like to change something before it gets on the front page. I haven't had any really change much, other than words some sentences to better illustrate the story. Make sure you thank your mod afterward, they don't get paid.
as a rule, if you contact the mod about it, they're always happy to have a conversation with you. if that leaves you dissatisfied, contacting a senior mod is the way to go - and please, always be nice about it - coming at people angrily in any situation never goes well and, frankly, not saying anything to anyone and just posting about it in the forum is usually considered a bit rude. smile

You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.

Hey there,

I'm the Mod who verified your first story. I took a good look at the edits I placed. I added some commas after introductory phrases, edited some dialogue punctuation to be consistent with our standards and corrected the odd verb that was in the wrong tense. In my opinion, these were necessary edits for the sake of grammatical correctness.

If you feel I've altered your story too much, I'll gladly go through my edits with you. Just let me know.

Cheers,
Henke
Quote by nylon_punkie

That may also explain why they are unfamiliar with good old British words like 'Thwap!'


Hi there, I'm the mod who changed that word.

As you say, there is nothing wrong with a good old fashioned British word like 'thwap!" But as you actually wrote 'twapped', I wasn't sure what you meant and guessed to the nearest proper word I could think of.

If you had PM'd me, explaining that your typo was meant to be 'thwap!' Then, of course, I would have changed it straight away. And I'm more than happy to do so now on your say so. smile
Quote by nylon_punkie

That may also explain why they are unfamiliar with good old British words like 'Thwap!'


*opens door*

I hate to be all anal (especially on this site), but 'thwap' is neither old, nor British. It was first used in the United States in the 1960s.

The old English word you might be thinking of is 'thwack', first used in 1533.

*closes door*


I'm sure I've had countless edits on my stories, with good reason. I'm always happy to be edited; I mean, they're trying to improve my story.
Thank you for all your replies, I wasn't trying to be rude... I had no idea the moderating editors were approachable.

I wouldn't like any volunteers to think I didn't appreciate their efforts.

Apologies if I came over as ungrateful.
As for other things, yes it may depend on the nationality of the moderator. We do try and take the stylistic intentions of authors into account and apply a light editorial touch for clarity only where necessary. And I try to leave dialogue alone unless it's a typo or badly punctuated. A random example:

"Fuck you want?"

vs

"What the fuck do you want?"


Thanks for your reply, most helpful.
Your example made me remember an Elmore Leonard book, a Mexican badass says "The fuck you lookin' at?" and it captured with one line the guy's personality.
Quote by nylon_punkie
Thank you for all your replies, I wasn't trying to be rude... I had no idea the moderating editors were approachable.

I wouldn't like any volunteers to think I didn't appreciate their efforts.

Apologies if I came over as ungrateful.



No biggie. No harm done =)

As said above, just PM us if you feel we have done too much.
Quote by nylon_punkie
As for other things, yes it may depend on the nationality of the moderator. We do try and take the stylistic intentions of authors into account and apply a light editorial touch for clarity only where necessary. And I try to leave dialogue alone unless it's a typo or badly punctuated. A random example:

"Fuck you want?"

vs

"What the fuck do you want?"


Thanks for your reply, most helpful.
Your example made me remember an Elmore Leonard book, a Mexican badass says "The fuck you lookin' at?" and it captured with one line the guy's personality.


Elmore Leonard was one of the best at that! Love his writing; he could tell you whether the guy was a Mafia-type hood, a gang banger, a country bumpkin or a prim and proper lady (he didn't write many of those!) in just the first few words they spoke. He raised it to an art form, and made it damn funny sometimes too. He didn't need laundry list-type descriptions of the characters; he let them describe themselves.

And yes, we're all very approachable - we're all writers too, and virtually all of us learned a lot from prior mods before we got decent enough at writing (thanks to their generous efforts) to be approached about pitching in and helping new authors. You'll find it's a pretty friendly writing (and reading, and all the other good stuff) community here, unlike some other sites.
Quote by fuzzyblue


*opens door*

I hate to be all anal (especially on this site), but 'thwap' is neither old, nor British. It was first used in the United States in the 1960s.

The old English word you might be thinking of is 'thwack', first used in 1533.

