I'm Fuming!

[badly_knitted]

 


Okay, how long have I been posting stuff over on Teaspoon? 31 short fics, 293 drabbles, never had anything rejected.

Until yesterday.


Yesterday I decided it was about time I started putting the rest of the Nosy-Verse stories on the site - I'd only got around to putting the first couple and the more recent ones there, four of the earlier ones still hadn't been posted and I'd gained a new reader who was asking if there were more. Seemed like the right time so I posted 'How To Live With A Neurotic Alien'.

I know the rules there, they expect an acceptable standard of writing - spelling, grammar, punctuation, all up to a reasonable standard. Well, hope I don't sound boastful, but I always considered I was above average in that respect. Sure, I'm not always entirely spot-on when it comes to punctuation, not certain of the rules regarding colons and semi-colons, and I overuse commas at times, but hey, that's not too bad, right? And at least I know how to use apostrophes. Certainly, I think I meet the 'acceptable standard' criteria - they do say they don't expect perfection. After all, these are fanfics, not great works of literature.

But my fic got rejected by a mod who apparently isn't going to accept anything that isn't 100% correct, punctuation-wise. I got called on half a dozen minor errors. Okay, yes, I had a missing quotation mark, and two others that got accidentally left in during re-writes. At least I USE quotation marks, and it should be perfectly clear that I know where they belong, considering I use them correctly throughout the entire 4026 word story apart from those three instances. And yes, I wasn't completely clear on the rules of commas versus full stops when a speech by someone is broken into sections to include their actions. Big deal. How many people can quote chapter and verse on that rule anyway? How many people even know there IS a rule for that? It's nit-picking, tiny things that 99.9% or readers would either not notice, or not even realise were wrong. I spent an hour re-editing to fit this person's perfectionist standards before re-submitting it, and if it gets rejected again, I will NOT be happy. >=(

I feel sorry for everyone who tries to post there and is perhaps less familiar with the rules of punctuation and grammar, or isn't too good at spelling. If they get the same moderator I did, it could well put them off writing for life!

To this person, 'acceptable standards' apparently means every fic must meet their stringent personal standards and be perfect in all respects. I think they need to check their dictionary.

Rant over, feel free to ignore this post, I wrote it to make myself feel better, but it doesn't seem to have worked.