Have you ever encountered a MAJOR mistake in a novel?

IThinkICan29 · Jun 5, 2009

Not your own of course! LOL

I'm reading a novel called Chasing Faith by Stephanie Perry Moore (Christian fiction) and I have to admit, if I didn't think my family would call the folks that prescribe those fashionable little white jackets with the buckles (that and it's a library book--

), I would burn this bad boy in effigy. Now don't get me wrong, I like SPM. I'm not crazy about her writing style, but I respect her work. I dig her imperfect characters and admire the niche she's created within the genre.

But...but...but...you had to know it was coming.

I've found a MAJOR error. One that is so jarring that, as I mentioned, I wanted to burn the friggin' book. What's strange is, I'm usually pretty liberal when it comes to mistakes in books. I gloss over misspellings (is that spelled correctly?), repeated words, missing words, "to" instead of "too", etc. But this, this, is just too much.

Okay, so the main character is an FBI agent on her way to a friend's wedding. She's applied for a job with the Secret Service but has to fly to Texas!, notice I said, Texas!, for the friend's wedding. She's supposed to go to the wedding, then Georgia for job training. Well, tell me why she never made it to Texas? Tell me why she gets on a plane headed to Texas, but ends up in Atlanta, where she rents a car and then drives to the church?! And yes, it is explicitly stated that the wedding is in Texas. She was supposed to spend the weekend there.

What happened to Texas? And trust me, I'm not salty because SPM failed to bring the character to my home state..LOL. I'm not that fickle. This is about principles. There are prin-sa-balities in this.

So I try to give her (SPM) the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the character's flight has a stop in Atlanta and she's decided to drive the rest of the way to Texas. But well, that doesn't make sense. I mean it does (in the real world), but it's not something I should have to infer--ya' know? Especially when she allowed a minor character to give the main character's itinerary before having the main character echo it.

Why..why...why? Why did she do this to me? I fear the author has ruined the experience for me.

Have you encountered anything like this on your reading journey? If so, how did you deal? I'm one of those people who have a hard time NOT finishing a book once I've started it. I'm convinced it's a mild form of OCD. But geez, this one is going to be a doozy.

Help me!

CaroGirl · Jun 5, 2009

Wow. That's a pretty big error. That would be a deal breaker for me, I'm afraid. I can't help you with this one, unless you want me to bring the lighter fluid.

happywritermom · Jun 5, 2009

I recently read a novel in which the realtor not only hooks the main character up with donated space for her youth center, but she decides to forego her commission. What commission? The space has been donated.

Storm Dream · Jun 5, 2009

The copy editor must've been on vacation...dang.

CaroGirl · Jun 5, 2009

Storm Dream said:
The copy editor must've been on vacation...dang.

But where? In Atlanta or somewhere in Texas?

Jennasis · Jun 5, 2009

It's bad enough that it got past the author, but the agent and the editor too?? Sounds like the author forgot where her things were happening.

I can't remember what book I was reading but about 2/3 of the way through it he/she swapped out the MC's name for another character for about 1/2 a page.

Of course, there's also that spot in the bible where the name Jebus appears....

Ken · Jun 5, 2009

... recently read a novel from the 1950's that had a chapter titled Shock Treatment and there wasn't any mention of shock treatment or anything related in it. Author must of cut that section from it I'm guessing and forgotten to retitle the chpt

Otherwise, great book though!

ChristineR · Jun 5, 2009

I guess I'd have to read exactly what was said. If her employer flew her to Georgia, it might sense to fly to Atlanta then drive to Texas and back for the wedding. But if she didn't say this, er, yeah, isn't that what editors are supposed to be finding?

However, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was pretty much ruined for me by a point which makes the whole book moot. I can't really explain it with out ruining the whole plot, so I'll put it in white text. Read it by highlighting

The whole premise of the book is that Voldemort wants Harry to fetch a prophecy for him. It's stored in a glass jar and plays back like a little hologram movie when the jar is opened. But it's enchanted so that only Harry can remove it from the shelf, so Voldemort has to trick Harry into fetching it, so he can then steal it.

