Please help

[timkocki]

I am a new author here. I have just submitted a story which was sent back to me with a comment that I used AI support to write it. It is true, I did, I did admit it myself in the comments when sending the story, but the thing is English is not my first language and even if I feel pretty confident communicating, writing is something different and using ChatGPT (or in my case Grok, because ChatGPT kept telling me I should be ashamed for writing such stuff) was necessary to avoid grammatical errors or literal translations that would not sound natural in English. Grok sometimes corrected also my Polish influenced syntax that made my characters sound like master Yoda, which probably could make all StarWars fans excited but otherwise would ruin the sexual tension. Having said that, I must emphasize that every sentence in my story is as I intended. There is nothing that AI added or deleted or changed. From the very beginning to the very end it is all my story (especially that it is true story based on facts that happened some 25 years ago). AI helped me with syntactic structure, word order, grammar, more accurate referents of certain terms but that’s it. And I think it made a good job. Comparing my original to the corrected version, I prefer reading the corrected version.

Please advise me what should I do. I used AI to polish my story so it could be more English but now it seems I should unpolish it to be more Polish and less English? This is what Literotica wants? Can I seek help of a Volunteer Editor? In the “Important Message About Your Submission” Laure & Manu tell me I can ask Volunteer Editor for help but at the same time they tell that they cannot help with AI issues ☹

Any suggestion will be very welcome!

For reference, below is the same text you have just read, but corrected with AI—as I would normally do when writing a story—so you can judge for yourself whether it is still my work (just corrected) or something fundamentally altered:

I am a new author here. I recently submitted a story, which was returned with a comment that I had used AI support to write it. That is true—I openly stated this myself in the submission comments. However, English is not my first language, and while I feel quite confident communicating, writing is a different matter. Using ChatGPT (or in my case Grok—since ChatGPT kept telling me I should be ashamed of writing this kind of content) was necessary to avoid grammatical errors or overly literal translations that would not sound natural in English.

Grok also helped correct some Polish-influenced syntax that made my characters sound a bit like Master Yoda—which might delight Star Wars fans, but would likely undermine the intended tone and sexual tension of the story. That said, I want to emphasize that every sentence reflects exactly what I intended. The AI did not add, remove, or change any content. From beginning to end, it remains entirely my story—especially since it is based on real events from about 25 years ago. The AI only assisted with sentence structure, word order, grammar, and more precise vocabulary. And I believe it did a good job. When I compare my original version with the corrected one, I find the latter much more readable.

Could you please advise me on how to proceed? I used AI to polish my story so it would read more naturally in English, but now it seems I am expected to “unpolish” it to sound less fluent. Is this what Literotica expects? Am I allowed to seek help from a Volunteer Editor? In the “Important Message About Your Submission,” Laure & Manu mention that I can request assistance from a Volunteer Editor, but at the same time they state that editors cannot help with AI-related issues.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dirk2024]

Here is a document in the FAQ to help you with what you may need: https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/sent-back-work

Here is Literotica's policy on AI: https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/publishing-ai

Essentially, it comes down to how much "polishing" you did using AI. It's okay to get assistance for spell checking. But when you let it change your words, it considers it not your work anymore. Unfortunately, you aren't the first person who's had the problem of translating your work into English. I don't know that anyone has been successful with that.

You might find helpful information here as well: https://forum.literotica.com/threads/story-sent-back-please-read.1637742/

But ultimately, you won't be able to publish here if you use AI in any way.

 

[SmilingLez]

I am a new author here. I have just submitted a story which was sent back to me with a comment that I used AI support to write it. It is true, I did, I did admit it myself in the comments when sending the story, but the thing is English is not my first language and even if I feel pretty confident communicating, writing is something different and using ChatGPT (or in my case Grok, because ChatGPT kept telling me I should be ashamed for writing such stuff) was necessary to avoid grammatical errors or literal translations that would not sound natural in English. Grok sometimes corrected also my Polish influenced syntax that made my characters sound like master Yoda, which probably could make all StarWars fans excited but otherwise would ruin the sexual tension. Having said that, I must emphasize that every sentence in my story is as I intended. There is nothing that AI added or deleted or changed. From the very beginning to the very end it is all my story (especially that it is true story based on facts that happened some 25 years ago). AI helped me with syntactic structure, word order, grammar, more accurate referents of certain terms but that’s it. And I think it made a good job. Comparing my original to the corrected version, I prefer reading the corrected version.