*closes door*


I'm sure I've had countless edits on my stories, with good reason. I'm always happy to be edited; I mean, they're trying to improve my story.


Hello, Ms. Blue! Long time no see!

In addition to the etymology of thwap and thwack, you throw out a killer use of the semi-colon, my favorite punctuation mark.
Thank you for all your responses. You were all very helpful. It was never my intention to be rude to anyone by starting this thread.

Sadly, I have hit a brick wall at Lush, I shall have to remain only a reader here.
Quote by fuzzyblue


*opens door*

I hate to be all anal (especially on this site), but 'thwap' is neither old, nor British. It was first used in the United States in the 1960s.

The old English word you might be thinking of is 'thwack', first used in 1533.

*closes door*

I'm sure I've had countless edits on my stories, with good reason. I'm always happy to be edited; I mean, they're trying to improve my story.


I'm getting tingles.

Hi Fuzzy!
Quote by WannabeWordsmith


Most moderators try to uphold English standards that include the Oxford comma, or using them for clarity as in this example from your first story:

By the time I'd caught up with her she was standing in the dark lounge.

By the time I'd caught up with her, she was standing in the dark lounge.

That comma isn't added willy-nilly, it's essential for grammatical correctness and to aid the reader. The same applies to run-on sentences, subjectless sentences, or shifting verb tense mid-story, or even mid-sentence. All rules can be bent of course (e.g. changing tense for flashbacks or for stylistic purposes) but usually we correct them or - if it happens a lot - will send a story back for the author to fix.

As for other things, yes it may depend on the nationality of the moderator. We do try and take the stylistic intentions of authors into account and apply a light editorial touch for clarity only where necessary. And I try to leave dialogue alone unless it's a typo or badly punctuated. A random example:

"Fuck you want?"

vs

"What the fuck do you want?"

The former conveys something about the character, and their use of colloquialisms or incorrect spoken grammar adds texture.

As seeker4 and Verbal say, if you disagree with a particular change or two, either politely take it up directly with the moderator and state your case, or go into the story in the Lush editor and alter those parts you want reverted. Then when you resubmit, please put a polite explanation in the Moderator Notes box and the next mod that reverifies your story will take them into consideration.

The key to it is to be nice. We're trying to be consistent and maintain a high standard, but we're human, volunteers, and make mistakes. Hope that helps.


Ah.. the Oxford Comma, the only grammatical rule known to man that has the potential to cause a punch-up. I am a personal fan of it, and many other nuances of our fine language.
Quote by nylon_punkie
Sadly, I have hit a brick wall at Lush, I shall have to remain only a reader here.


That's a shame. Your story was very good.

Moderators are here to try and help authors apply consistency to their writing by following regular English writing conventions, for example "when writing dialogue". Although designed for editors of books (it talks about indenting, which isn't usually applied in online text here at Lush over considerations for small screen devices) the sentiments in that article are sound. The section on 'Writing Dialogue Examples' outline the standards we try to uphold here, to apply conventions adopted in just about every published work in the world so that readers know who is speaking and how to interpret the text fluidly.

Should you decide to publish here - and I hope you do - we're here to help get stories pushed through our busy moderation queue as quickly as possible to give everyone their time in the spotlight. We want as many stories published here that maintain our quality standards. To that end, our default stance is to permit as much as we can within the bounds of English writing convention, to deliver a seamless reading experience for the millions of site visitors.

Quote by TheTravellingMan
Ah.. the Oxford Comma, the only grammatical rule known to man that has the potential to cause a punch-up.


Ain't that the truth!

Please browse my digital bookshelf. In this collection, you can find 112 full stories, 10 micro-stories, and 2 poems with the following features:


* 29 Editor's Picks, 74 Recommended Reads.
* 15 competition podium places, 10 other times in the top ten.
* 21 collaborations.
* A whole heap of often filthy, tense, hot sex.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

We want as many stories published here that maintain our quality standards.


Explains why you rejected my first story.

Quote by fuzzyblue
Explains why you rejected my first story.


Eek, I must have had an off-day!