But at the end of the book, the kid wizards knock over a whole bunch of shelves, which breaks hundreds of prophecy jars, and all the prophecies go off at once. Voldemort could easily have gotten to the jar, broken it, recorded the prophecy, even replaced it with a copy or a fake, and have been done with it. Instead he takes huge risks which come back to bite him in book seven, and he doesn't even get to see the prophecy because he's not around when the jar is accidentally broken.

James D. Macdonald · Jun 5, 2009

Sounds to me like a couple of pages got left out (where the connecting flight from Atlanta has something happen to it) so our heroine has to do something crazy like rent a car in Atlanta and drive to Dallas (or wherever) because every other flight is booked, or the airport is shut for weather, or whatever, which makes continuing by air impossible if she still wanted to get to her friend's wedding. She can do it in about twelve hours if she doesn't waste any time.

And no one noticed in the galleys that a whole scene was missing because by then everyone had read it so many times they had it memorized and recalled the scene even if it wasn't there, and the proofreader was asleep at the switch. Or, the copy the proofreader was working from came from a point after the missing scene got dropped (someone hit the "delete" key by accident rather than the "print" key).

Sounds like having to drive from Atlanta was a major plot point, too. The sort of thing you have to do to get the plot rolling (like missing the sign for the Interstate in Doc Hollywood).

SJAB · Jun 5, 2009

I once read a novel, by a well known writer of historical fiction, where the characters in one scene were eating potatoes in England in the year 1066?

dirtsider · Jun 5, 2009

I don't recall off the top of my head any mistakes similar to what you mention. However, I have noticed some consistency errors in at least one series I really enjoy. They're minor enough not to make me want to throw the book against the wall but jarring enough for me to notice. A sort of "wait a sec - that's not how it was in the first book!" moment. Then I got over it and continued reading. lol

cbenoi1 · Jun 5, 2009

> Of course, there's also that spot in the bible where the name Jebus appears....

Text-to-speech software. You ears could save the day when your eyes can't anymore.

-cb

Scribhneoir · Jun 5, 2009

IThinkICan29 said:
Tell me why she gets on a plane headed to Texas, but ends up in Atlanta

Was she flying Delta?

Every time I want to fly to Texas, Delta offers me the chance to do so by flying to Atlanta first. The problem with this is that I'm starting from California and flying from Orange County to Austin by way of Atlanta is not my idea of a sensible itinerary. Perhaps the character ran into this same issue with airline route consolidations?

Anyway, I've never run into anything that glaringly wrong in a novel, though I've seen a similar thing happen in an old western TV show where the characters were on their way to Laredo but the stage driver took 'em to El Paso.

IThinkICan29 · Jun 5, 2009

CaroGirl said:
But where? In Atlanta or somewhere in Texas?

Maybe he's in Atlanta AND Texas. Maybe he has a doppleganger. Wooooooo..

Rushie · Jun 5, 2009

SJAB said:
I once read a novel, by a well known writer of historical fiction, where the characters in one scene were eating potatoes in England in the year 1066?

san_remo_ave · Jun 5, 2009

I have no idea how the author presented 'Texas', but I do want to point out that there is a:

Texas, Georgia

No kidding. And it's roughly between Atlanta and Birmingham, so it's technically possible to "fly into Atlanta and drive to Texas" in a short period of time. Probably 1 1/2 hours.

Perhaps s/he just did a really, really bad job in explaining it was a city and not a state she was referring to?

Phaeal · Jun 5, 2009

Several big errors in the Harry Potter series, which I don't have the heart to go into at the moment.

Another big one I remember is in an adventure book where the heroes and villains are both after a precious ancient book. At the climax, the book ends up in the middle of one of those charming jungle rope bridges. The bridge goes down, with no mention anywhere of the heroes rescuing the book, and yet the heroes end up with the book a couple paragraphs after the apocalyptic crash. Ouchy. I had to have someone else read the chapter and verify I wasn't hallucinating.

The same author, whom I like, recently wrote a book in which one of the villains, with no previous preparation for a change of heart, suddenly rescues the heroes. One of the heroes then remarks, "Oh, I never thought HE was as bad as the other one." Huh???

