“Where’s my sentence?!”
One Sentence has gotten quite popular. In fact, a lot more popular, a lot more quickly than I expected. Combine that with the mistake of launching such a site shortly before the birth of one’s first child and you’re left with about 1,000 submissions waiting to be approved.
That said, I don’t regret the decision to moderate all submissions. If I left this open as a free-for-all, I know I wouldn’t be happy with the site at this moment (believe me, I’ve seen some terrible submissions). A site like this runs the risk of becoming stale very quickly with a lot of thematically similar stories, so I want to keep it high-quality.
I’ve gotten a number of e-mails asking, “Where’s my submission? I submitted it, like, four seconds ago! Where is it?” If your story hasn’t appeared here, it’s for one of the following reasons:
- I just haven’t gotten to it. This is the most likely reason for reasons stated above. Hang in there. You’ll get an e-mail if your submission is accepted.
- Not one sentence. You’d think that because of the name of the site, people might realize that submitting, say, two sentences would be frowned upon. A few don’t, it seems.
- A paragraph masquerading as a sentence. This usually happens when a submitter simply replaces all periods with semicolons, has a long string of phrases connected by “and,” or simply leaves out periods altogether without replacing them with anything. Your sentence may be gramatically correct, but if it’s five lines long, it’s not keeping with the original spirit of the site.
- Nonsense. This includes things I can’t make out as well as stupid stories that clearly have no basis in reality. Plus, if there are crazy misspellings or grammatical errors, I will pass it by. I don’t have time to edit everything, so think before you submit.
- Played out theme. This is starting to happen more now that there have been more than 1,000 submissions. I really don’t want to include 50 variations of “I thought I loved him/her, but then realized I didn’t” unless it’s presented in a unique way. Still, I’m pretty lenient here.
- Not a story about a life event. This one’s the trickiest and one that I haven’t really cracked down on thusfar, but probably will soon. The original intention of the site was to get people to submit a one sentence story about a particular event in their life. While most people do this, a lot of the stuff that’s come in reminds me of what I see in the PostSecret project. As an example of what I wouldn’t want: “I’m in love with someone who doesn’t know.” That’s more of a confession than a story about an actual event. So, to flip that into something more appropriate for this site, something like, “I snapped out of my daydream, where I was planning our wedding before I had even spoken a word to him.” Keep it true, keep it interesting.
Note that if you get a screen that your submission was “rejected” it may have been so because of an anti-spam measure I built in. If you have a legitimate entry that’s rejected, e-mail me through the contact form and include all of the information exactly as you entered it.
I was hoping I wouldn’t have to get so verbose on a site whose theme is brevity, but I’ve gotten the same questions enough times that I figured it was time to write a proper post about the matter.
One last thing — I’m not necessarily reviewing submissions in the order they came in. I’m sporadic that way.
Now, back to the sentences.
October 12th, 2006 at 1:42 am
Hey Congrats!! I remember when my son was born- I went from feeling like I was being pressure cooked by reality to complete clarity and sense of direction, just from seeing him. Of course the adrenalin and endorphines in my system, brought on by my GF having amost bitten through my shoulder during birth, didnt hurt hurt either :)
January 1st, 2007 at 9:59 pm
I was thrilled when I heard the publishers of my faovirte site was celebrating the birth of their newborn child :)
January 14th, 2007 at 12:45 am
The older I get, the more I feel a need for peace. I have a high hope that the children of tomorrow, find the peace in there life that I have found in mind.
February 12th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
[...] People continue to write to ask “Where’s my sentence?” Sometimes, they even submit sentences about it. In addition to my original list, let me add two more things that will keep your sentence from being published: [...]
May 26th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
What a great idea! WHy not a page for the worst “one sentence” entries?
June 21st, 2007 at 9:07 am
I submitted just now my first sentence to what I think might be my new favorite website since the advent of this Interweb, but even more recently came to understand that posts should be more specific than that to which I’d devoted some fifteen of my minutes. The management can expect several more.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:09 am
…and even more recently that the supposed management had lately become a father and could not be expected to read my sentence for what might be several years. Still, I envy him.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:25 am
Hah!
