Joy's negativity and venting about writing thread

[Bamagan]

Since this thread is for venting: I got a couple of chapters sent back the other day. In brief, they involve a character with an ABDL fetish (adult baby/diaper lover, or sometimes adult baby, diapers, and lactation), and the rejection mentioned ageplay not being allowed. I don't personally think that the character as written is really doing that, but I concede it's not an invalid criticism. I submitted several additional chapters that include a broader context of the behavior engaged in, which is principally crawling around in a diaper, adult nursing, and calling two other characters variations on 'mommy.'

I kind of doubt it's going to fly, which is disappointing, because I thought I was adhering to the content guidelines, since the extent of her 'baby-like' behavior is what I mentioned above. Perhaps ironically, some of the other characters have a petplay fetish and crawl around wearing nothing aside from buttplugs and collars and making animal noises, so it will be a little irksome if crawling around in a diaper and using short sentences (not even any so-called baby babble) is a bridge too far. And there is other ABDL content on the site, although admittedly most of that seems to be using it to punish or humiliate the 'infantilized' party, whereas the scenes I wrote didn't really go that route.

Again, I can respect the (probable) judgement that it veers unacceptably close to the boundary, although I disagree with that interpretation (assuming it happens). Just expressing a little frustration and disappointment that I specifically checked the content guidelines and story tags for ABDL content and assumed (perhaps erroneously) that my use was milder than a lot of what was already here. But I guess that's a blind spot a lot of authors here probably have: assuming that their content is less extreme than someone else's, because we all have different ideas about what extreme means.

So I guess now I'll just wait to see if it gets sent back, and if it means that the rest of the story will have to be taken down as a partial work or teaser. I'm not interested in re-writing the last 30k words to make an alternate ending, anyway.

Thanks for reading my venting, if you actually did. Not really looking for validation or commiseration or anything. I suspect many of you know that writing things out can sometimes be the best therapy available.
Cheers!

 

[joy_of_cooking]

This forum really needs a hugs emoji reaction. Sorry if you end up having to abandon that series after writing tens of thousands of words.

 

[onehitwanda]

This forum really needs a hugs emoji reaction. Sorry if you end up having to abandon that series after writing tens of thousands of words.

What it needs is a customizable list. :/

 

[Bamagan]

This forum really needs a hugs emoji reaction. Sorry if you end up having to abandon that series after writing tens of thousands of words.

Thanks joy. It won't be abandoned, it's available on a couple of other free sites, so if it vanishes from here I guess I'll just update my profile with an explanation.

 

[djrip]

Since this thread is for venting: I got a couple of chapters sent back the other day. In brief, they involve a character with an ABDL fetish (adult baby/diaper lover, or sometimes adult baby, diapers, and lactation), and the rejection mentioned ageplay not being allowed. I don't personally think that the character as written is really doing that, but I concede it's not an invalid criticism. I submitted several additional chapters that include a broader context of the behavior engaged in, which is principally crawling around in a diaper, adult nursing, and calling two other characters variations on 'mommy.'

I kind of doubt it's going to fly, which is disappointing, because I thought I was adhering to the content guidelines, since the extent of her 'baby-like' behavior is what I mentioned above. Perhaps ironically, some of the other characters have a petplay fetish and crawl around wearing nothing aside from buttplugs and collars and making animal noises, so it will be a little irksome if crawling around in a diaper and using short sentences (not even any so-called baby babble) is a bridge too far. And there is other ABDL content on the site, although admittedly most of that seems to be using it to punish or humiliate the 'infantilized' party, whereas the scenes I wrote didn't really go that route.

Again, I can respect the (probable) judgement that it veers unacceptably close to the boundary, although I disagree with that interpretation (assuming it happens). Just expressing a little frustration and disappointment that I specifically checked the content guidelines and story tags for ABDL content and assumed (perhaps erroneously) that my use was milder than a lot of what was already here. But I guess that's a blind spot a lot of authors here probably have: assuming that their content is less extreme than someone else's, because we all have different ideas about what extreme means.

So I guess now I'll just wait to see if it gets sent back, and if it means that the rest of the story will have to be taken down as a partial work or teaser. I'm not interested in re-writing the last 30k words to make an alternate ending, anyway.

Thanks for reading my venting, if you actually did. Not really looking for validation or commiseration or anything. I suspect many of you know that writing things out can sometimes be the best therapy available.
Cheers!

