Inaccuracies in fiction

[HoppyHat]

Do they bother you? I realise I am annoyed/disappointed by simple "mistakes" which surely a decent editor should notice?

A couple of examples

A very very popular novel. Set in modern day London. Character regularly gets the bus from A to B along a named road all of which exist in real life. But they don't use the correct bus number! Nothing bad happens on the bus, the driver isn't awful, nothing libellous. So why not use the correct bus number?

I've just finished a book which I really liked. The author is American. But part of the book is set in a posh English school in the 1950s. The headteacher calls the season following summer "Fall". And says (more than once) "you need to write your sister" (or similar) not write TO.

To me these things are so obvious and quite jarring. Anyone else?

I just read a classic crime, where the person was shot from the sea into the house. The house was on a cliff. And the "detective" obviously thought bullets travel in straight lines, not parabolas.
I can't see how you couldn't tell straight away the difference from a bullet shot from the top of a wall in front of the window from that shot by something by some kind of marksman out at sea.
It really irritated me the whole way through.

I get irritated by medical errors. Ok, so I’m a nurse but for an author to put an iliac crest at the top of someone’s skull. It’s easy to google these days.

@2mummies1baby I've just been back to read the author's note from Kristen Perrin and she thanks a fellow 'American Londoner', you're quite right! She also thanks both her UK and US editorial teams so maybe the 'Detective Crane' was there more for the American audience?

On a separate note I have twins and you're also right about there being no such thing as semi-identical twins; I would give the author the benefit of the doubt and say that he meant 'similar looking but not actually identical' twins (as mine are!), but even that doesn't work if they were boy/ girl twins!

@JaneFoster Also (and at the risk of sounding a bit Hot Fuzz here) the storyline shows a complete lack of regard for police procedure and paperwork

Much of the art of writing a gripping novel lies in knowing what to leave out.

I once saw a reference to an 'intra-nasal naso-gastric tube', @AppleDumplingWithCustard!

I went down a rabbit hole here, but it is apparently possible to have monozygotic, opposite-sex twins, one being XY and the other X0; or both XY with various developmental differences that make one twin apparently female; or, according to this, 'sequizygotic' twins where an egg is fertilized by two sperm:
https://www.alphabiolabs.co.uk/learning-centre/are-identical-twins-always-the-same-sex/#identical-twins-same-sex

Yes, inaccuracies do annoy me. Both in fiction books and in films/tv programmes. Ironically, the less important/relevant, the more it annoys me.

I watch and read for to pleasure of learning new things, so accuracy is very important. When an author/writer can't be bothered to check the small stuff I actually know about, It tarnishes the whole story, as I can't trust the other stuff which I don't know!

Yes, of course, most "data" will be irrelevant and I wouldn't even notice whether it was right or wrong. Whether it's a bus route number or the firing mechanism of a glock pistol. But if the writer is going to provide some detail/data, then at least they should check the accuracy.

It really grinds my gears when I know some facts and the book/film gives the wrong information. So, yes, something like a wrong bus route number where I knew the numbers (home town, work town, etc) would really irritate me, especially if it was something very easy to check and correct.

And yes, as others have posted, things like a character finishing a university course and then within weeks being a qualified lawyer or accountant and setting up their own practice, which just can't happen in real life.

Well, yes, they can't include everything, but what they do include should be right!

Especially with things like police/crime procedure - either do it right or completely skip over the "boring" bits. Don't make it up as you go along and include inaccuracies and poor procedure.

Eg if you don't want to keep saying "you're under arrest, you have the right ........" which, yes, can be boring, then get the main character just to tell the sidekick "arrest him and read him his rights" then move to the next scene!

Eg if you don't want to keep saying "you're under arrest, you have the right ........" which, yes, can be boring, then get the main character just to tell the sidekick "arrest him and read him his rights" then move to the next scene!

You can do that in a US-set novel. Not in the UK.

'You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.'

Anyone who has watched The Bill knows this.

And the caution has changed over time - it was a running joke in Life on Mars.

And the arresting officer doesn't 'read him his rights' - he cautions him.

I have now read this book and I am annoyed all over again!

I’ve had to return to this thread as something in my current book has annoyed me - there is a section set in Eze in France & the main character has just hired a car & driven there. If you’ve ever been there you’d know it was a medieval hilltop village & you would have to park at the base & walk up.

I've just read the Square of Sevens - it's set in 1740 but mentions a Bradshaw's Guide. Bradshaw wasn't born till 1800!

Sorry to derail, but what did you think of Square of Sevens

I’m not even sure they had standardised time at that point so it wouldn’t have been much use!

I enjoyed it. Fast and entertaining. On a Kindle offer, so worth downloading.

I liked it but I thought it got a bit laboured in the middle but I thought the ending was good.

Had to revisit this thread to ask if this is an inaccuracy or not! It jarred with me anyway!

I'm was given a YA novel which is set at the end of the 19th century and is in the form of letters between a group of school friends who are now 18.
In one letter she writes "I shall be arriving at Lime Street station on the 18.57"

Was the 24h clock widely used in 1897? I am happy to be told it does but am unconvinced.

Where is she from? In some of the Chalet School books the English girls express surprise at the Continental 24 hour times. Not sure what era the books are from, but the earliest one was 1920s.

This bloke (who sounds fascinating all round) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandford_Fleming was advocating for 24 hour 'Railway time) from the 1880s, so it's possible.

DeanElderberry it's set in the UK and the author is British.
It just seemed so out of place. I only learnt the 24h clock when I started working in a hospital the 80s!

I was more wondering what nationality the character was - though I suppose it's also a question of when did railways adopt 24 hr 'railway time'. Probably not until WW1 if then. At that time there was still quite a lot of local resistance to universal 12 hour railway time, particularly when it was imposed on Ireland (Dublin mean time was 25 minutes 21 seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time from 1880 to 1916).

DeanElderberry the characters are all English. Quite well to do.
Thanks for the thoughts 😊

Is that Tales from the Tower @HoppyHat?

Weyward by Emilia Hart has a character who is very in synch with nature comparing something that feels ‘off’ or out of kilter with “a robin singing in the wrong season.”

Robins are notable amongst birds in the U.K. for singing all year round.

She later looks at a Polaroid then tears it into small pieces. You can’t tear a Polaroid, they are too plastic.

I hate stuff like that because it jolts me out of the story. I’m fully immersed, playing it like a film in my head, and then a little something wrong happens. It jars.

ChessieFL yes!

Eve Chase’s The Midnight Hourhas the writer heroine writing a book set in 18th century Paris mentioning gaslit streets, No gas lighting until the 19th.