Quote by techgoddess

Kinda like Santa Claus, we know who is naughty and who is nice. 😉🎅🏼

Exactly ha!

Quote by DousedInGasoline

Thank you for the clarification. It did feel very aimed at my inquiry.

We know who is using AI and who isn't.

Quote by paddlingincognito

I am curious… Why?

If you feel certain that some stories are AI written (or heavily AI assisted), why are mods letting them slide through? Why don’t you shut those stories down and/or ban those authors from the site?

I'll answer your first question first.

I get that too. It's something I also went through. When I write a story, I usually do 3-5 drafts, and I heavily edit each one. The story usually doesn't feel right until I get to that 4th draft, and then when I upload it to Lush, always end up doing some more minor changes as I read through it one last time before hitting submit.

Our stories don't have to be perfect, but the grammar and syntax should be at a level where they don't distract from the enjoyment of reading your story. We're all amateurs here, no one is setting an expectation of perfection. A hard lesson to learn (from a fellow perfectionist!) - over-polishing a story will ruin it more often than it will help it.


As for the AI issue...

It's a difficult question to answer, but I want to be as transparent as possible. The short answer is that it's an ongoing and ever-evolving conversation. There are a lot of angles to consider. We're also aware of the situation that is happening with Literotica and their writers, and we're taking measures to not repeat their mistakes. So while we're taking a more conservative approach, we're keenly aware of the problem and have discussed many different possible courses of action, trying to determine how to best deal with the problem. Our goal is to find an objective way to avoid confrontations ie provide objective evidence, not make accusations.

I've done A LOT of research in terms of using different AI detectors, and we haven't been happy or confident with any of the results. I don't want to say anything that will help AI writers, but the publicly available AI detectors are flawed and based on "x,y, and z" can give false positives or false negatives, so they don't set the standard that we want to have.

I have access to 2 different private AI detectors that are MUCH more reliable.

One was trained from the ground up by a group of professional Dungeons & Dragons writers because their jobs are being threatened by AI writing. That detector is incredibly accurate, but we don't have constant access to it. I can send them stories one at a time to check, but that's not a practical solution when we publish as many stories as we do.

I've also recently gained access to a detector that is being developed by the University of Waterloo. For those that don't know, U of W is sort of like Canada's version of MIT in that it's a university that is known for math, engineering, computer science etc.

What they have is incredible and funny. It's being made for students to scan their papers before they submit them, and because its target audience is students, the feedback it gives is really funny. I've dubbed it the 'Snarky AI detector' because it always says the funniest shit.

I don't know what the timeline is for that going public, or if it will actually go public, but right now I have a friend who is a librarian at a local college, and he's been given access to it as he's part of the stress-testing team. Its accuracy is outstanding.

And finally - and I realize how unconvincing this will sound to a lot of people, and few would accept it as being grounds to ban someone, especially a paid account - but the honest truth is that we read so many AI stories, a lot of us can tell just by reading them. We don't need fancy detectors, the AI tells come through in the writing. When you know what to look for, it's easy to spot and hard to ignore. I don't want to name or list things publicly, but these things are present in all AI stories, even ones that have been heavily edited by a human. The AI 'imprint' runs much deeper than most people realize, so just removing em dashes and other common features of AI writing doesn't actually hide anything from us.

I won't say what, but there are 3 things that I can look for, and if all three are present in a story, there's an 80+% chance (and I'm being generous, it's probabbly a 99% chance) the story was AI-written or AI-assisted.

And I keep saying this, but it's true - people who think that they're getting away with it because we're currently publishing those stories aren't fooling us. We're just talking a conservative approach to dealing with the issue.

You are FAR better off writing your own stories, developing your own skills, and building a following slowly over time, than using AI to leap ahead and then letting down your readers when they come to realize that you didn't actually write your own stories.

Quote by Mandapanda2025

It's funny, but one I have written is coming up in Grammarly as AI. Maybe because I used AI to frame an outline?

