tiny niggles in books - do you have one?

[Lovestonap]

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?

I'm probably one of the catnip crowd. The background stuff is often more fun, I'd say. For example, I'm none too gripped by the Goblet of Fire contest but there are some brilliant minor plots going on alongside it.

Does anyone else know how to "close their throat" to a foul smell? People in books do. I'm not sure this is humanly possible, unless I have an abnormality I'm not aware of?

Excessively obvious "page turning" structure especially where the story is split between 2 characters.

"Ben opened the door and was horrified by what he saw"
End of Chapter 4

Chapter 5 and 6 is all about what Sandra is up to, so no mention of the horrified Ben until Chapter 7

People’s eyes changing colour with their mood. Anne of Green Gables has green eyes when she’s angry and grey eyes when she’s being dreamy or whimsical. Most people I know have eyes that look different colours according to the light or possibly the colour of their top!

Hercule Poirot's eyes do that too, I believe.

I was just thinking Hercule Poirot, too!

I came on to say there are Midsomer Murders novels - which were the originals - but I see CalonGlas has beaten me to it

So I'll add instead that I once read that Elizabeth George never (or very, very rarely) comes to the UK to do any research for her interminable tomes Apparently she has a 'team' of UK-based peeps who do this stuff for her. Which is perhaps why it all seems 'off'; it gets lost in translation.

Can I also contribute my rage at Rosamunde sodding Pilcher for writing sentences like 'Elfrida wasn't sure she needed to talk to Oliver. Too ,
their meetings were often rushed and unsatisfactory'.

Not an actual quote, just an example but WTF? This single stylistic reflex drove me mad one rainy holiday trapped in a cottage with a limited selection of reading-matter.

I'm happy to say I've not heard of Elizabeth George before and won't be putting her on a must read list, thank you everyone. Read a bit of a Rosamund Pilcher once. Wall, but cant recall why or what it was called. However, I'm now reading the first Midsummer book, Badgers Drift, which is holding my interest. Thanks for recommendations.

yy to the eye colour changing.

I know someone is angry with me because their eyebrows and lips change shape, not because their eye colour has changed from a summer's day sky-blue to a flinty grey.

Also they are usually telling me they are angry with words and occasionally shaking a fist

I hadn't realised that the 4th Cormoran Strike book was out, so I've now purchased that as a result of this thread!

The Ken Follet and Wilbur Smith descriptions of women are horrific, too - one particular Wilbur Smith sticks with me where the villainess, who is beautiful and blonde and depraved, gets the 15 yo son of the ship's captain in 1660-odd to stick his dick through a knothole into her cabin so she can suck him off. He had enlarged the knothole so he could perv at her through it, and this is her reaction on finding out. Erm, what?

Im actually re reading the HP books at the moment and I LOVE the increasing length @BehemothPullsThePeasantsPlough

I did even when younger when they first came out. I could read them for ever.

Never really liked order of the Phoenix though, the sense of injustice is too great.

If people like midsummer murders - check out the DI Hillary Greene series.

She’s pretty well adjusted despite her bad marriage to a corrupt (and now dead rozza) respected by the ‘rank and file’ and liked by the ‘top brass’.

Pretty much written in clinches (and there is far too much made of her curves and chestnut hair) but quite a pleasing romp solving murders.

Novels set in the past that reference something that didn't existing at the that time. Like someone in the 12th century putting their hands in their pockets (yes Ken Follett I am looking at you) or some one in the 15th century using a porcelain chamber pot (Conn Iggulden stop looking shifty at the back there). It snaps me straight out the time frame they have carefully constructed.

With you grumble. I'm captured by CJ Sansom's Shardlake series (only those though. Not his other books, oddly) and know there's bound to be something at some point that will do that to me and mar my pleasure.

Longway I've read all the Shardlakes so far (can't wait to get my hands on the new one - role on Christmas) and I can't remember anything jolting me out of those - but I may have forgotten one or missed something. I wish I could switch off the part of my brain that yells porcelain in 15th England I don't think! so but I just can't make it stop.

Candlelit - isn't it when you put your tongue back in your throat to sort of block it up?

GRR Martin is another author who is clearly too big to be properly edited - the early Game of Thrones books are awesome (dodgy descriptions of women aside...) but the latter ones really get my red pen twitching

Will think of you at Christmas, grumble, am expecting it as present too. Another author I really rate is Iain Pears. Not his early detective in Italy things but 'An Instance of the Fingerpost' and subsequent. If you don't know him, definitely try.

Thanks longway I've not read (or even heard of Iain Peters) I'll look him up and if he appeals add to my ever growing must read list.

pears damn that autocorrect.

When she first retired my MIL had a great time as a researcher for various authors.
I had a couple of nice holidays driving her around Wales and Yorkshire while she took notes about all sorts of stuff, and lots of days out visiting some completely fascinating places. The most memorable though was Glastonbury in the pouring rain and howling wind where she timed how long it took me me to run up the Tor. I always wondered who’s book that was going in to.

The most memorable though was Glastonbury in the pouring rain and howling wind where she timed how long it took me me to run up the Tor. I always wondered who’s book that was going in to.

Nobody's - she was just having a laugh 😄

I've only skimmed the thread so apologies if it's been said. I'm noy sure how to explain it exactly but I get really annoyed when an important conversation is clearly delayed to fit in better with the flow of the story in books, though mainly on TV.

For example, there's a massive revelation about a major character and the next scene picks up with two people discussing it halfway through a walk and a coffee. As if you wouldn't have just immediately called them up and been like 'OMG you'll never believe what I've just heard about so and so!'

@DaysofWineandNeurosis
My mind is ticking now, I'm sure I've read a murder mystery story which centred around the tor - a body was found at the top and I seem to remember timing played an important part in who could have put it there....... wonder if it was the same one?! It's going to bug me now....

Think it was this one
www.amazon.co.uk/Means-Escape-Kate-Linton/dp/0956983014?tag=mumsnetforum-21

It bugs me when clothes are described as cute - she chose a cute skirt, cute shoes etc. oh and if the female character is expected to let the male drive her car, just because he is male.