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?

Over use of the same verb, verdant for example.

Yes and it's always the heroine's eyes or lips or their arse that are a little too big for perfection, never their nose or their chin.

Dan Brown is the worst: you could write a book consisting solely of his cockups. The worst for me is in Digital Fortress where a group of highly intelligent computer geeks are baffled by the concepts of atomic numbers and atomic weights and bemoan the fact that they don’t have a nuclear physicist to help them out.

It’s an example of two classic errors:
A) Not using Google. The Internet was a thing then, and if anyone was going to use it to find things out then these characters would. (See also Lisabeth Salander in the Caribbean at risk of an oncoming hurricane but not going to the US National Hurricane Centre to check on their regular updates and predictions).
B) doing the research on paper but not understanding what it feels like to know that stuff in practice. Just because it’s atomic physics that you personally don’t understand Dan, doesn’t mean that it’s super hard science that only atomic physicists know. Literally all your characters learned this at age 13.

On the female descriptions, Philip K Dick was a genius in many ways but he was terrible for this. Once you’ve noticed that he introduces every female character with a description of her breasts, you can’t unsee it.

People who are not Irish trying to make characters sound Irish with a few nonsensical phrases. (I'm sure this applies to other nationalities too but I notice the Irish ones)

I gave up on Dan Brown when he spent at least a third of a page explaining what a highlighter pen was.

There's a book set in 18th century Paris that I read earlier this year. Every other chapter one of the female characters would put on 'a simple white dress' to go out and do things in.
Muslin white dresses in the 18th century were not simple. They were eye wateringly expensive and nobody went out or did anything in them. They were delicate, they marked permanently at the slightest smudge and didn't wash well.
They were a status symbol for 'I'm so rich I sit about doing nothing, and this white dress proves it'
You most certainly would not tramp the streets, attend an outside party or attempt to find your beheaded husband in it.
You just wouldn't.

Dan Brown is a shocker, I tottered through about half the da Vinci Code before binning it, such a rip off of the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Amazed Michael Baigent lost the court case. I suppose he has to use a lot of filler -highlighter explanation- to compensate for lack of original thought. Will let Philip K Dick off though, because he was a barking mad genius, of his newly liberated time, and brilliant with it. Agree breasts a bit tiresome though.

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

I imagine they do, but wish some of them had a better grasp of punctuation. I've lost count of the number of books I've read with commas in all the wrong places and find I can't concentrate on what's written; instead I itch to correct all the glaring mistakes

Sad perhaps, but it just drives me mad

Once glaring errors are pointed out to authors/editors - are changes made for any reprints? Or is it comparatively rare to have more than one lot of prints.

Re descriptions for women, many female protagonists have, along with their overlarge eyes and pillowy lips, a 'determined' chin/jaw. What would that look like?

I have realised that my chin must be more laid back, some might say lackadaisical.......

A cup of tea or coffee described as 'hot liquid'. Use of the words grin/grinned/grinning and padded.

Yes - White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

When she talks about Brazil and the sounds of Spanish drifting through the air, or some such.

& going to Kwiksave in UK.

Portuguese is spoken in Brazil, not Spanish. & Kwiksave wasn't around in the time period she talks about.

Just sloppy and lazy, not even bothered to research.

Ive never understood why this book was rated so highly.

Misuse of commas pisses me off.

Also when they reference something that just does not happen - I got really annoyed with a book where the character settled down to watch football every Saturday on terrestrial TV - nope, no chance.

Although if I love the writer I'll forgive them - looking at you Jilly Cooper...

The scene setting of the female protagonist who is athletic (runs, rows, generally fit), has survived some tough situations in her short life, but suddenly becomes a limpet needing to be carried to bed/couch/bath by the man after receiving bad news. I'm left wondering why they made her out to be so sure, strong and independent in the first place. Grrrr.

My biggest bugbear is when the main male character has an unpronouncable name so that every time you come across it you have to slow down to get your head around it. Just call him something simple.
If I read one more American book where the male always wears cream slacks or chinos and female detectives always have to be better, tougher, stronger whatever adjective you want to put in there than their male working partner..

Glad someone else can’t stand the

I actually like prologues that don't make sense till after you've read the whole book (I do go back and re read them ) and I like random quotes at the start of chapters too!

Like PP, I hate mysteries for no reason, e.g. a first person narrator who doesn't tell you relevant information or a character who is just about to say something but then gets conveniently interrupted. Rick Riordan (I know, I know!) is particularly bad for this.

Just read a book that had several inconsistencies over the series e.g. at start of the story the MC left her sword art home because but later (when convenient for the plot) she had it on her in an unlikely situation as "she never goes out without it." It would have been so easy to say she had started taking it everywhere because of the first incident! A minor issue but really bugged me and several other small errors in the same series

oopslateagain that’s what pisses me off when I watch Suits. I find myself counting how many times they say each other’s name in every scene.

My biggest hatred is front cover illustrations that show that no-one who read the book has approved the cover.

I've a version of Alana by Tamika Pierce where she doesn't have red hair on the cover illustration!

The picture of Karen Connors in the eyes of Karen Connors has someone with blue eyes (when it's an important plot point that she has brown eyes)

FWIW my author contracts say I'm liable for costs if more than 10% of a book needs correcting. And I'm not sure where the idea editors are handsomely paid comes from, pay in publishing is absolutely terrible (unless you're a bigwig).

There's terrible pay and terrible pay though, LaDaronne. They are likely to be paid a lot more than me! And I do a LOT of proof-reading and editing in my lowly, only slightly more than minimum wage, job.

I once read a book about conjoined twins, at one point twin A refers to twin B by twin A’s name. Obviously an accident by the writer and not part of the story but you’d think somewhere in the editing process it would have been noticed... I’m not convinced you’d forget the name of someone who was literally attached to the side of your head!

Padding about in stocking feet is my bugbear. I hate it. First is the constant use of padding. Second is that surely it should be stockinged?

I’m reading a book at the moment which is clearly the American edition. It’s really jarring when you’re reading a book set in London and they talk about sidewalks and flashlights.

I’d like to be a book editor. I’m always sending corrections to Amazon

I think the device of the unreliable narrator is now heavily overused and has become a passport to lazy plotting.

Part One - All sorts of strange and inexplicable stuff happens.
Part Two - Everything in Part One was actually a load of bollocks