Open Novella Journal 2024

This Isn't New

To quote...

"We reserve the right to refuse contest entries that we feel do not meet the required criteria or contain potentially triggering material. We are not obliged to give feedback related to entries, and any given is at our discretion."

I came across someone claiming this is a new "updated" version of the ONC guideline despite the first part being in there for a few years now and the last part being added because they had too many people demanding a response as to why their stories didn't make it through.

It's bothering me because this person is claiming specific profiles are no longer affiliated with the ambassador program when they actually are, as they didn't pay attention to whether the profile actually announced they were no longer affiliated or if they were restructuring their profile. Still, they also brought up the change in the age of consent, which certain people aren't happy with.

It's kind of hard to sympathize with the people who aren't happy with the change, though, when what they're insisting happen is they be allowed to write and post content describing sex involving one or more characters that are minors, rather than, you know, implying it happened which is actually still allowed.

Of course, in saying this, just because the first part is quoted doesn't mean it's the first part that resulted in their story getting nixed. It's just the copy pasta they tell everyone, regardless of whether it is because of the first issue, or because the person's score fell below the threshold, and--

Honestly, I'd argue it's the latter as a quick glance at the work and one of the first thing I found was a "to be" verb issue, but there is no telling how many other similar issues there are in there.

Which, once I finish my entries, I am planning, if I remember, to go over Mark Twain's rules of writing, to go into some of the reasons someone might score low because there are some people who I think haven't looked at their writing objectively, or the stories they're reading for ONC objectively. One of the other complainers, for example, doesn't have a reading list for any of the stories they've read for ONC available, but a quick look at their list revealed a rather notorious retooled fanfic which -- think Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, those kind of issues.