Maybe you can appeal in a note to Laurel. As you say, there's plenty of other age play on site. This is the policy in the content guidelines, it says nothing about age role-playing: "Sexual activity involving characters under the age of 18 (including but not limited to explicit sexual discussion, voyeurism, exhibitionism, fantasizing, masturbation, and graphic sexualized descriptions, in addition to actual sexual intercourse)."

 

[Bamagan]

Maybe you can appeal in a note to Laurel. As you say, there's plenty of other age play on site. This is the policy in the content guidelines, it says nothing about age role-playing: "Sexual activity involving characters under the age of 18 (including but not limited to explicit sexual discussion, voyeurism, exhibitionism, fantasizing, masturbation, and graphic sexualized descriptions, in addition to actual sexual intercourse)."

I did appeal, as I don't think most of the specific examples of disallowed ageplay cited in the rejection were applicable to my story, but one of them was so generic as to be almost useless as a guideline for doing edits, if one were so inclined. I forget the exact wording, but it prohibits characters from acting or behaving as if they were under 18, which covers a lot of territory. Babies crawl, so if she's crawling... I guess I'll see how broadly it will be applied soon enough.
She might read it and see that it's not pedophilic, but I can also easily see her saying, well, it's not pedophilic, but pedophiles won't have to work very hard to pretend it is. I'm not going to fight back against a claim like that, although I wouldn't be very impressed by it.

 

[Bamagan]

Maybe you can appeal in a note to Laurel. As you say, there's plenty of other age play on site. This is the policy in the content guidelines, it says nothing about age role-playing: "Sexual activity involving characters under the age of 18 (including but not limited to explicit sexual discussion, voyeurism, exhibitionism, fantasizing, masturbation, and graphic sexualized descriptions, in addition to actual sexual intercourse)."

I went and copied an excerpt of the rejection notice.

• We do not allow underage sexual roleplay submissions just as we don't allow underage sexual fiction. In other words, we do not post stories in which a character speaks, acts, or claims to be under the age of 18 (aka "ageplay") - even with a "All characters are over 18" disclaimer. Please see this FAQ for more information: https://literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-guidelines

So, yeah, that information was not in the publishing or content guidelines, although like I said, it's not an illogical extension of the ban on underage content. It would have saved me some grief if it was explicitly stated, since I did specifically look for it, but oh well. In my case there is no speaking or claiming to be underage, but there's plenty of stuff under the heading of ABDL that will probably fall under the 'acts' heading, which is why I'm not especially hopeful.

 

[djrip]

I did appeal, as I don't think most of the specific examples of disallowed ageplay cited in the rejection were applicable to my story, but one of them was so generic as to be almost useless as a guideline for doing edits, if one were so inclined. I forget the exact wording, but it prohibits characters from acting or behaving as if they were under 18, which covers a lot of territory. Babies crawl, so if she's crawling... I guess I'll see how broadly it will be applied soon enough.
She might read it and see that it's not pedophilic, but I can also easily see her saying, well, it's not pedophilic, but pedophiles won't have to work very hard to pretend it is. I'm not going to fight back against a claim like that, although I wouldn't be very impressed by it.

I went and copied an excerpt of the rejection notice.

So, yeah, that information was not in the publishing or content guidelines, although like I said, it's not an illogical extension of the ban on underage content. It would have saved me some grief if it was explicitly stated, since I did specifically look for it, but oh well. In my case there is no speaking or claiming to be underage, but there's plenty of stuff under the heading of ABDL that will probably fall under the 'acts' heading, which is why I'm not especially hopeful.

It's just weird. Age play is an established adult kink that has nothing to do with actual underage people. I can see not wanting a story that's basically *about* underage people, in every way, with nothing but a disclaimer to indicate they are over 18. But your story if I understand correctly is about people who are clearly adults, perhaps middle aged adults, wearing diapers and crawling. It's not a wink wink yeah they're 18 wink wink situation at all.

 

[Bamagan]

It's just weird. Age play is an established adult kink that has nothing to do with actual underage people. I can see not wanting a story that's basically *about* underage people, in every way, with nothing but a disclaimer to indicate they are over 18. But your story if I understand correctly is about people who are clearly adults, perhaps middle aged adults, wearing diapers and crawling. It's not a wink wink yeah they're 18 wink wink situation at all.

The three characters in question are all 21-22, so not middle aged, but not particularly close to the border.

 

[oneagainst]

Yeah, I got a knock back for age play just recently on Vacbed Delivery, which had no age play in it. There was the single line describing an FMC, that her body shape was "waifish, almost childlike" - directly after discussing her husband coming home soon and her kids are at her parents.

