Dumbest mistake you've made in your stories?

[MelissaBaby]

I have a story that deals with a lot of flashbacks to earlier days for my characters. At one point (after a little too much absinthe), I inserted a character from the modern timeline into a flashback scene. The character hadn't even been born yet.

I was about to hit 'Submit' when I caught the error.

Cue another night of re-writing for me.

The story/saga in question also has massive continuity errors, from where it began to where it is now. It was my first story on here, and I was expecting it to be six chapters, maybe seven, and designed the characters accordingly. The entire series is currently forty, so everything has changed. I get heat for it from the zoilists out there, but it's being corrected. Boy, oh, boy, is it being corrected.

I think really only tiny spelling mistakes like letter reversals make it through at this point. I've trained myself to look for larger errors.

For Mary and Alvin, which covers about 60 years in 36 chapters, I used one of those Family Tree websites to keep track of the characters relationships and, particularly, their relative ages. It was very helpful.

 

[oggbashan]

For Mary and Alvin, which covers about 60 years in 36 chapters, I used one of those Family Tree websites to keep track of the characters relationships and, particularly, their relative ages. It was very helpful.

My story Earth To Earth had a child born while the mother was underage for marriage without parental consent (21 at the time of the story in Wales). But before I submitted it, I checked the dateline and found that because of other events in the story and historical events on fixed dates, she would have to have been 13. I had to draw up a time chart and recast the whole story to make her lit-legal but still under 21.

But I caught that before submitting it.

 

[KeithD]

My muse is even now working on the story entitled "Won Ton Lust" (and trying to make it different from the already written "Chinese Takeout").

 

[PoisonPen33]

My muse is even now working on the story entitled "Won Ton Lust" (and trying to make it different from the already written "Chinese Takeout").

I'm not saying I'm doing the same thing, but I'm doing the same thing. Hey, if my brain's going to mess with me, I'm going to take advantage.

 

[TxRad]

Now you guys have done it!

My mind keeps playing: 'Won Ton Blonde in China Town'.

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

We could make a story out of all of these typos.

After growing up on a diary farm, a girl leaves to be taught ass and experience wonton lust.

 

[NotWise]

Now you guys have done it!

My mind keeps playing: 'Won Ton Blonde in China Town'.

That must be painful.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I might just take a "taught" ass over a "taut" one.

And "wonton" lust -- I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

"What are you doing, Suzie?" EB asked.

She looked over her glasses. "Learning Chinese. These academic types, you can really get 'em going."

"Quitting the cheerleader stuff, then?"

"Never. You don't get a butt like this, sitting on your ass all day!"

 

[JulianDelacourt]

Left two glasses of wine on the coffee table.

Lady hides lover on the balcony when sugar daddy unexpectedly arrives. She and lover were drinking wine. Two wine glasses on the table and sugar daddy never noticed. I realized the error a day after I submitted the story. A reader called me out on it as I knew they would.

 

[Jamie_and_Lisa]

According to our three readers, we started ...

 

[lovecraft68]

A digital camera in the early 1970's.

I caught myself on that one in a final edit...had a character take out a cell phone in the late 80's so I changed it to a pager...all the cool kids had one

 

[lovecraft68]

Not sure dumbest, but I'd say the worst was this typo

"he slid his arm around her waste."

I mean I know there's a fetish for that, but still....its a pretty bad mistake.

 

[oggbashan]

I caught myself on that one in a final edit...had a character take out a cell phone in the late 80's so I changed it to a pager...all the cool kids had one

One of my colleagues had a satellite phone in the 1970s. It was very expensive, came in a briefcase. You erected the dish, directed it at a satellite until you got a carrier signal - then you could make a call at a cost of one thousand pounds a minute...

He was trying to supervise installing a radio station at a new remote airstrip in the South American jungle. Their aircraft burst two tyres on landing and couldn't take off and no aircraft were due at the airstrip for another two months. The radio station wasn't working yet. How could they get replacement tyres?

"Simple", he said. He got out his phone, lined up the satellite and rang London.

The new tyres arrived by plane the next day.

But the phone call cost more than the tyres.

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

Just realised my biggest error.

It was somehow attracting the only, lonely sad little one-bomber on Lit.

I mean, why me guys?

They just won't go away!

 

[KeithD]

One of my colleagues had a satellite phone in the 1970s. It was very expensive, came in a briefcase. You erected the dish, directed it at a satellite until you got a carrier signal - then you could make a call at a cost of one thousand pounds a minute...

