Story does not meet the quality standards.

“Your story has NOT been approved” we often see this if our story and the line. I recently got this four times for the same story:

“Your story You know what's scary? Xenophobia has not been approved, and will require the following edits before we can publish it on Vocal:

Story does not meet the quality standards.

After reviewing Vocal's Community Guidelines and updating your draft, you may resubmit your story.”

That told me nothing about the reason for rejection , and leaves the writer guessing what the problem actually is. So what could the actual problem be?

First of all check your grammar and punctuation. General editors have this built it , but some miss things and some etors pick up unexpected errors . I sometimes compose speaking into Google Docs. In the beginning I tried a direct upload and it was rejected a few times then looking at it I realised it actually was rubbish. But if you dictate you will need a severe edit afterwards to get your story into shape.

I have improved this method for myself by including manual paragraphs , which makes after dictation editing significantly easier. Add on tools like Grammarly acn also help with getting your text correct and ready.

Next , Links can be a pain , so when you add a link always check it with the little arrow at the end of the entry box. The other thing there can sometimes be blank links , usually after the end of your writing.

When using the editor always make sure that your last word is the last word in the article and there are no trailing spaces.

Recently I had one important piece rejected four times with the “Story does not meet the quality standards” . First of all I thought it was the title which I had taken from a recent Top Story that sounded interesting but just turned out to be a run of the mill playlist..

It came back unapproved so I removed some blank lines , compacted it , checked for punctuation and grammatical errors , all looked fine so I resubmitted.

Next time I was getting slightly annoyed. I have submitted pieces that have been approved with spelling and grammatical errors and even broken links but they weren't letting this through.

I went back to the Community Guidelines and to see what I could be missing. I saw a reason for rejection reason was

Not Written In English

At this time, Vocal is an English-only platform. Any content in a different language should have a full English translation provided.

I had three Greek words with English explanations and wondered if that could be the cause of the issue. I removed the words and edited it to make sense after the removal, submitted and that then passed.

The thing is I am still not sure that was the actual problem , because I have used foreign words before and one of my posts awaiting publication has a lot of German phrases repeated throughout , plus copyrighted but acknowledged text , so it is ripe for rejection but I really do want to get it published as , too me, it is very important.

I was hoping to cover more in this but it is difficult to cover , what is effectively, the unexpected.

I have actually resubmitted without change and been approved , I have added a blank line and then been reapproved , and sometimes I have just given up. Don’t be afraid to be beaten , as long as you pick up your pen and start again.

Use every tool you have , maybe get a friend to proofread and edit the piece before submission, follow the Community Guidelines and keep going,