What's your worst writing goof?

[Bramblethorn]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...-book-pulped-after-cover-misprint?CMP=soc_568

The Australian socialite and businesswoman Roxy Jacenko has had to pulp the first copies of her latest book after a quote on the cover mistakenly said she “never fails to disappoint”.

So, what's your worst typo/etc? Sadly, I can't think of any particularly memorable ones that I've made.

 

[NotWise]

So, what's your worst typo/etc? Sadly, I can't think of any particularly memorable ones that I've made.

I've never made one (that I know of) that was nearly that bad.

I listen to a local sports station, and they run an ad to promote a new fund-raising group organized by the University.

"The group in compromised by these fine business..." They say.

They've been running the ad for months. I guess someone needs to tell them what it means.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The Australian socialite and businesswoman Roxy Jacenko has had to pulp the first copies of her latest book after a quote on the cover mistakenly said she “never fails to disappoint”.

Sounds like an accurate blurb to me. She should have kept it.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not sure if this was my worst, but in one of my stories, referring to a suddenly unveiled woman, I inadvertently wrote "the curtains matched the drapes" as opposed to "the carpet matched the drapes." I never caught it through proofreading, but one of my readers did. That really does not capture the same meaning! That was an embarrassing goof.

 

[ausfet]

I wrote a passage describing the different, regional Australian names for swimwear, but left out 'budgie smugglers'. A reader pointed mentioned this, and I just went 'ooooh fuck'. Damnit! It still annoys me!

Gotta say, though, not a Roxy fan. 'Never fails to make me roll my eyes' would be a good quote.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I had a friend proofread a story for me once, luckily, because she found where I had typed something like
he thrust his huge coke in me
Yeah I typed coke instead of cock. I still giggle at that typo.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I wrote a passage describing the different, regional Australian names for swimwear, but left out 'budgie smugglers'. A reader pointed mentioned this, and I just went 'ooooh fuck'. Damnit! It still annoys me!

Gotta say, though, not a Roxy fan. 'Never fails to make me roll my eyes' would be a good quote.

I'm not familiar with her, but getting Jackie O to endorse a book isn't exactly a sign of quality. Might as well ask me for beer and coffee recommendations.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I had a friend proofread a story for me once, luckily, because she found where I had typed something like
he thrust his huge coke in me
Yeah I typed coke instead of cock. I still giggle at that typo.

I mean, that's also valid, but probably belongs in a different category.

 

[oggbashan]

My usual flaw is to get a character's name wrong at least once.

But - I had the main character arrested 'wrapped in his bathroom'.

 

[SimonDoom]

My usual flaw is to get a character's name wrong at least once.

But - I had the main character arrested 'wrapped in his bathroom'.

I did this. I was writing two stories at the same time. One story had a character named "Janna." The other didn't, but in at least one place I wrote "Janna" in place of the actual character name, just mixing up the two stories.

A perturbed reader asked "Who's Janna?" in a comment. I missed the red H on that one.

 

[jaF0]

I did a thread on this a few years back, but it's nearly impossible to find now.

My most common seems to be 'teh'. I also frequently get double letters separated. Things like 'selelr', 'botlte' or 'mirorr' for example.

 

[someoneyouknow]

We're talking just one, right?

 

[Hypoxia]

All my fuckups are careful planed.

 

[MelissaBaby]

In my memoir, My Fall and Rise, I changed the name of all the people involved except myself (and my current boyfriend, who insisted I use his real name.) Except when I didn't. I actually slipped and published the real name of my ex-boyfriend "Nicky" and had to edit it out.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Probably thinking I could write.

 

[TxRad]

Putting a digital camera in an early 1970's story.

 

[LupusDei]

My usual flaw is to get a character's name wrong at least once.

But - I had the main character arrested 'wrapped in his bathroom'.

I did this. I was writing two stories at the same time. One story had a character named "Janna." The other didn't, but in at least one place I wrote "Janna" in place of the actual character name, just mixing up the two stories.

A perturbed reader asked "Who's Janna?" in a comment. I missed the red H on that one.

As a reader, I have come to acceptance that LitE authors are incapable to keep character names consistent throughput the whole story. Seriously, I have seen so much of this. Worst probably was two girls involved in threesome to body swapped for most of the duration of the lengthy described act and then get back afterwards. Since it wasn't a story likely to include intentional body swap, I assume the names were confused instead.

 

[KimGordon67]

Not story-related, but I regularly present in front of relatively large audiences about policy related content using powerpoint, and every couple of years I find myself discussing policy related to 'pubic health'.

 

[JKendallDane]

I write primarily GM and it's always a challenge to keep character names and "who's doing what to whom" straight...for lack of a better word...when writing intense sex scenes.

One time in the span of just two sentences, I managed to flip-flop names and then completely miss the screw up during two edits. Unfortunately, more than a couple of readers caught it and mentioned it in their comments.

I imagine this also happens in the Lesbian and Group categories more often than we realize.

.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Not story-related, but I regularly present in front of relatively large audiences about policy related content using powerpoint, and every couple of years I find myself discussing policy related to 'pubic health'.

Pretty sure that's happened to everyone in that area at one point or another. I saw a major news organisation tweet "pubic" for "public" the other day.

There's an economic acronym "NILF" (Not In Labour Force) and you can imagine the typos there...

 

[SimonDoom]

I write primarily GM and it's always a challenge to keep character names and "who's doing what to whom" straight...for lack of a better word...when writing intense sex scenes.

One time in the span of just two sentences, I managed to flip-flop names and then completely miss the screw up during two edits. Unfortunately, more than a couple of readers caught it and mentioned it in their comments.

I imagine this also happens in the Lesbian and Group categories more often than we realize.

.

So you have tops and bottoms magically changing places a lot? I guess that could be erotic in a surreal way.

 

[YDB95]

The notorious "public/pubic" error has already been mentioned...but I got it backwards once.

Most of my stories feature heroines with natural bushy pussies. One of them (published on another site) was frustrated in her ability to "tuck her public hair back into her swimsuit".

 

[KimGordon67]

Pretty sure that's happened to everyone in that area at one point or another. I saw a major news organisation tweet "pubic" for "public" the other day.

There's an economic acronym "NILF" (Not In Labour Force) and you can imagine the typos there...

Ha! That's brilliant. 'The latest census indicates that 21.5% of the population are MILF.'

The worst thing about 'pubic health' is that you could imagine it being an actual thing.

 

[yukonnights]

My most common, and frustrating screw-up occurs when I type. Now, I'm a terrible typist to begin with...but a real bad habit is to somehow almost always miss the shift key to capitalize I. In proof reading, spell-check is just fine with that, by the way. But, try to read though pages of type trying to see, much less find all the little "i" mistakes...well, trust me, it's no fun and I can only assume there's still some lurking in my stories to this day.

Thankfully, I now use a Text-Edit program and my sweet wife/proof-reader showed me the "find/replace" function

 

[Hypoxia]

Probably thinking I could write.

Yeah.