He was trying to supervise installing a radio station at a new remote airstrip in the South American jungle. Their aircraft burst two tyres on landing and couldn't take off and no aircraft were due at the airstrip for another two months. The radio station wasn't working yet. How could they get replacement tyres?

"Simple", he said. He got out his phone, lined up the satellite and rang London.

The new tyres arrived by plane the next day.

But the phone call cost more than the tyres.

I was issued a bulky satellite phone in the early nineties when I was roaming the Middle East a step or two before the nasties. No dish came with it, though. I handed it over to my deputy to play with. I don't remember ever receiving a call on it.

 

[Voboy]

I wrote a little story that I thought would do okay. It got almost no readers at all.

One of you fine people here in the AH gently pointed out that it might have been because the title was a German word. Yup. That was probably it.

So, don't give your works a German title unless you're posting in German.

 

[KeithD]

I wrote a little story that I thought would do okay. It got almost no readers at all.

One of you fine people here in the AH gently pointed out that it might have been because the title was a German word. Yup. That was probably it.

So, don't give your works a German title unless you're posting in German.

"Macht Nichts" (probably the first German I learned.)

 

[Omenainen]

I guess I haven’t spotted anything dumber than spelling mistakes, though undoubtedly there would be something to be found. I know for a fact I messed up ankle/angle in two of my earlier stories, and that only because a reader pointed it out. I didn’t bother to post an edit, I’m sure it’s not the only thing wrong with them. If it is a word, so that the spellcheck doesn’t point it out, it’s entirely possible for me to get it wrong like that. I don’t do the same mistakes many others do - at least I don’t think I do - like to/too, lose/loose, because this is a learned language for me and I’ve had to specifically learn which goes with what, but I’m sure I compensate with a horde of other stupid things.

I’m sure I would have a ton of contingency errors, if I tried to write anything longer or plottier. I’m just not organized like that.

 

[Ninjasr4real]

Left my muse’s notes in a chapter. It is my highest rated chapter. I “fixed” the remaining chapters and then they sucked... Maybe I will redux the other chapters with her notes and label it as a director’s cut.

 

[yowser]

Describing a character as filled with "wonton lust" instead of "wanton lust."

(Cuban guitar strumming...)

Wonton Camaro!

I drive a Wonton Camaro

Wonton Camaarroo!

 

[ttvttp]

These are all making me feel better, people. Thank you.

I feel like “Wonton Lust” and “Teaching Ass” could be good story prompts...

I’ve made some of my characters very different sizes, and keeping the scale straight is more difficult than I expected, so I feel like I can empathize with MelissaBaby for Alvin’s magic boat.

If you want to up the butt plug size you gotta teach that ass.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Worst I've done (that I'm aware of) is change the name of a secondary character half way through a story (I'd changed the character's name at the very last minute and thought a simple search and replace was good enough. Nope.)

I say "aware of" because neither I nor readers caught the mistake until one helpful soul pointed it out a year and 10K views later.

In one story I also boneheadedly spelled ogle as 'oogle'. I think that's still uncorrected in the published story. I blame the spiel chequer

 

[RetroFan]

In my story 'X-Rated Xmas Gift From Nutty Niece' the girl Amber is rude to her mother and her father reprimands her for it. The father saying 'Respect your mother' or 'Don't disrespect your mother' would have been fine, but unfortunately I got confused somewhere between the two and the father says 'Don't respect your mother.' I didn't pick it up when editing and one reader did comment upon it.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I had named a character after two people I didn't like. The first name was from someone I knew personally and the last name was from a state politician. The character hadn't shown up for several chapters and when I referred to him again, I used the wrong name. Instead of having a different first name, I used the state politician's full name. Ooops!

Naturally, an eagle-eyed reader caught it. (At least she's paying attention.) Sadly, she decided to out in me in the comments with a guess at which state I lived in, based on the politician's name. I realize narrowing my location down to a state is not exactly compromising, but it was uncomfortable.

I'd like to say I'd never do that again, by there's an excellent chance that I will.

 

[CurvyGirl73]

I was inspired to start writing my stories by a current lover and the main characters are basically us. When picking out the name for my alter ego, I unknowingly chose exactly the name of his last girlfriend. While he does not have fond memories of her, he was still pretty relaxed about it. I changed it nevertheless... Not exactly a mistake, but one hell of a coincidence...