Why do British authors keep making this very obvious mistake?

[YaWeeFurryBastard]

Yet again I’m reading an otherwise good book which refers to a character being unable to put up the money to make bail. This is set in England, bail in England does not require a surety payment except in very limited circumstances. Why do authors or editors not check this to make sure it’s factually accurate?!

See also characters being bailed after they’ve been charged with murder, something which is particularly unheard of in England. Magistrates don’t have the power to grant bail for murder charges.

Surely at some point pre publishing, someone with a basic knowledge of the English legal system reads the book, or do they just not care?

I’m probably very over invested but it’s bloody annoying and almost undermines an otherwise believable story.

I would love a job doing this! When can I start?

It’s just really disappointing though that professional writers and publishers, who are supposed to be the experts at this, value precision and attention to detail less than some of their customers, and are happy to settle for the lowest common denominator.

Honestly, they don’t want to ‘settle for the lowest common denominator’ but publishing is first and foremost a money-making exercise- and it is ASTONISHINGLY difficult to make money from books. No one wants to pay what it costs to get this level of attention to detail. Consumers of books are very price sensitive - and ‘avid readers’ are often the worst! They buy lots of books so look for deals to cut the cost - totally rational behaviour. But that means publishers are forced to keep book prices as low as possible, and offer retailers high discounts etc. That means they need to pay everyone else less - from editorial staff to authors. So even the authors must ‘call time’ on their research/fact-checking etc for each book, so they can move onto the next book and get paid again.

People who love books think it’s all about the creative process and feel strongly about the mistakes they find - I understand. But it’s also really really difficult to publish a book without mistakes in it. Really difficult! When you spot something, what you don’t see are all the incorrect things that got edited out and still things slipped through …

Offer your services to a publisher - but do be aware that they won’t be wanting to pay you for hours and hours over what they’d deem a reasonable average for the job. They might pay you to be extremely thorough once, and wince a bit at your invoice, but repeat business might be tricky if your fees end up very high and you were relatively slow to complete the work.

It’s all a business!

🙄

Publishers don’t just pay randos to fact check books. They use editors — either in house, in which case they are poorly paid and overworked — or external experienced freelancers (who are also poorly paid).

That sounds right to me. You could become a historical fiction editor, @Sethera , but you would also have to train in copyediting and general fiction editing to have a hope of getting hired. Check out ciep.uk if you're genuinely interested. It can be a rewarding job! Though, as PP quoted above says, not lucrative.

If it was my job, I’d do it. I proof read, fact check and check spelling and grammar on everything I write at work, from reports for directors to emails, because I was taught that written communication identifies you either as an intelligent person who should be taken seriously, or the opposite. That view may be unfashionable now, but if you don’t hold it I don’t think you have any business being a professional writer.

Also, the vast majority of freelance editors have worked in house at a publisher for many years beforehand.

It was ‘murder is easy’ I think. Mistakenly drunk instead of cough mixture.

I get that. But if there’s any industry that ought to love and cherish sp&g pedants and share our values…

Yes! Thank you. It sounds so strange to us now, doesn't it - "She reached for her cough syrup and accidentally downed a bottle of hat paint." As you do 😃 (don't get me wrong, I do love Christie!)

It's great that you have such attention to detail - it's admirable. But it's not comparable. I don't know what you do, but I'd be willing to bet your hourly rate is better than an editor's. And you don't have a client at the end of it, demanding to know why your invoice is so high.

As for "professional writers" - when I was editing, not a single one of my clients was professional, in the sense that they did it for a living. They all had jobs; a couple were independently wealthy. As @NoSquirrels said eloquently above, it's an industry that's constantly struggling with lack of funds. And lack of time, with the authors fitting in their writing between full time work and family.

How does the author know which words the readers don't understand? Do they set out with the intention to alienate their audience?

Surely novels vary massively. Writers of literary fiction may deliberately challenge their readers. Even "fun" writers may have their characters make up words or sound up to date by using words that are recently invented.

