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Original poster

tiny niggles in books - do you have one?

304 replies

Lovestonap · 12/10/2018 17:01

I was thinking today how much I hate it when events and speech in books don't match up. An example (I have made up rather than transcribed):

They ordered their coffee and sat down with it. Petunia took a sip

3 lines of dialogue follow -

Ben finished his coffee and stood up

"I'll say good bye then".

In real life drinking coffee with someone. particularly a friend or relation means lots and lots of conversations - even if there is the occasional pause. Usually takes at least 15 minutes. Are we meant to think they sat in silence apart from the 30 seconds of dialogue?!?

Clunky plot device which irritates me. I should probably stop overthinking these things......

Anyone else got anything that winds them up like this?

OP posts:

oopslateagain · 12/10/2018 17:07

Speech that contains a person's name over and over and over again.
"Dan, I'll make a coffee, can you hand me the kettle?" asked Sandra.
"Sure Sandra, here you go." replied Dan.
"Thanks," said Sandra. "Did you want a cup too?"
"Yes please Sandra," said Dan. "Do you have decaf?"
"No, sorry Dan, I don't." replied Sandra.

MerlinsScarf · 12/10/2018 17:08

Yes! This is infuriating, I reconcile it in TV and books by imagining that they've had some other bit of conversation that's been edited out.

My current peeve is when an unlikely character takes charge and everyone who is otherwise more qualified and rather no-nonsense realises that this sassy character is onto something with their leftfield plan.

Davespecifico · 12/10/2018 17:08

There was a Jacqueline Wilson book I was reading to my daughter about a family whose father was no good and whose mother leaves them home alone to go on holiday with her boyfriend. In the end, all was well because mum returned and got together with the policeman who'd worked on the case!
Never mind that they'd starved and slept rough for days and then gone into care. We stopped reading JW after that. The endings are often disappointing but that one took the biscuit.

BluthsFrozenBananas · 12/10/2018 17:21

I’m throughly fed up with books which are narrated from the first person and a mysterious something has happened in the past, which the narrator knows all the details of but it’s only revealed to the reader in bits and pieces.

HemanOrSheRa · 12/10/2018 17:27

I HATE the word 'padded'. As in 'Samantha padded into the bathroom'. It really irritates me and makes me angry . Why do people in books have to 'pad' into rooms? Why can't they just walk?

Original poster

Lovestonap · 12/10/2018 17:51

I notice that often in American books the verbs are so much more aggressive than English. They grab and slam and swipe and chuck. I like people to put and take

OP posts:

Original poster

Lovestonap · 12/10/2018 17:54

Also (on a bit of a roll now)

those prefaces that make no sense at all until you've read the book. Does anyone actually go back and re read and go "aaaah now that makes sense" or do we all just forget all about them and mark it up to a waste of paper?

I just think they're a bit know-all and poncey.....

OP posts:

Kewqueue · 12/10/2018 17:54

Ithink that's why people always seem to order drinks (in books and on tv) and then leave them half-finished - equally annoying!

choccyp1g · 12/10/2018 18:00

pretentious quotes at the start of each chapter. They never seem to have any relevance.

ApocalypseNowt · 12/10/2018 18:04

I can't stand it when characters "punch in" numbers on a phone or key pad or something. I always picture them jabbing their fingers and jarring them

ApocalypseNowt · 12/10/2018 18:06

Also, when characters stand in the mirror and appraise themselves in a weird way.

BalloonSlayer · 12/10/2018 18:09

I am just reading Me Before You. There's one line when she suddenly calls her Dad "Bernard" instead of Dad. When the guy comes to dinner her Mum gets into a flap because they don't have a downstairs loo - relevant as he is disabled. A few chapters later the narrator reminisces about when her Dad tiled the downstairs loo . . .

Don't editors actually read the books they are paid so handsomely to edit?

The blurb on the back talks about Will Traynor's motorcycle accident . . . he didn't have a motorcycle accident, he got run over by a motorcycle. Again - you'd think you would read the sodding book if you were given the job of writing the blurb . . . it's in the first chapter so you wouldn't have to read far! It's all about the irony of him deciding not to take his motorbike that day because of the weather and he might have an accident, then he gets hit as a pedestrian waiting for a taxi. So. Bloody. Lazy.

