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

Oh heck, and this shows I should PTFT (proofread the fucking thread) before I make a comment another editor already made...

Bows head in shame.

Jackie Collins (God rest her soul) was AWFUL for this in the Lucky books. Gino had to be about 128 based on his original birth year by the time he popped his clogs.

Agree totally - dreadful. Read it (The Return - Victoria Hislop) a few years ago and couldn't get over the flamenco dancer from the 30s still working as a waiter in the Noughties or some such tosh.
Whole novel was the worst kind of over extensive research masquerading as description. No heart, all cliche.

I hate the ever-so-trendy use of the historic present tense, which Rooney is also hooked on. Used sparingly, it’s quite good for conveying immediacy and a certain tunnel-vision intensity, but right through the book it’s a bit Rupert Bear Annual.

Continuity errors drive me mad too.
In the Miss Silver detective books by Patricia Wentworth, Miss Silver's maid's name changes from Emma to Hannah and back again over the course of the series. 😬

This book gets better!! The main character is now 48 and says her son is nearly 30.
Unless some plot twist demands these specific ages then it's just silly.

So far the book would be the same If she where 6/7 years older

Miss Silver's maid's name changes from Emma to Hannah and back again over the course of the series. 😬

I thought I was the only person in the world nerdy enough to notice this! Greetings my friend!

Unless it was a cup final at Wembley?

We had a marriage license instead of bans. It’s very possible.

In 1986, according to FreeBMD, there were 3,241 births registered with the name Dean.

I read a book a few years ago where the protagonist wore Dr Martin shoes. Anyone who has them will see Dr Marten written on them!!

I will take any amount of continuity errors over a ‘fugue state’ plot device. If it either turns out that the character has been doing all the fucked up things themselves in a fugue state, or is suspected of this, I immediately start disliking the book and the author. It’s lazy and cliched.

One book I read last year had a family with a daughter in her twenties, with friends called Kath and Ray.

@PAFMO I totally agree!! Even twenty years ago, every 25-35yr old in a romcom-type novel was Molly/Lily/Libby/Freya/Flora/Poppy...these didn't see a real resurgence til about 10yrs ago - everyone twenty years ago was still called Emma/Sarah/Helen/Katie at best 🙄

@Bideshi I thought the exact same thing about Alys but then Peg was a bit of a wildcard, I guess. And to be fair, there probably weren't that many Ulysses around!

I'll see your 'fugue state' and raise you an identical twin that never gets mentioned until a surprise reveal.

Probably Dumbledore picking the family off one by one to ensure Harry grew up an orphan and would be a good martyr for him.

To be honest, if you start poking holes in Harry Potter the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.

My reading bug bear is characters recounting things they wouldn’t recount for the sake of exposition. It will be like - Mary leaned on the desk and said ‘isn’t it weird how there was that war amongst the alien races five years ago leading to fractious inter species relations?’

Also in series of books, like detective or crime series especially, when they start every book with an awkward little ‘previously on’ to explain who the detective is etc. I just find it’s always done so clunkily.

I found The Couple Next Door really gripping, but the fugue state was a twist too far for me. Also, a sleep-deprived new mum doesn’t need to be in a fugue state to forget which baby gro her baby was wearing!

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

I didn’t notice these. However, in an early book, George Mole had brown eyes. Yet during the storyline about Rosie’s paternity, Rosie was (conveniently) said to be the only member of the family with brown eyes.

I must miss a lot of continuity errors, but eye colour changes really leap out at me.

Was it Fate the Winx Saga? Horrible script..I got really annoyed by a British teacher character in that referring to a students' party as a 'kegger' 🤮

I don't remember the name of the awful novel but there's an author out there who thinks that the Americans liberated Auschwitz.... considering that Auschwitz is near Krakow in Poland and was liberated by the Red Army, and the Americans only reached the West side of the Elbe in Germany it's kind of impossible that any GIs ever saw Auschwitz.

Ww2 is my pet subject so I hate major mistakes in war novels & films. I tend to stick to autobiographies & other non fiction books if reading about Ww2 as it's less irritating.

James Potter’s parents thought they couldn’t have children, he was a surprise baby when they were quite old, which also explains why he was so spoiled and arrogant. So no brothers or sisters, or grandparents. They died of dragonpox after he married Lily, but before Harry was born. Can’t remember the explanation for there being no wizarding aunts or uncles, just convenient for the plot really.

Books set abroad where random phrases and nouns are in the local language but rest is in English. Just find it grates. Looking at you Victoria Hislop...

The 1956 film’High Society’ has a song about Samantha (an
adult female character in the film).

The name became popular in the 1960s - TV series ‘Bewitched’ helped- but the name had been around since at least the 17th century

I'm with you all on inadequate editing and proofreading. It has struck me before that authors that write long series don't seem to get the later ones nearly as well edited as the earlier ones.

Occasionally name/age oddities can be explained by something actually being Australian - slight differences in timing of popular names there, and turning 16 in year 10 was normal in my school (though the younger half of the year didn't turn 16 till year 11, we also didn't turn 18 till we were already at uni).

My personal favourite was a UK author that set her novel in the southern US. She referenced the "horrible tornadoes in Florida."

Hurricanes, darling. Florida is the one with hurricanes. 😂She at one point described the chorus of cicadas in the middle of the night- cicadas are diurnal and dead silent at night. She also made social class a significant part of the plot but clearly didn't have any better understanding of class in the US than of hurricanes tornadoes.

Seems like anyone can get anything published these days!