Advice on whether or not to approve a chapter

alicetinycf

alicetinycf

Experienced
So, I'm relatively new here. (Well, I did publish a story many years ago on the old site under an account that I can't access anymore, but I'm essentially new.) I've published two stories this past week and am having fun. I made them moderated, hoping people might add to them, but wanting a measure of control.

Today someone added a chapter -- hooray!

But it's very short, the grammar sucks, I'm not convinced the writer is fluent in English, and I don't really understand where it's going.

On the one hand, I really want people to add to my stories if they want.
On the other, I hate terrible writing.

Do I decline it and explain why, with a suggestion to improve it? Do I get over myself and approve it? Would love to hear opinions!
 
It might be unpleasant but in that case i would decline the chapter.

You made your story moderated for a reason after all, if you wouldn't care you could always opt for public.

If you can tell that there was effort put into it, you could try proofreading it and offer assistance, but if it's really just the type of linguistic garbage someone tought up in five minutes...nah.
 
Yeah. I keep my main story private so I haven't run into this but it seems to me you have a few options. You could message them and ask about it, offer to edit the grammar some, or reject with suggestions to improve. I wouldn't just approve it myself though because every time I saw the chapter it would bother me.

This is why I keep mine private, I'm a nitpicky bitch lol!
 
I should add that the story in question is straight up pornography, albeit written with as much style and wit as I can muster. So, it's not like I'm writing something literary. Does that make any difference to your opinions?
 
Fact is, many of the chyoa writers or aspiring writers aren't native born English-speakers. And that's okay. We have German stories, French stories, Spanish, and those are all fine. When it comes to to English however, English speakers are looking for stories they'll be able to read. Let's not pretend we don't all make grammar mistakes from time to time, but it's still important that the story can be actually followed.

What you can do is offer to proofread for them and make sure they give the best possible edition to their story or suggest they get a proofreader. It's not technically your responsibility to make sure their chapters are coherent and you can just reject them, if that's what you want to do. It's the story you personally have control over and you do make the rules on what is and isn't accepted. Inversely, this means that since you do say what is and isn't accepted, you do have the potential to help as much or as little as you want, into making something an addition to your story.

Fact is, it doesn't mean someone is necessarily even a bad writer for having a language barrier here and there, but readers do expect when it's in their own language, that what they read will be at least comprehensible.
 
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I had to decline a chapter once on the one story I have that's moderated, where the author wanted to take the story in a direction that didn't make any sense for the setting and one I also just disagreed with. If it had also been better written I might have been more open to fixing that with them, but it also had a lot of poor grammar and writing so in the end I just declined. What I did was just message the writer explaining that before clicking the button. When you decline a chapter you can also leave a message there explaining your decision. It felt kind of bad since it was someone's work and everything, but there is a reason why I left that story as moderated and not public.

I don't think it matters that it's porn. The story is still yours and so is the decision.
 
alicetinycf said:
I should add that the story in question is straight up pornography, albeit written with as much style and wit as I can muster. So, it's not like I'm writing something literary. Does that make any difference to your opinions?
Click to expand...

It doesn't to me. I have a short story 'story' that's pretty close to straight porn. I just throw little one and two shots there. I end up editing it a lot because my bad grammar/word choices irk me. I couldn't keep looking at something there that was 'off' to me. It's why I keep my stuff private (except the public story I adopted), it keeps me sane :)
 
It seems I'm late to this conversation - 20 minutes to resolve a problem must be a new record on this forum - but I just wanted to say that you're under no obligation to ever approve a stranger's chapter for any reason. If you don't want a chapter on your story, there is no shame in declining it, no matter its quality or relevance. There is no rule dictating that you must be 'fair' or 'reasonable'.
 
If you decline a chapter and the reason isn't already covered by your Writers Guidelines, you might want to adjust them.
There, you could also add information about what you're willing to do (e.g. proofreading or advice on writing/storytelling) and what authors should expect (e.g. content-related editing or editing cycles).
 
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