Get It Right, Asshead!

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

So I'm reading Dennis Lehane's book LIVE BY NIGHT and he's describing Ybor City in Tampa circa 1929. And he jabbering about how he can see the Gulf from Ybor City.

Well that's not possible then or now. Hookers Point and Seddon Island were dredged up I think, but they conceal McKay Bay and Tampa Bay, and the fucking Gulf is 30 miles beyond but you cant see it because Manatee County is in the way. Tampa Bay makes a right turn around Ruskin, so all you see is Port Manatee. But you cant see any of it from Ybor City.

 

[heretopraise]

Take a deep breath.....

Authors often hash up the details. Kurt Vonnegut had Auschwitz in existence for 14 years, ten years too long. You have to remember that most people are in no condition to judge if you can see what from where.

I respect authors like Thomas Pynchon whose background research is rock solid (I think I've caught ONE factual mistake in the whole of Gravity's Rainbow). But it's not worth having a coronary over.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Take a deep breath.....

Authors often hash up the details. Kurt Vonnegut had Auschwitz in existence for 14 years, ten years too long. You have to remember that most people are in no condition to judge if you can see what from where.

I respect authors like Thomas Pynchon whose background research is rock solid (I think I've caught ONE factual mistake in the whole of Gravity's Rainbow). But it's not worth having a coronary over.

My historical LIT stories are diligently researched.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

More.

Lehane, to be PC I imagine, refers to the local mobsters as DIXIES. They were called CRACKER MAFIA.

No more.

 

[MSTarot]

This would be the reason why I don't name my cities in stories. It's always a city near the coast, but close to the mountains, somewhere in the south but north of where you think.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

This would be the reason why I don't name my cities in stories. It's always a city near the coast, but close to the mountains, somewhere in the south but north of where you think.

Most change the names of cities.

 

[carlieplum]

Not just the author. Good editors are/have fact checkers for a reason.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

David Goodis is the jerk this time.

No Greyhound Bus has a carburetor or points, and no bus driver crawls under his bus and replaces its springs in an hour.

Passenger buses run on diesel fuel its pistons compress until the fuel detonates. No electrical spark is required. Ignition Points and carburetors were used on gasoline engines prior to 1980 or so.

 

[sr71plt]

Did a major plot point revolve on this? If not, you're just being anal and seeing the individual saplings rather than the possible beauty of the forest. Little irritates me more than to have woven a complex story and have some anal jerk pick on a minor technical point--more often than not incorrectly. It's fiction, James, not an owner's manual.

 

[SecondCircle]

Yeah I think that few would ever notice or care about such a small detail, especially if it's not central to the plot. People used to get annoyed with me when I would ponder on stuff like that in the movies and I stopped when I started to annoy myself. I'd catch stuff that didn't really matter all that much, like a car window being down when the previous scene showed it rolled up, or Rambo not double racking a 50 cal before opening fire.

None of it really made a difference. They were little things not pivotal to the plot. The storyline is really what matters, or the action or soul. That's not to say that there can be glaring errors that should never get fixed. If something is too damn big, then it detracts from the plausibility of the story, which is never acceptable.

To each their own I guess.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yeah I think that few would ever notice or care about such a small detail, especially if it's not central to the plot. People used to get annoyed with me when I would ponder on stuff like that in the movies and I stopped when I started to annoy myself. I'd catch stuff that didn't really matter all that much, like a car window being down when the previous scene showed it rolled up, or Rambo not double racking a 50 cal before opening fire.

None of it really made a difference. They were little things not pivotal to the plot. The storyline is really what matters, or the action or soul. That's not to say that there can be glaring errors that should never get fixed. If something is too damn big, then it detracts from the plausibility of the story, which is never acceptable.

To each their own I guess.

It destroys the fictive dream. There are two ways to do it, include something the reader knows is bullshit, and include something the reader knows nuthin about and suspects is bullshit.

I just submitted a story with a quicksand scene in it. Readers imagine quicksand is one thing but its usually something very different. So I added a little narrative to explain the mechanics of quicksand. Mostly you just stay stuck and shit your pants cus you cant pull your legs free. Its easier to lift a small car than free your legs from shallow quicksand.

 

[sr71plt]

The magnitude of the point is what is important, James. Most of those who hang on minor points as yours probably is to ruin the whole work for them are just anal jerks signaling that they would never make that mistake in their stories--and most of them don't even have stories. You aren't good enough yourself, James, to be knitpicking on minor technicalities in published works. It's just you trying to make yourself what you aren't yet.

And throwing up a forum thread on it is just you craving attention and recognition of credentials you don't have.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The magnitude of the point is what is important, James. Most of those who hang on minor points as yours probably is to ruin the whole work for them are just anal jerks signaling that they would never make that mistake in their stories--and most of them don't even have stories. You aren't good enough yourself, James, to be knitpicking on minor technicalities in published works. It's just you trying to make yourself what you aren't yet.

And throwing up a forum thread on it is just you craving attention and recognition of credentials you don't have.

^^^^Our anal jerk expert, PRINCIPAL SKINNER.

 

[sr71plt]

Yeah, I didn't think you had a real counter argument.

 

[SecondCircle]

You can critique as you wish, being a fan or reader or what have ye.

I'm just a different kind of reader I guess. If its something small, and doesn't amount to much, I can move past it. Now it can't be so much that it draws me out of the fiction. You, JBJ, just have different limits. Something like this obviously draws you out of the fiction. That's fine.