Please browse my digital bookshelf. In this collection, you can find 112 full stories, 10 micro-stories, and 2 poems with the following features:


* 29 Editor's Picks, 74 Recommended Reads.
* 15 competition podium places, 10 other times in the top ten.
* 21 collaborations.
* A whole heap of often filthy, tense, hot sex.

On the whole I find the system works well, however they can be a little frustrating at times.
Curious that this topic should appear. Usually an indication of a systemic problem. Several years ago I submitted a few stories here. They were under my copyright, of course. They had been published in other forums with outstanding reviews. All had gone through a vetting process. I still get emails from fans to this day which surprises me. The stories I wrote are not stories per se, but experiences from real life, just the way they happened and from my extremely good memory, lol. One, then a second, of these stories was submitted. I immediately ran into an "editor". I did not mind, not at all. Different publishers have different standards, not always consistent, even from one editor to another in the same forum. I worked with the Lush editor exchanging messages and making changes. One of the stories was published although I felt uneasy with the end result. With the second, as the editor made more changes, I realized that she was changing the substance of the story and it was not the same story that embodied my own style and what had made all my stories so popular. In addressing this to the most senior person I found my reasoning falling on deaf ears. At that point I realized, to put it frankly, Lush needed me much more than I needed them. I pulled my story from lush and went my own way. No yelling or screaming, lol. I look at an editor as someone who can help me make my experience/story better. Not change it into something that changes the original intent. I haven't been interested in publishing anything here since then. I see that nothing has really changed.
Every so often I go to the story sections and read one or two. Sorry to say this but the stories seem to have been written by the same person. A result in the editing process? To the aspiring authors out there, if you really want to write something that is "you", I can only advise you to be true to yourself, do not let someone change who you are. Find an editor that will make your own self "better". Not change you into someone your not.
Good luck.
Quote by annamarie234
Curious that this topic should appear. Usually an indication of a systemic problem. Several years ago I submitted a few stories here. They were under my copyright, of course. They had been published in other forums with outstanding reviews. All had gone through a vetting process. I still get emails from fans to this day which surprises me. The stories I wrote are not stories per se, but experiences from real life, just the way they happened and from my extremely good memory, lol. One, then a second, of these stories was submitted. I immediately ran into an "editor". I did not mind, not at all. Different publishers have different standards, not always consistent, even from one editor to another in the same forum. I worked with the Lush editor exchanging messages and making changes. One of the stories was published although I felt uneasy with the end result. With the second, as the editor made more changes, I realized that she was changing the substance of the story and it was not the same story that embodied my own style and what had made all my stories so popular. In addressing this to the most senior person I found my reasoning falling on deaf ears. At that point I realized, to put it frankly, Lush needed me much more than I needed them. I pulled my story from lush and went my own way. No yelling or screaming, lol. I look at an editor as someone who can help me make my experience/story better. Not change it into something that changes the original intent. I haven't been interested in publishing anything here since then. I see that nothing has really changed.
Every so often I go to the story sections and read one or two. Sorry to say this but the stories seem to have been written by the same person. A result in the editing process? To the aspiring authors out there, if you really want to write something that is "you", I can only advise you to be true to yourself, do not let someone change who you are. Find an editor that will make your own self "better". Not change you into someone your not.
Good luck.


Unfortunately, you’re not the only person who has this misapprehension. The moderators on Lush are not ‘editors’. They simply ensure that the stories being published do not contain any unacceptable content like underage characters, meet a certain quality standard with regards to grammar and punctuation, and are formatted correctly i.e. paragraphed and use correct dialogue formatting. That’s about it. And the reason is simply to ensure an enjoyable reading experience for the visitors to the site.

Some other websites will let people publish anything without any interest in making sure the stories are even readable. Ploughing through one of those where character names change halfway through and every other sentence has a typo is like pulling teeth.

