What is going on with new stories?

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

As someone who posts stories with very little editing I would like to apologize to all readers. I know my stories got a lot of problems with them when it comes to grammar and spelling mistakes, but I feel they can still have some value.


Sincerely

Sonatatre

I can't tell whether you are being serious. I hope you aren't. The value of a story isn't in its grammar.

 

[GroverLang]

That's odd, because I've got aluminium saucepans and we've got four aluminium smelters here in Australia producing two million tons a year.
Just keep repeating, "America is not the whole world" and eventually you might understand why the world looking in continues to find Americans curious and strange

I’m English and I’m sorry if I didn’t make it clear my comment was aimed at America. But we have, by the way, got lots of relatives and friends in the USA and it wasn’t American writers on here the comment was aimed at it was whoever instigated the practice of changing the word especially to something that doesn’t exist.

 

[SimonDoom]

For example the horrible word “gotten” which, like aluminum, doesn’t exist is acceptable in dialogue but not otherwise.

"Gotten" traces back to the middle ages and is in the dictionary as a past participle form of "get." It's perfectly acceptable in American English -- interchangeable with "got."

I have gotten sick of his antics.

I have got sick of his antics.

I'm not sure about this but "gotten" probably sounds more normal to an American ear.

"Aluminum" is interesting because it was the British chemist Humphry Davy who came up with it way back in 1812. It's the standard way both to spell it and say it in America (and Canada, I think). There are several other elements on the periodic table that end in just "um" as opposed to "ium", so it's not that weird.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Many writers will write as they speak which is fine with dialogue (subject to what I said in my last paragraph) but not fine with descriptive text. For example the horrible word “gotten” which, like aluminum, doesn’t exist is acceptable in dialogue but not otherwise.

"Aluminum" is the original spelling, as chosen by the (English) scientist who discovered it.

"Gotten" shows up in Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the King James Bible, among many other places.

It's fine to have preferences - I like "aluminium" for consistency, for all that consistency's a lost cause in English - but it's ridiculous to claim these spellings aren't legitimate parts of English.

edit: ah, Simon got there first.

 

[lovecraft68]

As someone who posts stories with very little editing I would like to apologize to all readers. I know my stories got a lot of problems with them when it comes to grammar and spelling mistakes, but I feel they can still have some value.


Sincerely

Sonatatre

If you're being a smart ass....good for you.

If you're serious you have no reason to apologize, you're entertaining people for free. Do the best you can-or best you want to-and they can read it or not. There are plenty of people who can overlook imperfect copy.

 

[lovecraft68]

My grammar was downright crappy my first couple of years here. Its gotten better through work and practice, but I don't spend a ton of time editing and scrolling through 20k words for a there/their etc...

I do get the comments of "you could use a second pair of eyes" and yup, I won't argue, but most of those come along with great story but...

I get the Grammar nazi "Too many errors took me out of the story didn't finish" and they are entitled to that

But if grammar was that important to the average reader? Maybe someone can explain my numbers here, because they seem to indicate otherwise.

The Op is the bitchy minority, and the people defending their comment probably feel that way themselves, which is fine, everyone has their views and opinion on how important/non important certain elements are to them.

My points here is that first and foremost this is an amateur site open to literally anyone who wants to post here (as long as they are of age of course) so why are you expecting perfect stories, and again back to free, did you lose anything but a few minutes if you started and couldn't finish a story due to awful grammar?

And in closing once again we don't know the author's personal life, they could be lazy, they could be doing the best they can as not everyone has the same amount of skill talent, education, or abilities/disabilities.

With that it would be nice to see people trying to have some empathy and understanding before you gripe.

But I guess that's asking too much of people because one thing I. and I'm sure others, have noticed here is that considering the platform we're on we have some pretentious self important types who think they're reading/writing Pulitzer prize winning material and I guess pointing out other people's short comings is much needed to maintain that aura.

In closing, I will say this. If you look across the board on this site, the average story score is over 4(LW possible exception) 4./5 stars...stories get an average of 80% or a "B" here, that's pretty good, so it tells me the average reader here is looking for wank material, or a slow burn more erotic type story in their preferred kink/kinks...give them that, they are happy, their concerned with enjoyment and end result than was there supposed to be a comma there? Or some misspelled words.


My grammar still leaves something to be desired, partly through it does not come naturally to me(I'm borderline rain man with numbers, grammar...not so much), partly because I am only going to put so much effort into a free story as far as constant editing/re-editing goes.

Going by what I've done in my time it seems like the majority don't care.

 

[lovecraft68]

I see it’s been corrected half an hour ago. They read what you said, realised they’d missed out a word, and acted on it. It’s nice when people listen to you and also nice when they act on it. It also says something about the thought behind the OP’s original post. I wonder if they leave comments about improvement at the end of stories? I think they might as an incentive for the writer to improve.