Hopefully it won’t take me several years, although with the amount of submissions that have been flowing in since the Dooce link, it very well could end up being that way! :)
July 17th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Oops - I’m an idiot & didn’t read this first. I thought you didn’t post my sentence because I typed “1″ instead of “one”. Sorry for being a repeat-poster.
August 18th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Talk about a quick course in writing for the web–wow! Well, okay no one was actually talking about it. This is a great idea, wish I had thought of it. God bless the new addition to your family.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:39 am
This is such a brilliant site, Inspiration doesn’t need to take forever. One of my favorite poems is one sentence long by Jewel “It has been to long of being with, to now suddenly be without” Thankyou for giving peoples stories a voice.
Ooh, and
Congratulations on your new child, anyone who can create such a brilliant site is going to make the best parent :)
August 29th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I just discovered this site thanks to Stumble. I love it. I submitted my first sentence before reading this & realize now that mine might be considered a confession. Ah well. I hope it’s posted anyway bc it really is a life altering thing that I did not expect. Thanks for this site. It’s really rather neat!
October 19th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
have fun with that baby…they grow up so fast.
November 24th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
I agree with your reasons for not publishing some of the stories submitted. I hope you like mine. I think it’s a funny anecdote of my life when I was five.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:12 am
#6
OMG! 4RLZ-ROFL! OUCH!
November 30th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
“All you have to do is write one true sentence.
Write the truest sentence you know.” - Ernest Hemingway
December 12th, 2007 at 4:26 am
i wish you could tell me if my story wasn’t published. hahaha, just tell me. (: i really wanted to write something about ‘’six more, till the rain comes” cos the sentence by itself is soo abstract. so yea, just tell me please(:
February 25th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I love this site and just spent an hour reading one sentences stories, which is likely the most stories I’ve ever read in one hour. I got turned onto this site by Rosina Lippi’s web log and I thank her for it. And thank you for such a great site.
Congratulations on the new addition to your family although i think they might have grown a little since you wrote that.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
eye just figured “one” the lowercase letters was spelt incorrectly.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:58 am
though i do understand and am completely fine with the idea of my sentence not being able to be published it does irk me some to see multiple sentences published by the same person. especially the authors with multiple sentences published in a row.
April 26th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Have you ever considered getting some other people to help you moderate the sentences?
May 21st, 2008 at 4:48 pm
If I believed in awards this site would win the best one.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Wow, what a beautifully inspiring website to a blocked writer!
June 11th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I am merely hopeful that someone may read something I felt better for writing.
July 16th, 2008 at 2:53 am
I’ve been looking for a simple site like this one for a while. I’m just a kid who like’s to write and has neither the time nor patience to create big, long masterpieces, so this place is perfect!
My writing has been deteriorating ever since summer started, but I definitely can practice here!
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I like the idea of repurposing the rejected sentences for consumption elsewhere. What about something like “thisisnotonesentence.org” ?
July 29th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I love this website! My friend found it on stumble and forwarded it on to me. I don’t think my poor managers like it nearly as much seeing as how I haven’t done an ounce of work for the past six hours. I’m addicted to how gorgeous everyones writing is and it makes me want to start writing again. Well done!
August 26th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
This was not as easy as the idea of one simple sentence would infer. I dug deep for mine. Matter of fact, it is the first time I went public with it. Up to now, only family and very close friends know what went down. And very few of them know why. Sometimes I think I am not one of the few.
Great site.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
I stumbled across this and am addicted…I love reading these sentences and now try to sum up everything in one sentence, but I usually don’t submit them. My life is far to boring haha. Congratulations on the baby :D Babies can be neat sometimes….cept after they digest Heehee.
I’ve nearly read all the old sentences :( I won’t have anything to read until new ones come!!!! Ack!
Excited :D