God I'd love to be a book editor or a blurb writer and it boils my piss that the people who have these jobs can't even do them even half properly.

Original poster

Lovestonap · 12/10/2018 18:10

yes @ApocalypseNowt, it's a strange way for an author to describe a character to us.

"She looked in the mirror, her gaze moved down from her creamy skin with a dusting of freckles to her figure, her breasts still high and full for a woman of her age".

Generally when we appraise ourselves we notice the worst bits as well, not just the bits that make it clear we are still desirable to the male protagonist (who has also aged well, with salt and pepper hair and grim lines around the mouth that show a hard life but still hint at humour and tenderness)

OP posts:

jenthelibrarian · 12/10/2018 18:11

Any book where someone says something in a foreign language and there is no translation.
There's an assumption that anyone reading in English must know basic French, but I don't. We did German at my school.
Stop being so wanky and pretentious, authors.

Cel982 · 12/10/2018 18:13

Also, when characters stand in the mirror and appraise themselves in a weird way.

This!! "Penelope gazed at herself critically in the mirror, biting gently on one soft, rose-pink lip. There was something unsatisfactory about her face - the too-large eyes, the creamy skin, just a shade too pale, the dark wisps of hair that would persist in curling around her face, no matter how hard she tried to tame them. Penelope sighed. No wonder she was still alone at the ripe old age of 22."

Cel982 · 12/10/2018 18:14

Crosspost, Loves!

iklboo · 12/10/2018 18:16

Also, when characters stand in the mirror and appraise themselves in a weird way.

This! It's never 'Trisha grabbed hold of her overhang and wobbled it in time to the Popmaster intro'.

Lancelottie · 12/10/2018 18:16

Don't editors actually read the books they are paid so handsomely to edit?

Yes, we do.

What you spot are the few mistakes that remain after weeks or months of wrestling with the truly dire.

I once saw a review of a book I'd sweated blood over that said 'This book, while short, feels overlong' and thought, 'Mate, you don't know the half of it.' That particular one had had entire chunks of text repeated word for word, missing chapters and an author with attitude.

ApocalypseNowt · 12/10/2018 18:17

Yes @Cel982 @Lovestonap !

You get it! I was trying to come up with an example but my brain's fried

In real life it would be "Apocalypse glanced at herself in the mirror and thought "that'll do""...

SpongeBobJudgeyPants · 12/10/2018 18:23

Well, I have to say I would like to be able to look in a mirror and think how fabulous I am, but I digress

Continuity errors get me. Once read a library book where someone was doing something mundane. No car involved at all. Then, maybe the author had put the writing down for the day gone off and had wine and come back, and inserted a line similar to driving off in a car. No mention of car prior! It wasn't just me, a previous reader had written in the margin, in pencil, "WHAT CAR?!!!!!!!!"

Original poster

Lovestonap · 12/10/2018 18:25

Ha! I love it when previous readers have corrected a book :)

OP posts:

BalloonSlayer · 12/10/2018 18:32

Hope you didn't edit Me Before You, Lancelottie

An editor should have been brave and told JK Rowling what "soared" means,unless they didn't know themselves. I grind my teeth at the constant references to "the owls soaring down to the tables." In EVERY book. Aaaaaaaargh!

Just as well The Casual Vacancy wasn't written under a pseudonym, as she wouldn't have fooled me for a second. There it was again . . . boy gets on a bike at his house at the top of the hill, and "soars down to the village." < foams at the mouth >

WeeDangerousSpike · 12/10/2018 18:36

Recently read a book set in Cornwall, which is where I live. Was really enjoying it, very good book. I was jarred right out if it by the protagonist 'leaving the motorway to join the dual carriageway' at Truro.

Our closest motorway is the M5 which stops at Exeter. A glance at any map would tell you that.

It was really irritating, and quite bizarre, as the nitty gritty of country lanes and geography was really very good.

WeeDangerousSpike · 12/10/2018 18:46

Oh yes, authors that use the same bloody word every other page. Weird ones like 'rotund' or 'miscellany'

WhoGivesADamnForAFlakeyBandit · 12/10/2018 18:59

I get annoyed at the later Harry Potter or Outlander books which clearly haven't seen an editor willing to go to war with the now-successful author and point out that they are going on and on now and need to cut 100 pages of needless dialogue.

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