Found an old London gangster trilogy that I started, what, five or six years ago... maybe longer... as a collab with the amazing tams_back_yay. Honestly, if you've never read her work, you owe it to yourself to do so.

She abruptly disappeared off Lush and I sincerely hope she's okay because she's an amazing talent and a lovely person.

Anyway, we wrote 80% of it before she vanished, and had planned the rest in detail. I pecked away at it over the intervening years, but couldn't make the ending zing or finish the character arcs to my satisfaction. I also secretly hoped she might pop in and help me finish it one day.

Having picked it up again yesterday and tinkering, I finally think I'm closing in on something I like. Hopefully that means I'll be able to publish it soon, but I reserve the right to take longer.

Quote by wxt55uk
Is it possible for us authors to find out which moderator approved your old story

Not easily, sadly. It depends how long ago it was. You can scroll back through your messages to mods and try to find it in the conversation, and clicking the "your recent story" links to find the one you're after, but it's hit and miss. If it's older than a few months, the message may have been auto deleted unless you starred it.

It kind of depends on how different it's going to be. As wxt55uk says, if you're tidying it up for grammar or tightening a few things or changing the odd character detail to avoid retconning yourself in later chapters, that's ripe for just editing the original and leaving a note for the mods when you resubmit it. We do have a View Changes feature, but it's temperamental.

If, however, you're completely rebuilding it, it's probably better as a new submission, and leave a forwarding note on the old one with mention of the new chapter for anyone who stumbles across it (not sure links work in the Author Note field, I haven't tried).

Deleting the original is up to you, and will lose your views/comments, as mentioned above. Severely editing a piece with comments on does have the potential to invalidate comments that referred to older content, which could be confusing.

Mods have no obligation to reapprove old work if it's rewritten, or if it's resubbed after being deleted. We have the same amount of work to do to reapprove a heavily edited piece compared with reading a completely new piece, so you might reach out to the original mod(s) first and ask if they'd mind. That might steer your decision over which approach to take.

Quote by Georgia_27_8

A) Deliberate development: developing/getting to know character personalities before you start writing.

B) Organic development: let them develop naturally as the story progresses.

I usually approach it as a mashup of these two. If I'm basing a story off an image, it'll be primarily (B).

If maybe a killer line or two hit me, or I get a flash of inspiration around a particular character I want to write an arc for, I might think about how they act or speak so I can demonstrate their values (show, instead of tell). That usually generates a few story beats or key points that I'll scribble down, then use (B) to join them up.

Quote by HairyLarry
I read other material on this site and I realize how much of it sounds the same, whether written by AI or modified by AI editors.

For the last 6 months or so, we have been actively rejecting stories that use AI generators or assistance. Before that, we were in the "monitoring phase" learning to identify them and spot exactly the patterns you mention.

We knew about them, but let those stories through at the time. So those are more than likely the ones you're seeing with repetitive phrasing.

Quote by KimmiBeGood
Now, you get the spanking!

Yes, Sue-Ellen. Of course.

Quote by wxt55uk
Then he/she woke up, and it was all an erotic dream

Ha. Don't get any ideas. We're not above issuing spankings for lame Dallas-style endings.

As Chet says, if you scale your image down to the recommended 768x1200 prior to upload, there's fewer bytes to wrangle. If you had a huge image, you may have been hitting the script timeout before the image fully uploaded and was processed.

Some good ideas here. One by one...

Quote by Chet_Morton
Arrange the list of existing cover photos with the newest cover at the top of the list instead of the bottom,

I second this. It's so annoying having to scroll to the bottom of the story covers, type in the number of the final page it shows, submit, wait for it to repopulate, then scroll to the end, just to find the most recent.

Quote by culohombre
the album owner had a place to write a brief remark or description

Good suggestion. An album description seems useful. I would further this by asking for an optional Story Series description field too.

Quote by culohombre
it would be neat if each album had a place for comments on an entire album (from viewers), as well as “Like” and “Favorite.”

Not sure where these comments/likes would "hang" in terms of UI. The endless scroll of images in an album means the comments can't go at the bottom or you'd rarely reach them, and if they're at the top, you'd need to scroll past them all to get to the pics. I don't think this is viable.