As AC said, don’t use AI for any part of your writing process. We’re not using Grammarly to scan for AI, we have other methods that I won’t discuss publicly - but we can tell who is using AI and to what degree (ie a fully written AI story or one that’s been AI written and heavily edited, ones that were written with AI assistance etc). Anyone who thinks they’re sneaking one past us because we’ve published their story is sadly mistaken.

My advice to you - and everyone else - is to embrace being an amateur writer. We all started somewhere. Use your time here on Lush to develop your skills over time - you will get better, I promise. And you’ll get lots of help and feedback from the mods and the community along the way.

I can’t tell you how much I’d rather mod a story that is human written that needs some help - even a lot of help - vs modding an AI story.

The faux polish of AI writing is nauseating to read. When you’re sometimes reading 15 stories a day and 10 of them have the same AI voice, cadence, writing patterns, when we see the same words and phrases being used over and over again, week after week, month after month… we (at least some of us) get to a point where we can’t read them any more and they sit in the queue.

Humans are imperfect and messy, let your stories be the same! I promise that as you develop your own voice, your own style, your own way of expressing things you’re going to gain a following of readers who love your work. It’ll take time, but it’s SO worth it!

Quote by Shyexhibitionist
How they find the time, or imagination to write thousands of words in such a short space of time is beyond me.

We have a lot of prolific writers here who have been doing it for years, they amaze me.

But…a lot of the people who are writing thousands of words every few days are using AI. We know who they are

Best advice (IMO - nothing 'official' here!):

1. Don't submit super-long stories. I mostly mod on my lunch break, so I automatically skip over anything that's over 3000 or so words. When I have time to mod in the evening, and the queue is backed up, I'm going to mod 3 stories that are 3-4k words over 1 that's 10k.

2. Proofread your stories before you submit them. Every one we send back means that it's being modded at least twice, which slows down the verification times for everyone. Grammarly is free, use it

3. Don't flood the queue. When we see the same authors submitting one story after another, whether it's conscious or not, we (or at least I) tend to skip over you to give some other writers a chance.

4. Don't use AI. Trust us, we know when you do. Most of them are horrible to read, and when you're reading dozens (or more) stories a week, it becomes painful to read yet another AI story. At least a few of us will always prioritize a human-written story over an AI story.

Want the best turnaround time? Aim for stories that are under 4000k (break larger stories into multiple parts!), proofread your stories before you submit them, give yourself 4-5 days (even a week!) between submissions, and write them yourself.

Quote by Mandapanda2025

I've done a ton of stories, never published, but most are.. Eh in my own opinion. I know my first submission is going to get rejects, primarily because i didn't proof it enough.

I've created the following flow-

Write

Word spell/grammar check

run it through Grammarly

read it.

listen to it through a text to speech

Like others, i don't really outline. Maybe I should. If I block I do something else then circle back

My two cents...

Don't fear rejection. When we send a story back to a writer, we give feedback and explain why. No one is going to say "this is horrible, you suck!" We're going to say, "You're on the right track, but try to focus on these areas..." IMO that feedback is invaluable to new writers. When we first start out, we don't know what we don't know, so getting insight from a more experienced writer can be a huge help. It was for me early on, and still is.

As for workflow...

I almost always have an outline, but that doesn't mean that I follow it once I start writing (I find that when I start writing characters they sometimes develop their own voice and personality, which doesn't always align with my original intention). Having said that, I think you should have some idea of what the story is going to be about and a general direction to follow before you start writing.

Odds are something inspired you to write that particular story, so use the story to tell the readers what you want to say about that inspiration.

9/10 times, I start with a picture. Something about a picture grabs my attention, and I start thinking, "Who is this person?" "Where is this place?" "What's going on here?" and the idea for the story comes from answering those questions.

My writing process isn't efficient, so I don't recommend it, but I usually write at least 4 drafts (often 5 or 6!) of a story before I feel like I got it right. I think if I had better workflow and planning, I could cut that back to 2 or 3 drafts. I know a few writers here who do a single draft, followed by careful editing, and they're good to go.

Finally, if a story isn't working, don't force it. Put it aside and work on something new. Eventually, you'll figure out why the original story wasn't working and you can revisit it. I have a bunch of published stories that I started but didn't finish until months later.