Please advise me what should I do. I used AI to polish my story so it could be more English but now it seems I should unpolish it to be more Polish and less English? This is what Literotica wants? Can I seek help of a Volunteer Editor? In the “Important Message About Your Submission” Laure & Manu tell me I can ask Volunteer Editor for help but at the same time they tell that they cannot help with AI issues ☹

Any suggestion will be very welcome!

For reference, below is the same text you have just read, but corrected with AI—as I would normally do when writing a story—so you can judge for yourself whether it is still my work (just corrected) or something fundamentally altered:

I am a new author here. I recently submitted a story, which was returned with a comment that I had used AI support to write it. That is true—I openly stated this myself in the submission comments. However, English is not my first language, and while I feel quite confident communicating, writing is a different matter. Using ChatGPT (or in my case Grok—since ChatGPT kept telling me I should be ashamed of writing this kind of content) was necessary to avoid grammatical errors or overly literal translations that would not sound natural in English.

Grok also helped correct some Polish-influenced syntax that made my characters sound a bit like Master Yoda—which might delight Star Wars fans, but would likely undermine the intended tone and sexual tension of the story. That said, I want to emphasize that every sentence reflects exactly what I intended. The AI did not add, remove, or change any content. From beginning to end, it remains entirely my story—especially since it is based on real events from about 25 years ago. The AI only assisted with sentence structure, word order, grammar, and more precise vocabulary. And I believe it did a good job. When I compare my original version with the corrected one, I find the latter much more readable.

Could you please advise me on how to proceed? I used AI to polish my story so it would read more naturally in English, but now it seems I am expected to “unpolish” it to sound less fluent. Is this what Literotica expects? Am I allowed to seek help from a Volunteer Editor? In the “Important Message About Your Submission,” Laure & Manu mention that I can request assistance from a Volunteer Editor, but at the same time they state that editors cannot help with AI-related issues.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If you didn't use AI tools, but still got rejected, you are in good company - Lincoln's Gettysburg address came back as 100% AI generated (ZeroGPT). There are many threads identical to yours. Some offer hacks which have worked for them - resubmit with a note to the moderator (only if you believe that a human will read your story.), delete the work, make sure you save it, then submit it as new.

If you did use AI tool (translation, spell checker and/or grammar corrector), find a volunteer Editor to help you make your story read more human.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I'm sorry, that really sucks. Writing something is like putting your soul into it, and it's totally understandable that you'd want to translate it to English for the site. You want to share your story, it's why all of us are here.

Unfortunately, the problem is that you are using an AI (Grok), which is against Literotica's policy of accepting works that are in part generated by AI. Even if it is "just translating," it is still rewriting the story in a way that is not true to your voice, but in the way an AI would write it. It's just using the words you gave it as the basis for that. In essence, it's stripping out your style and voice and replacing it with its own style and voice as it's doing the translation. The content itself is the same, but the voice is that of an AI, not authentically yours. After all, you can write the same content many, many different ways, in many, many different styles, so even if the translation is a very close match, it's not necessarily going to be a perfect match (which really isn't possible in most cases of translating larger works), and instead is going to be close, but in the style of writing that the AI prefers, which will get flagged by Lit's AI checker.

What might be better is to write the story in English as best you can, then maybe use an AI to look over what you've written and point out places that read strange or could use work (since finding an editor can be tricky, and especially one that speaks Polish). However, instead of letting the AI make the change for you, find a way to do it yourself. Whether that's through translation tools (some of which use AI, so that could also be a bit problematic), working on it yourself, or finding an editor, those are all preferable and far less likely to run afoul of Lit's AI policy.

I will say, your English is pretty good. It might not be as slick and polished as Grok, but it is coming directly from you, which, personally, I'd rather read someone's authentic work and words than something an AI cooked up. Don't sell yourself short. Do your best to write it in English, then try to edit and polish it yourself as best you can. If you still aren't sure about how it sounds, heading over to the Editor's Forum might help pair you with someone who can read what you've written and offer feedback on how to smooth out sections, among other tips.

