Royal Road is a website often advertised to writers and men as a bastion and citadel of online hosting for male-interest-themed stories and genres, which has a strange set of rules and regulations. Have all the fun you want with harems, adult themes, overt sexual content, but mention the “C-Word” (cough cough). And you could get the red flag and ban hammer dropped over your work. Don’t you worry if you dive into the full scope of gore, sexual violence in the deepest sense, wanton violence, or literally have orgy scenes, but beware saying the dreaded C-word and the trouble it will bring. What is this c-word you may ask…it isn’t the one you think it is, but merely the mention of COVID.
Mention that and BOOM! Automatic review placement on your story submission.
Writing all throughout the ages has certain rules. Sometimes those rules are a guardrail of grammar, and at other times, they are a rule put in place by a publishing house. “Don’t critique gay culture, don’t question non-Christian religions, make all of your men lackluster slobs or wife beaters shackling the women in their lives from experiencing the truth of their emancipation.” We know the rules, even when they aren’t stated. We feel them in the air and constantly through the use of our lexicons and ability to paint landscapes or scenes with the force of our imagination; in collective efforts with you, the reader, we combat and contest these boundaries.
I personally enjoy testing these boundaries because that is what allows us to grow as people: the questioning of what is not questioned. Such is why I enjoy satire, and humor and laughter are often the first stage to the transformation of thought, as we disarm in our mind what previously was sacred or beyond our scope of reason. Such was a goal in a story I wrote last year, “Entirely Asinine,” dealing with an aged actor who, after years of being an actor, doesn’t understand that he was only ever an actor and not actually a force against crime.
This year, I wanted to dive into the quandary of the insane nature and bureaucratic structure of Corporate America, and their reliance upon in-house company policy manuals as though they are the Bible of our age. What would happen if, in this sacred document of “X company,” there was a typo in a rather unfortunate place for the sake of an employee in need of Deux Ex Machina?
Thus, the idea for my story “Slay Queen” was born. With the intent to host chapters on Royal Road and then eventually fully independently publish on amazon after completion and editing. The story uses the recent history of COVID as a way to set the plot up, by way of the odd emergence of commonplace working from home, and the very well-known debacles of people’s attire or lack thereof during ZOOM meetings.
First chapter, second chapter third chapter flew through my fingers as though my hands danced upon the keyboard with the rapidity of an EDM festival after my third red-bull and vodka. Nothing could cease the pace and thunder of the keys beneath my relaxed and tamed fingers. Call me a fencer, for my strike on this weary keyboard is both relentless and accurate; though instead of holding one rapier, I have the dexterity to wield 10. And then…
RED FLAG
The submission of my first chapter, the creation of a blurb and the making of a temporary place-holding cover photo was supposed to be the hit of smelling salts to help maintain my pace and desire for this writing project, yet looking at that flagged for further review I was… Stunned.
The letter came through with a massive wall of text, mostly written in legal-ese with the intent to obviously protect the website and give them discretion if they need to remove a story garnering the wrong kind of attention. Yet, how did my story break the rules?
Under the rules stated, nearly every story that ever has or will be set in the real world could be logically decided to break the rules. But was this the reason why I was being flagged?
I HAD TO APPEAL!
I opened a support ticket and explained the premise of my story in its entirety, the themes, the major plots, and the fact that any real-world companies mentioned were only made fun of because of how people interacted with the brand or company, not the company itself. I also mentioned how the plot did involve off-screen references to royal families without ever involving them in the scene itself.
Finally, I mentioned the dreaded C-word.
COVID: the mention of COVID was the thing that got my story flagged. I was shocked. Of all things to make a story be flagged from entry, it was the mention of the prior pandemic. Of course it makes sense, go into the wrong room and mention frustrations toward the COVID jabs and you’ll set up a server war or be kicked in 12 seconds.
However, it shocked me, my story contained and will contain nothing in relation to COVID, other than it existed as any story set around the window of years near 2020 will have to address. It surprised me immensely.
The support reply I received explained COVID was, in fact, the dreaded C-word, the thing that now rivals in power with other terms and phrases of the English language, terms I am sure we can all imagine. THANKFULLY AFTER EXPLAINING THE FULL PLOT, MY STORY WAS GIVEN THE GREEN LIGHT FOR THE SITE! No, that it will ever become popular, I am sure.
Royal Road does for the time seem very much broad and respectful of general free speech, with guardrails in place to remove anyone trying to become the next Austrian painter with a tiny mustache, which is VERY FAIR! Just be careful, fellow writers, and avoid, if able, the trouble that can be caused by the mention of the dreaded “C-WORD.”
You can read the story that inspired this submission and got flagged on Royal Road here
Hmmm. So is RR a Covid Denier, a Covid Supporter, or scared to death of Covid and what other people did?
Huh.