Quote by culohombre
album creators had the ability to REPLACE photo... Related to that, I have never been able to re-sequence my uploaded photos

If there was the ability to drag and drop to reorder images, that might mitigate the need to replace one. There's also the issue that comments are related to an image, so if you swap out a photo of a flogging for one of a facial, the comments might not make sense any more. I know it's unlikely someone would swap a completely different image, but the possibility exists.

Reordering images is, however, difficult because of the silly, endless scrolling, load... wait.... load... wait nature of the albums.

Whoever championed the awful endless scroll style pages (Facebook, I'm looking at you) needs jettisoning into the sun. Nothing wrong with fixed pagination + lazy load. Much faster, more deterministic, easier to reach later images when some network issues rises, less memory intensive as the page goes on (especially for gifs and videos), the benefits mount up. Endless scroll is the wrong UX choice for albums.

Quote by culohombre
it would be nice if we received a message/notification that a story has actually been assigned to a moderator. That way, we authors know when an approval or return for improvements status is imminent.

Not gonna happen. Sometimes we click into a story and have to back out for whatever reason, or reassign it. Sometimes we need to discuss it at length before a decision is made. It could be locked for days while we consider something, so there's no guarantee a decision is imminent. It would just give a false sense of what's going on.

Quote by Chet_Morton
it could fall flat with anyone under age 45

I'm a fossil on the wrong side of that cut-off, and remember the old text adventures. Audience of 1 guaranteed.

Thanks, Carlton, yeah add as many as you recall, whenever. Seinfeld is quite a crazy source of inspiration for a title of an erotica story. Love it.

As an author, there are a tonne of sources that fuel story ideas; most of them obvious. Sometimes it's a photo or video that demands I tell the story around it. Other times, a what-if scenario might pop in my head and I'll go with it.

But occasionally, completely unrelated or external factors drive me to a story. For example, my latest piece, Nightingale, was entirely spawned from watching a porn clip. But not the clip itself. Before it started, the bold advert claimed: "This AI slut will make you cum in 45 seconds" and my immediate thought was, "That sounds boring. No build-up, no excitement."

My second thought was: "But what if that's all there was? Everyone addicted to instant orgasms, finished in under a minute."

And so, the story grew from that one moment.

I'm curious: what random sparks from unexpected places have you had that led to a story?

Last sex? You expect me to remember that far back? 🤣

After throwing my hand in, earlier than I normally would, I'm working my way through the entries so far. Some wildly inventive approaches to the competition theme. Looking forward to more landing.

Quote by Ensorceled
My first story for the comp has folded like a cheap unbrella

I feel for ya, but I'm kinda glad it's not just me. I opened mine, a few spokes tore the canvas, then a gale force gust blew it inside out. Dammit.

rummages for the roll of story gaffer tape

Quote by TammyTrueheart
[Fanfic] the site's rules don't allow me to publish it here, at least... until they lighten up the restrictions.

I wouldn't hold your breath. You'll be waiting a long time.

Quote by joe71

I take this to mean a good acid trip, or possibly even a dream, could comply with the rules.

If your characters are in an alternative mental state, perhaps brought on by taking a drug that alters their reality, then sure, it'll probably fit the theme. Dunno. Depends.

Maybe they discover on the trip that the world we live in (or the virtual one they visit) isn't real and is projected onto the back of a ham sandwich.

Quote by deviantsusie
Hmmm if “many entertain the theory that we exist in a computer-generated simulation” then isn’t A I writing all the stories anyway?

Can't fault your logic. The site will be shut down by morning for breaking its own rules. That said...

Quote by deviantsusie
What I came here to ask was “ does it have to be a computer simulation?”

... in the likely event the site remains functional, no. Interpret "simulation" however you want. Wow the judges with creativity.

From the blurb:

This competition should feature your characters in some sort of simulation, virtual or augmented reality.

Doesn't necessarily specify it's computer generated. So if you can come up with some other plot angle, go for it. AR, for example, doesn't have to be simulated. It's just digital info overlaid on what we see and touch.