You can also submit the Polish version in addition to the English version you want to publish, I believe the site supports Polish-language stories. But if you want to translate it into English, having a large-language model like Grok or ChatGPT is going to cause your work to be rejected.

I hope you're able to sort it out and get it published. Good luck!

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I agree, your English is perfectly fluent. I didn't notice any unusual usage in your message at the top of this thread. Maybe you wouldn't be comfortable writing poetry in English, but I promise, the readers here will have no problem following what you write.

So, I agree with @anthrodisiac that you should translate it yourself.

Note that one proposed reason to forbid AI is that AI-generated text currently cannot be copyrighted (at least in some jurisdictions). If you have Grok translate your work, you don't own the result, at least in some countries.

 

[TheLobster]

Your English is totally readable, it's just awkward in some places and contains a few grammatical blunders which are easy to fix. Hardly like Master Yoda, you speak

I echo the recommendation to check the Editors' Forum and find someone who could edit your original draft into shape. They don't necessarily have to know your native language (or any language other than English, really) to help you sand off the rough edges more skillfully and delicately than a crude tool like LLM would.

And if you want to further improve your writing skills, I shamelessly suggest checking out my own thread with tips for ESL writers. You might find it useful.

 

[Actingup]

Some good advice above. I’m very mindful of how easy it is for native English speakers (particularly if you speak God’s own language - Australian English), and how hard it is for ESL speakers to publish stories. But I think that readers understand this. I would prefer to read something a little less polished if it’s authentically the author’s voice. Improving your English writing skills is also a really good thing that can happen through publishing here. I would suggest abandoning AI completely and seeing how you go.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Not only used ... eeewwww ... , but a Russian Agent's version of ... eeewwww... ???

 

[Andreas_Kreuz]

I am in the same situation. (German) But so far, none of my stories have been rejected, even though I do use AI to check for non-idiomatic expressions. With AI creeping in from all sides, everybody is paranoid now, and that causes false positives. How the reviewers actually check for AI has not been published. It does not look as if they were using any of the AI checkers, because lots of stories get rejected that the AI checkers consider human. At the same time, stories passed that reeked of AI slop.
In many respects, it comes down to messiness. And that is a special problem for ESL writers, because we write more consciously than native speakers. We follow our learned grammatical rules closely, and both our vocabulary and our arsenal of grammatical variations are more limited. Thus, we write closer to the statistical average, and that means closer to AI.

 

[metropolinational]

You can publish the English version on Inkitt, which allows you to check a box to confess that you used AI tools. Readers can see it, but can't imagine anybody cares. It's allowed. Then you can link to your Inkitt profile here and to your Lit profile there, I guess?

English is hard. just above, I said publish on Inkitt. That's because I think of Inkitt, just like Lit, as a publishing platform. And you stand ON a platform, right? But you are inside the website. You are not sitting on top of the website, you have to go inside to read the story! But not inside the server. it's not Tron or the Matrix. Electronically, I guess you are on it, not in it? It's very confusing. To this day I can never figure out which one is right.

Best of luck!

 

[Bramblethorn]

I will say, your English is pretty good. It might not be as slick and polished as Grok, but it is coming directly from you, which, personally, I'd rather read someone's authentic work and words than something an AI cooked up. Don't sell yourself short. Do your best to write it in English, then try to edit and polish it yourself as best you can. If you still aren't sure about how it sounds, heading over to the Editor's Forum might help pair you with someone who can read what you've written and offer feedback on how to smooth out sections, among other tips.

This. If the first paragraph of OP's post is how they write in English without AI assistance, that's plenty good enough to be an author here. I would rather read a story in that voice than in the AI version; yes there are some quirks that tell me English isn't their native language, but they're not getting in the way of readability, and they make for a more distinctive voice.

 

[BellaBestia]

But OP’s first post is very obviously AI written - lots of repetition of things stated a few paragraphs before.

I can only suggest that those using AI legitimately to just translate from native tongue to Lit-acceptable English : do not copy and paste your resulting translation into Lit editor. Those AI tags are imbedded. You may have to actually manually retype on your own the suggested translation to eliminate the tags. Arduous yes, but look at it this way it will further help you learn English and may give you a chance to re-edit.

 

[BeechLeaf]

I'm sorry, I didn't pay enough attention to this the first time through. You are a fluent, competent second language speaker of English. You can write perfectly well in English. You write sentences like this:

I have just submitted a story which was sent back to me with a comment that I used AI support to write it.