Quote by Shyexhibitionist
How on earth can you tell what is humanly penned?

I don't want to tip my hand with a full explanation, but I can recognize most AI stories, most of the time, just by reading a few sentences. Some people go to some lengths to edit and cover up the obvious AI tells, but they can't hide the underlying... mechanics... of an AI-crafted story. Once you learn to recognize the 'scaffolding' of an AI story, they become easy to spot - and hard to hide.

Most people don't bother trying to hide it, and it's super obvious. The ones that try to hide it, can't really. At best, they leave me wondering if it's an AI story that's been heavily edited by a human, or a human-written story that's been polished/edited by AI. No matter which is true, I can still see AI fingerprints all over the place.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

Ah yes, moderator maths. When you spend an hour modding 5x 3K stories, and 7x 8K stories are in there to replace them by the time you're done. Grrr...

That was definitely the case yesterday. I was on limited time (lunch break) so I was focused on shorter stories and the ones that took their place in the queue were longer ones.

Just to give some idea of what's happening now...yesterday, during my lunch break I modded five stories. By the end of my lunch, the total number of stories in the queue hadn't changed because 5 (or more?) stories were added during that same time.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Turns on big screen tv to Vikings/Bears

I need the Vikings (who I don’t normally watch) to win to win my parlay. So… :worship:

I’d like a hot chocolate with loads of minis, please

I'm never gonna watch a NFL game because -ducks and takes cover- I think it's dreadfully boring (and this is coming from a huge soccer fan!), but Buffalo is the closest team to Toronto so I'm an extremely half-hearted Bills fan.

Quote by techgoddess

Well deserved!! Congrats! 😘

Thank you, as always

Quote by Shyexhibitionist

I’ve been following this thread. I’m aware there is a backlog and I appreciate the need for patience. I’d like to ask a question. Please excuse me if it’s been asked before and I’ve missed it.

My story was assigned three days ago to a moderator. I looked this morning and the status has reverted back to being reviewed. Does that mean my story goes back to the end of the queue?

Thanks.

No, it will still go with the other stories that had the same submission date. So looking at the queue, your story is with the other ones that were submitted on July 19th.

Quote by wxt55uk

Thank you, dronette56, for sharing this. 😊 However, I have one question made because of the above point...

Is there a way authors can know how long the current approval times are?

Not really, no. There are too many variables. It depends on how many stories are in the queue, how long the stories in the queue are, the availability of the mods etc. There are often times when we're modding a story and come across a situation (in terms of story content, for example) where we need to ask other mods for guidance and need to wait to hear back from them etc.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

In my opinion rejected stories waste everyone’s time and should rarely happen. We all can read the site rules, so let’s submit stories that follow them. We can all run spell and grammar checks before submitting, right?

And Her Royal Spriteness has told us all more than once that this is a sex site, so submit something with sex in it. ;)

I don’t think it’s just up to the mods to keep wait times down. It’s up to the authors, too.

Take AI-written stories elsewhere, please! The mods know who you are! Not fair to steal queue spots from the authors who pour their heart, soul, sweat, and tears into their stories.

Everything here times 1000

Quote by Shyexhibitionist

That's really interesting to know. I did not know about AI stories. I thought every story was a real author. Thanks for all the wo you and the other Moderators do. I'm sure it is a thankless task at times. Patience is not a virtue it seems while waiting for your story to be published. I'm aware ratings and numbers matter to many. Just don't get too hung up on it.

AI and AI-assisted stories are unfortunately common. People think they're getting away with it because those stories are currently being published, but we're aware of the situation and keeping an eye on it. I don't want to tip my hand to what's going on behind the scenes, but anyone who thinks they're fooling us is sadly mistaken.

Quote by Vampire_vixen

I think it's limit one on the queue at a time. When I started writing, I posted a second story quickly and was gently spanked.

One per week is about the max. My last 2 stories (3k words-ish) took several days for approval or rejection. In the past, I've had micro and poetry approved in hours.

Length of story and category makes a big difference I would think.

Yes, only one story in the queue at a time.