James D. Macdonald · Jun 5, 2009

Do you want me to start telling copyeditor horror stories, like the time the copyeditor changed (correct) leach to (incorrect) leech (probably because the copyeditor didn't know the word leach), or the other time when the copyeditor changed the (correct) van Beethoven to the (incorrect) von Beethoven?

But if the story is moving fast enough ... no one counts the rivets on a moving train.

IThinkICan29 · Jun 5, 2009

Scribhneoir said:
Was she flying Delta?

Every time I want to fly to Texas, Delta offers me the chance to do so by flying to Atlanta first. The problem with this is that I'm starting from California and flying from Orange County to Austin by way of Atlanta is not my idea of a sensible itinerary. Perhaps the character ran into this same issue with airline route consolidations?

Anyway, I've never run into anything that glaringly wrong in a novel, though I've seen a similar thing happen in an old western TV show where the characters were on their way to Laredo but the stage driver took 'em to El Paso.

I don't know if she was flying Delta. But the funny thing is, she never mentions Texas again. I get why she goes to Texas then to Georgia. The author needed a reason to bring the character back to D.C. She was supposed to go to Texas for the wedding, then come back to D.C. to pick up her plane ticket to Georgia. But geez, she's already there. Arrgh!

blacbird · Jun 5, 2009

Many years back I recall reading a novel by a classic writer (I recall it was Conan Doyle, but I might be misremembering) that referred, in passing, to the great new American city of Seattle, in Kentucky.

caw

IThinkICan29 · Jun 5, 2009

san_remo_ave said:
I have no idea how the author presented 'Texas', but I do want to point out that there is a:

Texas, Georgia

No kidding. And it's roughly between Atlanta and Birmingham, so it's technically possible to "fly into Atlanta and drive to Texas" in a short period of time. Probably 1 1/2 hours.

Perhaps s/he just did a really, really bad job in explaining it was a city and not a state she was referring to?

Maybe, but I don't think so. The author has a minor character introduce the main character's schedule and he explicitly states Texas and Georgia. The main character also talks about her flight to Texas.

IThinkICan29 · Jun 5, 2009

blacbird said:
Many years back I recall reading a novel by a classic writer (I recall it was Conan Doyle, but I might be misremembering) that referred, in passing, to the great new American city of Seattle, in Kentucky.

caw

Seattle, Kentucky? Wonder if it rains there.

blacbird · Jun 5, 2009

Scribhneoir said:
The problem with this is that I'm starting from California and flying from Orange County to Austin by way of Atlanta is not my idea of a sensible itinerary.

No, but the way airlines work, it might be cheaper. Not too long ago I needed to go to Denver from Anchorage, and found I could get a ticket to Albuquerque, with a stop and plane change in Denver, at about half the cost of flying straight to Denver.

Not a very useful way to fix a straightforward novel error, however.

caw

IThinkICan29 · Jun 5, 2009

Okay, I'm officially crying 'uncle'. The main character is telling any and everyone she encounters that she'll be working for the Secret Service. She's also telling them who she'll be guarding. Where's the 'secret'?

Oh well, I gave it the old college try.

Willowmound · Jun 5, 2009

James D. Macdonald said:
Do you want me to start telling copyeditor horror stories [...] ?

Yes, please.

I remember one particularly bad error. It was during what was supposed to be an emotionally climactic scene with all these things coming together physically as well as symbolically. The protagonist and his friends had gathered atop a mountain to watch the sunrise, and as the first rays clear the horizon, the author goes on to describe, in dramatic detail, how the shadow of night is retreating up the mountain. Naturally, I laughed heartily.

Have you ever encountered a MAJOR mistake in a novel?

IThinkICan29

CaroGirl

Living the dream

happywritermom

Storm Dream

Into the blue memory

CaroGirl

Living the dream

Jennasis

Ken

ChristineR

What happened?

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

SJAB

Being edited for submission

dirtsider

Not so new, really

cbenoi1

Scribhneoir

Reinventing Myself

IThinkICan29

Rushie

san_remo_ave

Back at it

Phaeal

Whatever I did, I didn't do it.

James D. Macdonald

Your Genial Uncle

IThinkICan29

blacbird

IThinkICan29

IThinkICan29

blacbird

IThinkICan29

Willowmound

Lightly salted