Sorry to hear you didn’t find the Lush moderation process workable for you.
Quote by annamarie234
Curious that this topic should appear. Usually an indication of a systemic problem. Several years ago I submitted a few stories here. They were under my copyright, of course. They had been published in other forums with outstanding reviews. All had gone through a vetting process. I still get emails from fans to this day which surprises me. The stories I wrote are not stories per se, but experiences from real life, just the way they happened and from my extremely good memory, lol. One, then a second, of these stories was submitted. I immediately ran into an "editor". I did not mind, not at all. Different publishers have different standards, not always consistent, even from one editor to another in the same forum. I worked with the Lush editor exchanging messages and making changes. One of the stories was published although I felt uneasy with the end result. With the second, as the editor made more changes, I realized that she was changing the substance of the story and it was not the same story that embodied my own style and what had made all my stories so popular. In addressing this to the most senior person I found my reasoning falling on deaf ears. At that point I realized, to put it frankly, Lush needed me much more than I needed them. I pulled my story from lush and went my own way. No yelling or screaming, lol. I look at an editor as someone who can help me make my experience/story better. Not change it into something that changes the original intent. I haven't been interested in publishing anything here since then. I see that nothing has really changed.
Every so often I go to the story sections and read one or two. Sorry to say this but the stories seem to have been written by the same person. A result in the editing process? To the aspiring authors out there, if you really want to write something that is "you", I can only advise you to be true to yourself, do not let someone change who you are. Find an editor that will make your own self "better". Not change you into someone your not.
Good luck.


I must say that I find you are perhaps jaundiced in your view. I for one have never had a story changed, by an editor as you call them, where either for the style, the content, or the flavor of my offering where the result was different than the one I intended. In addition as probably one of those who reads the most stories on this site, the stories vary in quality from ho hum to mini masterpieces. You might try reading some of the authors who are awarded recommended reads or editor picks. They are easy enough to find.
Lastly as one of those so called editors I never try to alter the persons meaning intent or his personal flavor unless that person is outside of the rules of grammatical usage or is violating one of our published content rules.

My bookshelf includes 227 stories, which include 76 collaborations;

One Editor's Pick, Three Series Awards, Fifty-three Recommended Reads, and Eight Famous Stories are included. Go to https://www.lushstories.com/profiles/view/ChrisM/stories

Enjoy

Well, it's just my opinion, but the fact is: everyone's got an opinion, so no matter if the mods changed something or not, someone is not gonna like it. People can always find something to be unhappy with, whether it's a story here, food, some other content or whatever.

Like this person's opinion: 'I think although may not mean what you think it does. It's used many times, and never correctly. That one word totally ruined the story for me.' Well, their entitled to their opinion, but if they disagree with the meaning of that word and it ruins the story when it's used 7 times and it has 7,000+ words, then WTFE. Should the mod have taken some of those out, or all of them? It was her opinion, no.

Maybe, maybe not. As Liz said, they aren't editors and even I use one. Editors aren't perfect and neither are the mods. So, I admit the premise of having a mod look over the story before it makes it on the site does have a flaw when it comes to changing some stuff. So, I guess this is me kissing some ass, but maybe tell the mods your feelings and changed the story if you really need to that is.

Remember to be polite and respectful though, trust me I've learned that the hard way. Kee and DanielleX can tell you that. So, state your opinion and maybe at least if they look over another story in the future, they can be in your mind a little bit better. Remember: they change things how they think it will be better, and to thank them after they verify your work, they aren't getting paid to look over our stuff.
Quote by annamarie234
To the aspiring authors out there, if you really want to write something that is "you", I can only advise you to be true to yourself, do not let someone change who you are.


Thank you Anna Marie for your thoughts, they were very reassuring. I'm grateful you took the time to share them.
Thank you Kornslayer (two of my favourite bands) and Liz for sharing your thoughts, experience and knowledge.
When modding, I'll only correct any incorrect punctuation, correct an obviously misspelled word, or edit out something that breaks our rules. And never change anything that is dialogue. The writer may purposely be speaking in dialect or colloquialism or slang. If there are over a handful of small edits, I'll send it back to the author to correct or get rid of any rules violations.
I've never had any issue with my voice being diluted, or my odd turns of phrase being "corrected" — and I use a lot of them. I've had plenty of good communication with story mods when they felt something was unclear or caused a speed bump in the flow, though. I've had mods willing to pre-vet pieces that I was concerned might be dancing too close to content lines, and suggest tweaks to get them through the queue when they did stick a toe over the border with minimal impact to the overall story. Nothing but positive experiences with the verification process here.