I've a feeling the hat paint was a mistake on the part of the murderer, recognised by Miss Marple as something much too old-fashioned for the victim to have used.

The point about a lot of the things some MNers describe as Americanisms being standard Irish and Scottish usage is interesting - as an Irish reader (with a childhood spent in England) I find contemporary fiction (crime / mysteries mostly) from the USA less 'foreign' than stuff from the UK - though I read and mostly enjoy both.

I agree, but we need to bear in mind that if someone can demonstrate a decent record in an area, however ‘quirky’ their route to it, they will be used. Even the courts allow for expert witnesses with no ‘regular’ qualifications if they can demonstrate expertise.

Wrong colour too. Bright red hat paint whereas the victim was a redhead. Rings a bell somewhere.

After reading this thread, I literally had a scene last night in a (British) book talking about pressing charges!
I also find scenes set in Scotland by English authors jarring, such as children starting reception (our primary school years go from p1-p6) or sitting GCSES (these are found in a few private schools, but state schools use national 4&5 qualifications).

I had this in Canada with 'water' and trying to order a beer. The waitress kept saying 'a bear?' I seriously thought she was taking the piss.

The one that really bugs me is CID officers being referred to as “Detective Bloggs”. They’re never called that, they’re called “DI Bloggs” or “Inspector Bloggs”, DCs are only ever DC, not Detective, and PCs are PC or Constable, not Officer. But it’s getting more and more frequent.

Amazon are guilty of this. I read crime/mystery fic, and am always getting recommendations for books and series featuring 'Detective This' or 'Detective That'. Sets my teeth on edge.

I'd add that it can also be excruciating when a writer has done lots of research and throws it about liberally without paying attention to the writing or the plot.

The reverse of this is when an author sets a book in a particular year without attempting to create any sense of period at all. I recently read a book set in 1920. There didn't seem to be any particular reason why it was set in 1920, rather than any other year. There was no mention of the Great War. No mention of what any of the characters had done during the war and how it had affected them. And with some characters having travelled in Europe at a time when it would have been very difficult if not impossible, the author seemed to have forgotten that the war had even happened.

It sometimes happens in non-fiction, as well. I was watching some online lectures given by an American Professor of History at a US university. Good reputation – many decades researching in English/European Early Modern history. Even, as he pointed out, being invited to a conference organised by The Royal Collection held at Windsor Castle.

But in two separate lectures, he referred to Salisbury being in Hampshire. I live in Hampshire, and I have found no evidence that the boundary between the two counties was ever redrawn to subsequently put Salisbury in Wiltshire – as far as I can tell, it’s always been there.

I really had to try very hard to see this as just a minor slip, rather than doubting anything else he said.

That’s not Amazon’s fault - it’s whoever published the books. But there are loads and loads and LOADS of self-published crime series available only on Amazon’s KDP ebook programme, which is probably why you notice it a lot there. Self-published books are most likely to be full of errors that would be ironed out earlier in books by reputable publishers.

Do American readers seek out errors when British Lee Child, or Irish John Connolly or Steve Cavanagh, set their books in the USA?

Slightly off topic, as this is real life, but Kenneth Williams' father died in a very similar way - drank from a cough linctus bottle that actually contained a cleaning agent (some kind of tetrachloride IIRC) and died.

Years after Kenneth Williams' death, police files came to light showing KW had been suspected of being responsible for this 'misadventure' (his father had been abusive to both KW and KW's mother, who KW adored; and KW seemed not at all distressed by the death, going on stage in the play he was in as normal on the evening of his father's death) but there was insufficient evidence to take an investigation). KW's account of the events in his diary is very matter-of-fact.

I've often thought about whether this was a murder - if it was, KW's mother would have had to be complicit and it would essentially be a long game - spiking a bottle of medication his father was known to take from time to time, and waiting for this to happen - in the meantime you would have to be on the alert for the risk of any visitors to the house drinking it.