worst factual error you've ever written?

[joy_of_cooking]

I just realized that my new story mentions a commercial wok burner is 30,000 BTU. I know very well that they're actually three, sometimes four times that. Wahhhh....

Console me with tales of your own mistakes, please.

 

[MelissaBaby]

My character was driving a stick shift and put it in park.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Referring to a 50-caliber machine gun as "50 millimeter".

I don't make a lot of factual errors but I do attract readers who like to try and prove me wrong at times. It seldom works out for them.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I had a switch hitter batting right-handed against a right-handed pitcher or vice versa. You bat where you can have the best view of the pitcher's hand as it comes around; for that, you bat opposite to their throwing motion. Yes, the mistake was pointed out, and I think I made an offhand remark that I knew that. Which I did, but it was a mental error when I was writing. I didn't want to admit that. I tried to imply it was an intentional error. It wasn't.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

One of my MC's is only 6" tall, and it's not a Sci Fi/Fantasy story...

 

[lovecraft68]

I wrote an honest politician.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I wrote an honest politician.

Obviously a Fantasy story then.

 

[MrPixel]

If I've made one... which is likely... I haven't been called on it yet.

 

[KeithD]

I put Shepherdstown in Maryland when it's across the Potomac in West Virginia when I damn well knew where it really was. A reader called me on it. Sorry, that's as big a factual error in Literotica copy that I can remember.

In the mainstream, in a bible study I was writing with my minister sister, I wrote an entire section referring to the wrong Judas. My sister didn't catch it before it went to print.

 

[Bazzle]

Facts?
What...how... where am I meant to put reality in to my stories

 

[lovecraft68]

Not sure if this counts, but I made a math error in a story I released last year. In the intro the narrator states his age, that its the 50th anniversary of an event that happened when he was 18, then started the story in a year that would make him 23 in that year.

I had two different openings and when I mixed them I didn't change the year the story took place.

I caught it on a quick reread, but decided it wasn't worth putting up an edited version and the readers catching it could feel good about finding a screw up.

It took a couple months before someone mentioned it(others could have caught it and ignored it)

 

[AG31]

I put Shepherdstown in Maryland when it's across the Potomac in West Virginia when I damn well knew where it really was. A reader called me on it. Sorry, that's as big a factual error in Literotica copy that I can remember.

In the mainstream, in a bible study I was writing with my minister sister, I wrote an entire section referring to the wrong Judas. My sister didn't catch it before it went to print.

Well, now, this is an intriguing peek a little deeper into your personality. I'm interested in the relationship between religious experience and S&M. But I've never brought it up here because my sense is that religion is so out of style that there just wouldn't be any people who knew what I was talking about. Do you?

 

[Not2Pervy]

I had characters staying in a hotel take their room towels with them to the pool, even though I probably haven’t stayed at a hotel that didn’t have special swimming pool towels they keep at the pool since I was a kid.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Well, now, this is an intriguing peek a little deeper into your personality. I'm interested in the relationship between religious experience and S&M. But I've never brought it up here because my sense is that religion is so out of style that there just wouldn't be any people who knew what I was talking about. Do you?

Let's just say that the stories you may have heard about nuns at Catholic schools contain a certain amount of truth.

 

[MillieDynamite]

In the series Justified, you get the impression the drive from Lexington to Harlan County, and in town in the country, is about twenty minutes. It's over 3 hours, and two of the towns mentioned, Harlan and the town where Ava works as a hairstylist, are over an hour's drive. Factual and fiction don't often fit well together. I remember the Chief Marshal Mullens saying, "Rayland, I can't believe you drive this far every day or two." That's about the only time they acknowledged it as a fer-piece.

 

[StillStunned]

I once wrote about a man giving a woman an orgasm.

But it was in SF/F, so that's alright.

 

[EmilyMiller]

worst factual error you've ever written?​

I got the US / UK time the wrong way round in a story about a transatlantic JOI.

I have spent - and continue to spend - quite a bit of time in London, so I should really know better.

In my defence, I was borrowing from life when it was a (much smaller) NJ / IL time difference. Still, it was pretty stupid and loads of people noticed .

Emily

 

[EmilyMiller]

I once wrote about a man giving a woman an orgasm.

But it was in SF/F, so that's alright.

Had he bought it on eBay?

 

[MrPixel]

Had he bought it on eBay?

Corded, or rechargeable?

 

[StillStunned]

Had he bought it on eBay?

Yeah, and it came in a nice box and everything.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Yeah, and it came in a nice box and everything.

A box is a good thing to cum in…

 

[StillStunned]

A box is a good thing to cum in…

There's a joke that's probably as old as dirty minds: "My girlfriend doesn't have her virginity anymore. That's alright though: she kept the box."

 

[EmilyMiller]

Corded, or rechargeable?

Always go with corded.

Emily

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Time in the Kumquatverse is a bit ropey, but that doesn't explain how characters drink a certain rum and have played a certain console game, about 5 years before each existed. I knew about the latter but didn't want to change it; only realised the former recently.

I live in hope of some dedicated enough fans to point out my errors.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I got Halloween and Walpurgisnacht mixed up. Disastrous for my Goth cred.