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

I beta read for a few authors. It's supposed to be the last read through before it goes to the editor - so been proofed at least twice. I have always found errors, including one where a character changed names within two pages.

It's something I do for fun and a name check in the acknowledgements but some people it's been to before me are paid!

The ages of the characters on "the royle family" always annoyed me as well. Denise and Anthony are ten years apart and suddenly Jim and Barbara are married 50 years when Denise is around 40 Just always annoyed me

Sadly, they did make that book into a film. They made the atrocious “Bridget Jones’s baby”. It was even worse than the book, if you can believe it.

Oh my goodness I'd LOVE to be paid to continuity check or whatever, does one have to have been in publishing?

I read a book where a major character was a child.

• 5years old
• at nursery (in England!)
• referred to as a toddler
• wore nappies (no special needs)
• but was able to look after another child when kidnapped and lead an escape.

It was part of a series and the child would age at least 6 months between books even if there was no time gap...

The thing is, there is a LOT to check when you're editing a book, even at the check-over stage. You've got to look at every word to make sure the spelling is correct and the style (small things like 'makeup' or 'make-up') is consistent. You've got to look at every sentence to make sure it's grammatical, properly punctuated, makes sense and flows on nicely from the one before, with variety in length and rhythm. You've got to look at every paragraph to make sure it's structured correctly, reads smoothly, and is in basically the right place in the chapter. You've got to tweak everything for maximum effect and make sure the dialogue is realistic, with appropriate language for that speaker, without being boring. You've got to check that every chapter starts and ends at the best possible moment. And so much more!

I have sympathy for readers who get distracted and wound up by mistakes such as the characters' ages, but sometimes I just want to say -- you should have seen it before the edits!

That scenario is possible though.

Teacher at 21.
Met and married by 25.
Child born 26/27.
So he would be 21/22 when she was 38, graduated University and beginning a career abroad.

No, she would be 48 if she had a child at 26 and that child is now 22.

The child would be 11 or 12...

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I’m just reading a book with a character named Alys, and it has mentioned that it’s the Welsh spelling of the name.

Don't we call them licences though?

Forgetting characters names is one for me. I read a book where one of the main characters was ‘Jo’ and described as ‘Josephine’, later in the book she was ‘Joanna’.

Read one of the later Agatha Raisin books; such a huge, glaring plot hole that I had to go back and see if I’d missed a couple of chapters. I don’t mind a bit of suspension of disbelief, but this was ridiculous!

There were also a few mistakes in the later ‘Adrian Mole’ books with dates of characters deaths and differing versions.

Going back to Dean- Dean would have been born in the mid-late 60s or at a push early 70s. Not 1986. By then we were well into Daniels and Bens.
That said, I also was at school with a Tilly. (who was born in 1965) But she was one amongst eleventy billion Karens and Dawns.

Disagree on Dean, I've met two deans and both were born in the 90s.

is anyone on ‘booktok’?

The men in these romance books are ridiculous. They’re all ‘growling’. Are they BEARS?

Theres a really popular booktok book where the man is LICKING HER BUTT without consent/as a surprise after they’ve been shopping or something and I just can’t get them out of my head.

Authors who decline to use punctuation for speech. I just can't get past this, it makes my brain hurt to try to work out who is speaking. Just why? (Sally Rooney, looking at you).

I was born in the late 80s and went to school with three Deans.

I get annoyed with how many typos I keep spotting in books lately. This seems to have become more prevalent over the last couple of years and I’m not sure why. Basic continuity mistakes are annoying as well. I read a book recently where a man was described as a character’s boyfriend then husband then boyfriend again in the space of two pages.

I know a 31 yr old Dean. There are always outliers.

I was born in early 80s and knew a couple of deans!

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

I thought it was just me who noticed this! Dreadful book.

sometimes I just want to say -- you should have seen it before the edits!

Oh god yes.

Sometimes I feel like quietly editing my name out of the credits, if the author has been particularly intransigent.

It’s not aimed at Brits. They are going for an American audience who can’t cope with anything non-American.

I know not all Americans are like that, but that is the subset of the market these authors are targeting - it’s deliberately making historical romances “more accessible”.

I can’t tell you how many medical inaccuracies there are in these books/shows too. The absolute worst for me was Sons of Anarchy’s Neonatal Cardiac Surgeon (superspecialist, would work as part of a massive MDT in one of about 4 tertiary children’s hospitals in the UK) , who apparently worked solo out of a small cottage hospital.

But then you also get young healthy people dying of renal failure, apparently without ever troubling a dialysis unit, or magical deathbed scenes where the dying person is wide awake and chatting away easily in ICU, before closing their eyes and dying instantly.

It’s music inaccuracies that rile me. There’ll be a flashback to the characters at a school disco in 1982 but they’ll be dancing to Take on Me or some other song that probably hadn’t even be written at the time.

Bridget Jones' Baby was made into a film but Mad About The Boy wasn't. They are two separate novels, both sequels to the second BJ film

Helen Fielding killed off Colin Firth's character in MATB and fans weren't happy so she wrote another alternative 3rd book.

Utter crap, both of them. Written for the £££££££££££.