And then some robot made out of used tins of pineapple chunks decides that it would be better like this:

I recently submitted a story, which was returned with a comment that I had used AI support to write it.

WTF? If a human editor did this to you, you would be justified in punching them in the nose. Hey, AI, don't change 'just' to 'recently', don't change perfect to simple past, don't add a comma because you've decided it's a non-defining relative clause... Every single change is totally unnecessary. OP, have confidence in your English; you don't need help.

 

[Bramblethorn]

But OP’s first post is very obviously AI written - lots of repetition of things stated a few paragraphs before.

OP explicitly stated that the second half of their post is "the same text you have just read, but corrected with AI—as I would normally do when writing a story—so you can judge for yourself whether it is still my work (just corrected) or something fundamentally altered". The repetition is intended.

 

[BellaBestia]

OP explicitly stated that the second half of their post is "the same text you have just read, but corrected with AI—as I would normally do when writing a story—so you can judge for yourself whether it is still my work (just corrected) or something fundamentally altered". The repetition is intended.

Why? Why even do that? If first section is purely the op’s writing capability why use ai translation at all? Then post the AI sample to prove his point?
*rubs temples in extreme migraine*

 

[metropolinational]

It's completely normal to feel a bit insecure about your writing in a second language. He is asking.

the answer is: your writing was better than the AI version, OP. go with your own writing.

 

[timkocki]

Dear All, I much, much appreciate your answers, insight and advises. It clarified a lot of things for me! For example I understand now, why Literotica has an issue with AI: if there is a chance ChatGPT or Grok can sue the platform for copyrights infringement, why take a risk? I just wish Literotica could explain it to me slightly better. The way they did it I was just frustrated and did not understand why couldn't I use a tool that helps avoiding mistakes and helps express myself more clearely and effectively. Anyway... After reading all the comments, I believe the best approach would be to correct once again my original manuscript (written in not AI polished English but rather "Polish English") and when having doubts check individual sentences with AI (as it seems the fastest option versus working with an editor) and not correct the whole paragraphs with AI because this is when AI tends to change syntax and vocabulary and style. When I have it ready, I will probably send the whole text to an editor for one last check.

I can see it will take a lot of time before my first story will be published...

Once again thank You all for you help!

 

[TheWritingGroup]

If you have doubts about a particular sentence or paragraph, you could even post it here and ask. Many writers will jump in to help you.

And we will doubtless all give different advice.

 

[anthrodisiac]

If you have doubts about a particular sentence or paragraph, you could even post it here and ask. Many writers will jump in to help you.

And we will doubtless all give different advice.

And sometimes a single person will give you advice that contradicts. We're a helpful, opinionated bunch, and you should only listen to me listen to whatever works best for you.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Why? Why even do that? If first section is purely the op’s writing capability why use ai translation at all? Then post the AI sample to prove his point?
*rubs temples in extreme migraine*

To show us how his own unassisted writing style compares to what it looks like with AI, so we could gauge how much difference the AI makes.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Dear All, I much, much appreciate your answers, insight and advises. It clarified a lot of things for me! For example I understand now, why Literotica has an issue with AI: if there is a chance ChatGPT or Grok can sue the platform for copyrights infringement, why take a risk?

The issue isn't that ChatGPT/Grok might sue them. It's more that ChatGPT or Grok might plagiarise from the works that are used to train it, and the people who own those works might sue Lit.

 

[metropolinational]

Unlike AI checkers, which don't work, plagiarism checkers are very good. I don't see why anyone would want to conflate both issues. If you have subscriptions to the two major providers and run all submissions through both, you are probably in good shape. Pair that with being responsive to take down notices, and you are in great shape.

I really doubt an AI policy, based on the superstition that AI generated content is plagiarism, and which can't detect AI anyway, add any protection at all. AI checking contributes nothing other than false positives.

 

[timkocki]

Why? Why even do that? If first section is purely the op’s writing capability why use ai translation at all? Then post the AI sample to prove his point?
*rubs temples in extreme migraine*

When I talk to someone in foreign language I usually have an instant feedback and I can correct myself. It's not the same with writing. When I write, it is like in "Hadestown" - Doubt comes in ;-)