It's about like grammar and punc. A lil don't bother me. Too much and I'm lost.

 

[slyc_willie]

I've gotten to the point where I expect inaccuracies in just about anything I read. Or write, for that matter. I have a story on here featuring a vintage Mustang with a 327 short block V6. Yes, I know the Mustangs typically ran a 289, but I figured, what the hell and decided someone, somewhere could have installed such an engine in such a car.

I had several comments and a few emails telling me how wrong I was.

I've read various stories and novels that had glaring errors pop out at me. One that, for whatever reason, I always remember is a detective novel that came out in the early nineties. The main character uses a Glock 17 pistol, and in one scene he "sets the safety" and clubs someone over the head.

The Glock 17's safety is on the trigger. There's no way to "set" it the way you can on a Colt 1911 or Beretta 92. The mistake didn't keep me from enjoying the story, but it stood out to me.

Again, I expect to see errors now and then when I read. But unless it's something central to the plot or scene (e.g. Dan Brown), I look past it.

 

[SecondCircle]

I've gotten to the point where I expect inaccuracies in just about anything I read. Or write, for that matter. I have a story on here featuring a vintage Mustang with a 327 short block V6. Yes, I know the Mustangs typically ran a 289, but I figured, what the hell and decided someone, somewhere could have installed such an engine in such a car.

I had several comments and a few emails telling me how wrong I was.

I've read various stories and novels that had glaring errors pop out at me. One that, for whatever reason, I always remember is a detective novel that came out in the early nineties. The main character uses a Glock 17 pistol, and in one scene he "sets the safety" and clubs someone over the head.

The Glock 17's safety is on the trigger. There's no way to "set" it the way you can on a Colt 1911 or Beretta 92. The mistake didn't keep me from enjoying the story, but it stood out to me.

Again, I expect to see errors now and then when I read. But unless it's something central to the plot or scene (e.g. Dan Brown), I look past it.

Right, key phrase is that it stands out but usually won't keep you from enjoying the story. I'll second that. SecondCircle seconds that. Secondly.

 

[sr71plt]

My most recent "got it wrong and disadvantaged the story" reader/commenter tagged a story set in "old Egypt" because it didn't use descriptions people associated with the pharaohs. I went with it, not wanting to make a big deal of it--but such criticism put on a story the first day hurts the story readership and rating--until another commenter blasted the pickiness of the first one. Then I noted that the time of the pharaohs in Egypt ended in 30 B.C., which gave nearly 2,000 years of Egyptian history for me to be able to refer to as "old Egypt."

Knowitalls on minutia in a posted story who just gotta display their knowledge (or lack of knowledge) are just that--anal knowitalls seeking attention for themselves.

 

[slyc_willie]

My most recent "got it wrong and disadvantaged the story" reader/commenter tagged a story set in "old Egypt" because it didn't use descriptions people associated with the pharaohs. I went with it, not wanting to make a big deal of it--but such criticism put on a story the first day hurts the story readership and rating--until another commenter blasted the pickiness of the first one. Then I noted that the time of the pharaohs in Egypt ended in 30 B.C., which gave nearly 2,000 years of Egyptian history for me to be able to refer to as "old Egypt."

Knowitalls on minutia in a posted story who just gotta display their knowledge (or lack of knowledge) are just that--anal knowitalls seeking attention for themselves.

I get those from time to time. One was on a story in which two cousins lamented that they couldn't get married. The point was that their families wouldn't allow them to, not because it was against the law in the state in which the story took place. I think there were four or five comments and a few emails that pointed out my "error." They didn't get the point of the story.

It's the same sort of pettiness that drives people to establish websites in which they nitpick every tiny detail an author has gotten wrong in their stories. I've seen such sites for King, Koontz, Rice and numerous others. All I can think is how empty and/or OCD their lives must be to spend so much energy trying to belittle someone.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I get those from time to time. One was on a story in which two cousins lamented that they couldn't get married. The point was that their families wouldn't allow them to, not because it was against the law in the state in which the story took place. I think there were four or five comments and a few emails that pointed out my "error." They didn't get the point of the story.

It's the same sort of pettiness that drives people to establish websites in which they nitpick every tiny detail an author has gotten wrong in their stories. I've seen such sites for King, Koontz, Rice and numerous others. All I can think is how empty and/or OCD their lives must be to spend so much energy trying to belittle someone.

That's us OCD.

 

[sr71plt]

That's us OCD.

Bingo. On top of that you do it here to get attention and to try to establish that you have writing credentials you haven't earned yet.

 

[SecondCircle]

When readers pick out stuff like that I try not to let it bother me much. But there is that voice that says "really? That's what they got from the story?"

There's some sort of enjoyment people get when they get to tell other people they are doing it wrong. It's like an itch they get to scratch.

I used to want to punch myself when I picked out stuff like that. Like, I wished there was a switch I could turn off to help me ignore some things. I'm pretty versed at ignoring them now, or at least keeping my mouth shut.

I think someone here one time mentioned something about me using "meters" instead of "yards" to gauge distance. It was noted that most Americans wouldn't really use that there. Very valid point. Meters was just something I got used to, and I am American. I can see how it'd be odd, and I do try to avoid it now, but it just seems like Americans would still get the idea if I said something was "several meters away." Six in one and all that.

 

[slyc_willie]

That's us OCD.

Yes, and you are legion.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yes, and you are legion.

As long as they spell my name right.