Quote by Road_Runner
Does this fall under the AI banner?

Not if you solely use it for grammar/punctuation. If you allow it to massage / reword anything to "improve" your work, that's where you'd run afoul (and trust me, it won't improve it).

Quote by Piquet
'Simulation' has been a sci-fi staple since the 1950s.

Indeed. I enjoyed The Thirteenth Floor in that regard. Great idea, imo, if a little clunky. My wife (a sci-fi fan) hated it. Mind you, she hated Cypher too, which I loved.

Still not sure I can manipulate this sci-fi piece I'd started and make it have a decent simulation angle, but I'm still trying. Might work out with another week or so of hard editing. Or it might not, and I'll be back to a blank page.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith
as I work on an apocalyptic sci-fi piece

And now after today's announcement of the Simulation competition, I'm wondering if I can rework this part-written story to fit the theme. Hmmmm 🤔

Will see how it goes. If it doesn't work I'll write something different for the comp.

After my recent flurry of submissions, I've slowed down a little as I work on an apocalyptic sci-fi piece that I hope is both tense and sexy. It's inspired in part by Ensorceled's recent piece Fuck, Marry, Kill (go read it now).

I've got a way to go to wrench it into the shape I want, as it doesn't yet have the depth I'm after.

gets out spanner

I'll be in the toolshed...

Quote by Virginjanet
Can you, hand on heart, say that all or even the majority of stories published already on Lush are written to the highest standard of English?

Nowhere does the site state that's the stated goal. The goal is to have a higher standard than other sites, that just let almost anything through.

If I recall, your story was returned primarily for dialogue formatting (I may be wrong) which is not even subjective. It's a tried and tested formula, adopted from centuries of writing, so readers can follow the story easily through convention. Depending on how much of a particular issue is in a story, the mod may either tweak it or (usually if there's a lot in the story) return it.

The more time authors take to prepare their work to a reasonable standard, the less work moderators need to do to fix/return it, the shorter the queue gets from resubmissions, and the faster we can get through the volume.

Quote by TammyTrueheart
Use AI to screen the stories

No. We're trying to keep AI stories off the site, not have it wave its mates through. Been there, tried that.

Wait, or don't. The choice is yours.

Quote by Virginjanet
perfect prose is demanded as a prerequisite

That's a little harsh. We don't expect perfection, but basic grammar rules should be followed (for example, dialogue formatting) because it helps readers understand your work. Without it, confusion occurs, which takes people away from the story.

We're more than happy to work with authors who require assistance reaching a minimum standard that conveys the story clearly, but sadly, with the volume of works that are submitted here daily, we don't have the resources to edit them for you.

Is the same person the subject of two perspectives, or is it two characters told from two different viewpoints? The latter is easier, usually with delineation to indicate whose story you are "in" at any point during the storytelling process. Not sure how I'd approach the former.

Struggling to think of an example where I've tried either, probably because it's a tall order.

I think the advice of taking a break between each perspective seems solid.

Thank you all for the kind sentiments. I'm glad to be here and happy that my work is appreciated.

Quote by techgoddess

the non-existent Double Omnium.

Nice one! I think DeviantSusie is closing in on it too. Shame there's no badge for it.

I didn't realize it was so many either! I've just been chipping away at omnium and a few other stories slotted themselves in between. Seem to have had an inspiration drive, I guess, which makes up for the comparatively barren last year.

Wow, a lot's happened since my last post in January. I've added another 25 stories to my roster (including a bunch of collaborations with talented writers here), earned the Omnium badge for having one story in every category, and I'm closing in on 1,000 followers. About 12 or so to go. That's blooming amazing, given I'm just a li'l ol' writer of smut.

Thank you to everyone who has supported my, sometimes experimental, writing as I hopefully continue to improve. Every comment, message, Like/Favourite means so much to me, and I love hearing about how my work makes you feel.

So please, don't be shy. If you like my stories, or those of any author who works tirelessly for free to bring the finest collection of erotica on the internet, on this friendly site, please drop a note of thanks in some way, either publicly or via DM. Authors love to know their work is appreciated and made people hot in all the right places.

Thanks again, and happy reading.