The length of the story can be an issue. I often mod stories when I'm on my lunch break so I look for a couple of 1500k-ish stories. If there's an 8k word story sitting there, it might sit there for a bit because of the time commitment (we're all volunteers!), and when the queue is backed up, it usually makes more sense to do four 2k stories in that same time. That's how I approach it, other mods might have an entirely different way of doing things.

I don't think the category matters too much. I have the ' ' filter turned on, so I don't see any of those stories, but other than that, it doesn't really matter to me. I'd much rather read an honestly written story in a category that I don't enjoy at all over an AI-written story in a category I love. If anything, for me personally speaking for myself and not the mod team, AI written stories go right to the bottom of my list of stories to mod.

Quote by BNW

Congrats on the EP

Thank you!

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Congratulations! An outstanding story for the SciFi category! I hope your story leads others to write and read SciFi here!

Thank you!

Thank you so much, I'm kinda speechless because this wasn't at all expected, but thank you! Given the quality of some of the writing here, it really is an honour and it feels great to be recognized... especially for a story like this with such an important issue (consent) being at the heart of it.

Thank you for the nomination, and to the panel voting on it

Quote by MissVixen

Twice now my story has been assigned to a moderator only to end up back in the queue after 3 days with no explanation

I know you all are busy but is an explanation to much to ask for?

I don't recall if your story was one of them, but one of those occasions might have been my fault. I added a couple of stories to my modding queue late Thursday night because I had a half day of work on Friday and the weekend free - or so I thought. My schedule changed and it wasn't until late Sunday night that I realized that I wouldn't be able to get to them so I released them back to the main queue for someone else to grab. If one of those stories was yours, sorry, if not I'm sorry to whoever wrote them.

This is my most recent story. I'm a new-ish writer (for fiction) and I've avoided promoting anything I've done before, but the early reaction to my most recent story has been positive and given me the courage to try to draw some eyeballs to it

I welcome (and request!) all feedback, including criticisms (be kind, but honest!) because I'm genuinely looking for ways to improve, and that includes figuring out what elements people respond to and which don't resonate at all.

It's a long story (8000 words!) so I want to thank anyone in advance who carves out a part of their day to read it. Thank you!

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/first-time/i-wont-forget-you

Thank you. That's why I was asking. I vaguely remembered a 'Hide' option, and I was wondering if I was missing it somehow. Thanks for the reply!

Is it possible to change the status of a published story to make it private/delist it so it can't be seen and won't appear in searches? If it is possible, is it a hassle to re-list it?

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

The final URL remains the same after publication. The story is just pulled temporarily off the site while the changes are being moderated. All sorted for you now. An excellent story.

Thank you, for the help and the kind words

Well, for better or worse, I got it down to *just* under 4000 words. To be honest, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, it was just a challenge for a new writer (this was my first shot at writing fiction!) to write with restraint, but maybe that's a good skill to learn early

Here it is, all feedback is welcomed...I say this sincerely, as someone who is dipping his toes into writing fiction for the first time I do want to hear what people think worked, and what didn't. I won't be offended by constructive feedback - I want it :)

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/interracial/the-island-between-us

Edit: I spotted a couple of little mistakes and had to re-submit it after making the corrections, I'm not sure if the link above will still be correct once the edits are approved. I'll update it ASAP if needed.

Quote by Piquet

Lush Gospel Truth #1 You'll get more readers at 4K than you will at 7+K.

I don't doubt that, but it's already not the story I intended it to be. This is my first shot at writing pure fiction. All of my other stories are based on real-life experiences, so the stories come easily. They're also all part of either a 9 or 10 multipart story where each chapter averages about 5000 words. For me to tell a single story in just 4000...it's a challenge

4000 words? No problem!

Looks at current word count : 7213

Edits..more edits...sections gutted....5621

More edits, remove another section...4836

Edit, reword things, look for brevity...4672

Be merciless, let go of treasured passages, drop subtext that gives the story meaning...4272.

4272 words...left with a story that no longer feels what it was meant to be, motivations are half-sketched, events don't happen naturally, only because they must...not sure if I can cut this down to 4271 words, much less 4000