I missed out a word in a recent story and am really annoyed, although it doesn’t seem to have bothered any readers by the stars coming in. The error is “But if he couldn’t, it wasn’t going to them.” Missed out the word “bother” and I find it so annoying.

I’ve just typed the sentence as it should be and it came up autocorrected as “it wasn’t going to burger them” which would have made the error more acceptable than missing out the word.

I had seen that, but seeing they touted being college educated I didn't feel qualified to tell them...

No, sorry, I'm being funny. I got too much of a kick out of the irony.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

For a while, a year or two ago, the British auto company Jaguar ran a series of extremely British-accented ads on U.S. television. Perhaps trading on the odd twitch some Americans seem to have, of believing that anything said in a British accent (even Eastender) is classier than anything said in an American accent, the car’s name was pronounced not as ‘Jag/war,’ but ‘Jag/you/are.’ Maybe this really worked with focus groups, because one of the last ads in the series went over the top, referring to one of the metals used as five-syllable ‘aluminium,’ with the first two syllables ‘AL/you’ rather than ‘a/LOO’ (no bathroom reference intended).

‘Gotten’ is vernacular enough for me to use it in some dialogue. In omniscient narrative, though, I try to avoid both ‘have got’ and ‘have gotten’ (and their lead-in contractions), since almost every time, the meaning is more directly conveyed simply with ‘have.’

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5116173&page=submissions

 

[BelleCanzuto]

No, no, no.

"I could care less" is a common phrase in America. True. But it's not correct to say it's THE American way to say it. I'm American and I've always hated this phrase and so have many other Americans. It makes no logical sense. I would say "I couldn't care less" because that's the logical way to express the idea that you care so little about something that you could not care less about it than you do. "I could care less" means absolutely nothing at all.

What NotWise said is correct: it's a common American idiom. When you say it, people know what you mean. But it still bugs some of us, and some of us say "I couldn't care less" instead.

I never understood "i could care less" until someone explained that they looked at it as the first half of a phrase, with the second half being left unsaid: "i could care less, but I don't".
I don't get the impression that most users put that much thought into it. But seeing that explanation did relieve me of the urge to vocally correct anyone saying "could care less."

Side note: most of the time when you hear someone say "i don't care to [do something]", it means they don't want to do, or are at least reluctant. There's a small area around where I live that the phrase means the opposite. In a few counties west and south of me "i don't care to [do something]" means "yes, I'll enthusiastically help you with that".

I love these little pockets of language difference.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

...
Side note: most of the time when you hear someone say "i don't care to [do something]", it means they don't want to do, or are at least reluctant. There's a small area around where I live that the phrase means the opposite. In a few counties west and south of me "i don't care to [do something]" means "yes, I'll enthusiastically help you with that".

I love these little pockets of language difference.

That sort of thing is fascinating.

 

[GroverLang]

For a while, a year or two ago, the British auto company Jaguar ran a series of extremely British-accented ads on U.S. television. Perhaps trading on the odd twitch some Americans seem to have, of believing that anything said in a British accent (even Eastender) is classier than anything said in an American accent]

Having travelled extensively in America, visiting more than half the states in the last forty years, you’re correct in saying Americans seem to believe everything said in a British accent, even Eastenders which is the equivalent of a genuine New York accent, is classier than an American accent. America tends to not have as many regional variations as the UK which is strange when you consider the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) is only the same size in area as Wyoming.

I’ve been to the Bible Belt states many times and have yet to come across anyone from those states who think they have a nice accent. I’ve often said they should experience a New York/New Jersey accent and then they might realise what a great accent they have.

 

[MohanSingh]

That sucks, you should ask for your money back.

Oh, wait, you're reading for free in that case you get what you pay for.
Want professional editing/writing pay for it.

Or you can come here and trash people who are doing the best they can, and ruin their excitement of having published something because it isn't up to your standards

You'll have to excuse me if I've grown tired of vultures thinking not only should they get to peruse a half a million stories for free, but denigrate the people who supply the material if it isn't perfect

This and so much more. Thank you for summing up my feelings.

A compelling story is worth a few typos.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

Genius - click

 

[carindennis]

re: What is Going On with New Stories.

My 2cents is:

POST THE DAMN STORY!!!

I agree with most of you that the stories are being published without being edited (or vetted it seems) but the MOST egregious fault is starting a muli-chaptered story with VERY LONG GAPS between posts - looking at you Kalimaxos & The Diaries of Jane.

If the story is finished - edit it and publish it.

Finish the Damn Story - hey isn't there an author here with that name? They may be onto something???