Author: Do you read your stories that are currently under review?

When I pubish a story, I constantly feel like clicking "Recall" because I always find things to improve. How do you manage this?

Once I submit, I tend to move on to something else. Don't usually look at it again unless I have an "aha" moment about it and actually do intend to recall it for further editing. And I would generally first look at my offline draft in LibreOffice Writer to see if I really want to go there.

Yeah, I'm pretty bad about this. I think as we write, we're too close to the story to see all the flaws. I'll go over it a couple of times in Word where I draft the story before it's published to catch what I can, but there's something about transferring from Word to LS that seems to reveal more typos. Then I go back through and fix those. I do my best before hitting submit to make it as clean as possible. However, even after it's published I often find one or two more minor issues. Sometime in the future I may go back and create "2nd editions" of my older stories since I've improved a lot as a writer since I began writing here. Some of the early stories are frankly a little embarrassing in their quality. The worst of them, I've already deleted, but some deserve revision rather than being added to my growing rejection pile.

If I ever republish any stories (assuming I can even find copies to use) from my old profile, I imagine some of it would need hefty editing. I'm fairly happy with my current crop even if I notice the odd awkward wording or typo that got missed.

All the time. As a dyslexic I am never 100% sure I didn't miss some obvious error. And, the things I see might change each time I view the work, so I've built a habit of gong back to self edit even after a story is posted to the front page. I have two of my recent works with errors that need to be corrected but they are new and still being read daily. I'll need to wait until they go stale before making an edit or risk protracted time on hold while our diligent staff of mods has the time for such trivialities as my obsession with getting things perfect

Quote by Seeker4

If I ever republish any stories (assuming I can even find copies to use) from my old profile, I imagine some of it would need hefty editing. I'm fairly happy with my current crop even if I notice the odd awkward wording or typo that got missed.

Never re-read old stories. It makes you want to pull the whole thing down to have a massive editing session. For me, it's the fact I went back to add in the entire story I skipped over in my series and it's been several years now so I know when I get up to date, I'm going to want to rewrite what's already published. That cycle will endlessly continue if I don't rein it in, but I've got several others I'm eyeballing that I didn't re-do (chapter six in particular) and it's so glaringly different to the others. Out of sight, out of mind is best.

I do double check my under review stories for any oddness in spacing that may have occured but I edit and re-read my stories back to myself multiple times before submission so I'm not obsessive about it. I'm always worried about pushing boundaries outside the sexual scenes however in my series and will constantly check my messages for clarity etc with this being a dark romance.

Quote by utterchaos
Never re-read old stories

Sometimes it's necessary. Like when I am writing a new story about one of the protagonists and can't actually remember the name of her ex who was mentioned, but didn't appear, in the earlier story (this is in reference to doing another Paris story).😳 In fact, I generally reread a story once or twice if I am doing any kind of followup. I am also prone to rereading my old stories just to see if they still hold up and if there are any characters or other elements meriting reuse.

Quote by Seeker4

Sometimes it's necessary. Like when I am writing a new story about one of the protagonists and can't actually remember the name of her ex who was mentioned, but didn't appear, in the earlier story (this is in reference to doing another Paris story).😳 In fact, I generally reread a story once or twice if I am doing any kind of followup. I am also prone to rereading my old stories just to see if they still hold up and if there are any characters or other elements meriting reuse.

I have just read my entire series checking for a quote 😆 A whole day it took with the amount and length of chapters I have. Kinda forgot bits so it was like reading someone else's writing, not knowing what happens next. I do keep a sheet with all important information like names, birthdays, anniversaries etc so I don't have to try searching for it.

The list of chapters I need to edit now have increased.

I have to say, once I hit that publish button, I never recall. The reason is that by that time, I would have edited and read the story for hours, many more times longer than it took to write. Typically about 5x more. Happily, these days I'm fairly certain they will be published, although that doesn't mean they are perfect.

I will not delete my old stories. However, this summer I did rewrite my first one (a full novel). It was called The Alpha Man In Me - Chapter 00 - Prologue The story remained the same. The grammar improved in places. After rewriting it and adding cover photos, I realised that I had a sort of eureka moment about 2/3rds of the way through. From then on, my writing was a step-change improvement, and I hardly changed anything.

Also, there are a few stories here that I plan to rewrite as author's cuts. But that is for the future.

I'm about to go to through and reread at least a couple of my Wild Girl series. The reason for this is I've lost the voice of the character. When things are going well, I hear the character, her voice, accent- everything as if she is speaking in my head and I'm just writing what she says

But I started another chapter yesterday and I can’t hear her at all. As a consequence what I've written doesn't sound like her either. Not even her syntax is right.