Now, High Life ch 6 has the words "schoolgirl fantasy" in the title text and it went straight through, published just a few months before. Feels like something is going on behind the scenes - goalposts shifting.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

This forum really needs a hugs emoji reaction. Sorry if you end up having to abandon that series after writing tens of thousands of words.

← like that?

 

[joy_of_cooking]

← like that?

Yeah but I want it in the menu that pops up from the "like" button so it's less obtrusive for a bunch of people to react that way.

 

[Bamagan]

Yeah, I got a knock back for age play just recently on Vacbed Delivery, which had no age play in it. There was the single line describing an FMC, that her body shape was "waifish, almost childlike" - directly after discussing her husband coming home soon and her kids are at her parents.

Now, High Life ch 6 has the words "schoolgirl fantasy" in the title text and it went straight through, published just a few months before. Feels like something is going on behind the scenes - goalposts shifting.

I suppose the goalposts always move a little bit, since a lot of people seem to enjoy crowding around them and jostling them, haha. Plus there are always 'moralists' out there opposed to depictions of human sexuality and trying to chip away at the edges of erotica in order to 'protect the children,' who might be creating legal issues for the site in some jurisdictions, that we will likely not hear about.
Although with the number of children living in poverty and their likelihood of getting shot or seeing a shooting at school, I question the prioritization of dicks and pussies, but saying that is probably already pushing against the goalposts of the politics forum.

 

[intim8]

I've been watching too many "how to write" videos and now I feel like I can hardly write any more. There's some analogy to Dunning-Kreuger here, but I'm too uncreative to tease it out.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

You're choking. You're thinking too hard about what you're doing to do it. I wish I knew how to fix that.

 

[oneagainst]

You're choking. You're thinking too hard about what you're doing to do it. I wish I knew how to fix that.

I know. Come with me.

[cue end sequence from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life]

 

[lustychimera]

I've been watching too many "how to write" videos and now I feel like I can hardly write any more. There's some analogy to Dunning-Kreuger here, but I'm too uncreative to tease it out.

That's the bottleneck before you go Super Saiyan.

Read their work. Make sure you actually want to write like them before taking any advice. Or let Frieza kill your friend. Whatever works.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I have to write another sex scene.

I really want to say, "They have sex. Use your imagination." and leave it at that, but I guess that's not what they're paying me for. And honestly, not what I would be reading for either.

You can have as much sex or as little as you think is appropriate for a story. If they readers don't like it, well it's free to read. They can go elsewhere if they don't like it. Surprisingly, they often do accept it.

There can be stories that have sexual themes, but it is discussed but not depicted. That is particularly common in series chapters. If it doesn't fit into a particular piece of text, you are under no obligation to write it. Sometimes the actual event is less interesting than how the participants got there and what they do afterwards.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I have to write another sex scene.

I really want to say, "They have sex. Use your imagination." and leave it at that, but I guess that's not what they're paying me for. And honestly, not what I would be reading for either.

One of the most talented and successful erotica authors I know does that. In their early work they spelled out the sex, but now it's pretty mild. And they're more popular than ever.

 

[Writer61]

1-votes without explanation when everybody else has been voting 4 or 5. I would really like to know why. It probably says more about the voter than the story but still ...

It happened with my most recently published story which caused it to drop below 4.5 average.

 

[StillStunned]

1-votes without explanation when everybody else has been voting 4 or 5. I would really like to know why. It probably says more about the voter than the story but still ...

It happened with my most recently published story which caused it to drop below 4.5 average.

In my experience, because the story just hit the top of the "recently popular" list, or entered the Hall of Fame, or something like that.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

One of the most talented and successful erotica authors I know does that. In their early work they spelled out the sex, but now it's pretty mild. And they're more popular than ever.

Ooh, who?

 

[Writer61]

In my experience, because the story just hit the top of the "recently popular" list, or entered the Hall of Fame, or something like that.

Sadly neither of those things applied. Just an "N".

 

[StillStunned]

Sadly neither of those things applied. Just an "N".

Then perhaps they honestly just didn't like it?

But yes, it's frustrating, and it's difficult not to take it personally. I'd love for there to be a system of "if you rate the story either 1 star or 5 stars, you have to explain why", but that would be impossible to implement.

Actually, I'd like for there to be a system of "if you rate the story 1 star, then how about you write something, you miserable git!"

 

[Writer61]

Actually, I'd like for there to be a system of "if you rate the story 1 star, then how about you write something, you miserable git!"

This.