Hate when authors do this

[thinkponk48]

Don't get characters ages correct. In the book I'm reading a female character has been to university, worked as a teacher for a bit, met married and bought a house with someone and then had a child.

Eventually her son moves abroad for a job and she's an empty nester at 38! So ridiculous should be at least 45.

I know it's a silly thing but it's ruined the book for me

Surprised her editor didn't pick that up.

Yep , it's sloppy

Arf, I’m the total opposite I LOVE a continuity error.

Yeah, it's annoying. Alexander McCall Smith did a different version of this with his Isobel Dalhousie books - made her too old in the first book then shaved off at least 5 years.

I think they turn the clock back to make the character of childbearing age. Because what is the point of a woman who can't potentially have children? Who would be interested in a book about her? How would any relationship she has be credible?

That is silly. How old was he supposed to be when he moved abroad?

My pet hate is characters’ eyes changing colour between scenes.

I hate when authors write trying to blatantly get a film deal.

I hate finding a continuity error - I think: if I spotted that when reading the book for the first time as a casual reader, how shite is the proof-reading/editing process that people are presumably PAID to do?!

My favourite example of 'lazy author syndrome' is when they've decided that their readers are so stupid that they jam a massive exposition (generally delivered by the central character's wise-cracking friend (who is probably gay, too)) into the first chapter, which then basically gives away the entire plot.

Thanks for saving me two hours of reading this nonsense, lazy author.

Mine is names.
You'd better watch out if your name is Libby or Cassie that's all I can say.
You're either going to find your best friend is really a hatchet wielding loon who has always loved your husband or you're going to have lemon scented swishy hair and a soap and water complexion and be dead unlucky in love until the handsome and chisel-jawed new CEO/surgeon meets you. He's going to be a mansplaining twat for a while but then fall in love with your quirks.

And Dexter in One Day would NOT have been called Dexter.

And none of the muggles in HP (possible exception being Dudley) would have had their names. Unless Dean Thomas was 45 when he went to Hogwarts obvs.

YANBU.

Not a book but I really enjoyed the series “trying” on Apple TV until the last episode where they decided to get married in a morning completing ignoring the fact that in the UK

• you need to give at least 28 days notice to marry
• both parties need to be present to give notice so the male character saying “it’s okay I’ve got the marriage license from 3 months ago when I registered it” makes no sense
• no such thing as a “marriage license” in this country either, that’s American.

Lack of basic research ruined the whole series for me

I love the Fairacre series of books by Miss Read but it always annoys me that the cat changes sex part way through.

Poor proofreading annoys me.

I've just finished reading The Perfect Nanny by Cole Baxter (on my kindle) and have never been so infuriated with a book before. Alternate chapters are written by the husband Michael and the wife Cynthia, but sometimes Michael would speak in Cynthia's voice and vice versa. The plot itself was ludicrous, full of holes, and the need for a proofreader and editor was overwhelming.

Different example but similar sort of rage.

I HATE IT when every bloody main character wants to be a 'writer'. Or loves books so much and the character owns a book shop.

And this has no baring to the plot whatsoever. They could have worked as a dental receptionist for all it mattered to the story.

Like......fuck me, be original. I really can't stand it! Haha.

A book I've just read had a 14 year old girl in it. A year later she's going into her last year of school and applying to university. No one mentioned at any point she was a child genius.

Same, The Midnight Library stood out to me as this kind of writing.
And any dystopian YA series.

This was The Couple Next Door for me. Horrible at switching between voices, and in need of a good editor.

My pet hate is children's ages and incorrect school years, recently read a book where all the teenage characters were turning 16 yet they were only in year 10! I come across this quite regularly and I can only assume the authors don't have children themselves. I hate any continuity errors. As a pp said, makes you think the editing is shit.

Obviously decided to be transgender in it's next life 😁

This is the result of the advice “write what you know.” Everyone’s gone so loopy cancelling authors that publishers are terrified of it. If you wanna write a character that’s a dental receptionist then you better have worked as one at some point or you’ll get told off for ‘appropriating’ dental receptionists’ stories and not letting them tell their own authentic tales. If you’re white and you wanna write a black character then they can’t be a minor character cos that’s racist tokenism but they also can’t be a main character cos that’s cultural appropriation. Yet you better not write a book with all-white characters cos that’s racist and will get you seriously bad reviews. 👀

It's having a cloth ear when it comes to names that does it for me. 'Foyle's War' was well-written and well researched but nobody - absolutely nobody - was called Samantha before the 1960s. Jarring.
Then, I liked 'Still Life' (Sarah Winman) but a not particularly wanted child born to a barmaid in last years of the war and called 'Alys'? Just no.

This is why they say 'write what you know'. very difficult to write about something you know nothing about, which apparently for this writer is quite a lot.

There was marriage by license in England in previous centuries, including the 20th century. There was either marriage by license or banns. No idea when it vanished.

I'm the same. It would really bug me. The one that wound me up recently was a wife killed in a car accident after a party. Bereaved husband said there had been no post mortem so didn't know if she was drunk. And that the will she had written before their marriage, leaving everything to her children, was valid and he had to leave the family home. Surprised the editor doesn't pick up this stuff.

I've checked and various licenses still exist for marriage in the UK.