Sigh. So, now I'll clear my head and read two or three chapters to recapture that voice. Failing that I'll have to set that aside and write something else until we comes back

It seems shifting to Mia’s Latina voice chased of Dani’s southern drawl. No I have to go find the bitch and drag her home

Quote by wxt55uk

I have to say, once I hit that publish button, I never recall. The reason is that by that time, I would have edited and read the story for hours, many more times longer than it took to write. Typically about 5x more. Happily, these days I'm fairly certain they will be published, although that doesn't mean they are perfect.

Same. I've reread and re-edited my stories so many times, by the time I've hit Publish, that I rarely take another look and hit Recall after that, though it has happened. Got plenty of other things to move onto, usually, and I hate to make more work for the overworked and underpaid mods.

That said, I did recently withdraw and resubmit a story after it was published, and after polling a number of readers who'd made comments for more specific feedback. Based on that, I decided to make some aspects of the tone and internal monologue more subtle, though probably 97% of the words were unchanged. Again, I hate making extra work for the mods, but I felt that it made the piece quite a bit better.

I edit the fuck out of it before I submit, to the point where I usually don't love it anymore. It's a character flaw I guess lol. Once I'm sick of it I read it one last time, sometimes parts of it aloud because my eyes aren't working and the brain is barely braining. Then I hit publish and don't ever want to read it again. I even feel bad for the mod that has to read it.

I recommend getting sick of your work. You'll never recall it. 🤣🤣🤣

EDIT: I have had a story here for years, where the character never puts down the coffee mug but it's magically gone. I did actually reread it a couple years after I'd published it and just facepalmed. But no one else caught it and it lives on as a teaching lesson for me and makes me laugh when I think about it.

Thank you for your replies, which reassure me: it's normal not to be. And everyone should continue to be free to make their own choices.

Quote by Zircone

When I pubish a story, I constantly feel like clicking "Recall" because I always find things to improve. How do you manage this?

I do, but just making sure I dotted all the eye and crossed the tees.

Quote by Katherine
I edit the fuck out of it before I submit, to the point where I usually don't love it anymore. It's a character flaw I guess lol.

Well, maybe you're my sister from another mother, eh. I have that flaw to a degree as well.😋

Quote by Katherine
I edit the fuck out of it before I submit, to the point where I usually don't love it anymore.

This is me too. I end up questioning if it's even erotic any more because I'm so tired of reading it and changing a word order here or there, or removing this, or rewording that. Typos still get through somehow, so I tend to give them a once-over after hitting Publish so I can fix anything pronto before a mod gets to it.

When I'm close to 'finished" and my objectivity has taken a beating, I invariably go through this period of self-doubt where I hate the story so much that I don't press Publish.

I usually then leave it a few days, come back to it and edit the fuck out of it again until that nagging doubt is stomped out. Then submit.

I do tend to reread my stories occasionally. If I'm doing continuations, it's imperative to get my head back into the voice and tone of the characters, and to refresh the ol' memory. But mostly, for newer works, it's to check I'm not recycling ideas by mistake.

No.

I've read through that motherfucker 929399 times by the time I hit "Publish". I am sick of it by then you hear me? Siiiick 😆🤣🤣.

A few years ago, when my attempts at longer forms were going nowhere, I thought hey, do micros instead. Only one hundred words. So much easier. Tap, tap, tap, hit Publish.

Yeah, that's not how it works.

Quote by Katherine

I edit the fuck out of it before I submit, to the point where I usually don't love it anymore. It's a character flaw I guess lol. Once I'm sick of it I read it one last time, sometimes parts of it aloud because my eyes aren't working and the brain is barely braining. Then I hit publish and don't ever want to read it again. I even feel bad for the mod that has to read it.

I recommend getting sick of your work. You'll never recall it. 🤣🤣🤣

EDIT: I have had a story here for years, where the character never puts down the coffee mug but it's magically gone. I did actually reread it a couple years after I'd published it and just facepalmed. But no one else caught it and it lives on as a teaching lesson for me and makes me laugh when I think about it.

I'm the same. I probably go over my story a half dozen times before it's submitted. Even then, I'll think about it, come up with something that I could have written better, and contemplate recalling it. And when I have recalled something and made the changes, I realize that it isn't going to make a damn difference in the story.

Quote by Katherine
I edit the fuck out of it before I submit, to the point where I usually don't love it anymore.

I generally don't touch my story after submitting. The only times I've recalled were when I noticed a spelling mistake in the one liner or submitted the wrong story in the sequence, which is usually a few minutes after I hit submit.

I've generally read my story too many times on Google docs, as well as on Lush, before I submit. Usually, my story is sitting in its final draft state for a week or two on Lush before it gets submitted.

Once i hit submit I don't go back but I always find an error or wording problem somewhere after it gets published. I edit pretty heavily but get to a point where i don't find the problems anymore. I haven't gone back and fixed anything so far.