What’s the biggest blooper you have made in a story?

[EmilyMiller]

Mine was just recently, in Just Do As I Say. I have an edit submitted to fix it, but at the time of writing my stupid error is still there for people to point and laugh at.

What happened was - as I often do - I combined two actual events because my life is too boring and normal without doing that.

In this case, the first was my boyfriend going on his first European business trip since we started cohabiting. I went a bit crazy and decided that going to a bar by myself in a short dress and flirting with guys was the way to go (yes I am obviously still a teen at heart).

The second was an earlier Face Time session we had when he was on a domestic business trip and involved trying to provide JOI for him.

So I thought it might be interesting if my motivation for the JOI was to say sorry for the more recent ill-advised bar trip (nothing happened beyond flirting BTW - well a lot of flirting TBH ). I tend to work through stuff on my mind by writing about it.

So that’s the story I wrote. But I managed to reverse the Europe / US time difference in the process, which rather messed the whole thing up.

The worst thing is that I put the phrase “I’m a details person” in the text. Hubris, much?

What detail (or major item) did you screw up in a published work?

Em

 

[Zootonius]

Humiliation time. I would often proof read one story over a few days to fix my god awful typing (What I call my typing dyslexia) while writing the next.

As I wrote the next story, I accidently swapped the name of the male character of story one into story 2. Worse, my proof reading of that story skipped right over it. A week later, a comment, "Where did Bill come from."

Cringe... I reposted a corrected version but that error hangs over me. Now excuse me while I find a rock to crawl under until this painful reminder passes.

(Now, a good editor offered to help. Although I try my best, I appreciate his patience.)

 

[SimonDoom]

Writing "waste" instead of "waist" during an intimate scene. Ouch.

Suddenly getting a character's name wrong midway through the story.

I have plenty of others but those are the two that come immediately to mind.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Humiliation time. I would often proof read one story over a few days to fix my god awful typing (What I call my typing dyslexia) while writing the next.

As I wrote the next story, I accidently swapped the name of the male character of story one into story 2. Worse, my proof reading of that story skipped right over it. A week later, a comment, "Where did Bill come from."

Cringe... I reposted a corrected version but that error hangs over me. Now excuse me while I find a rock to crawl under until this painful reminder passes.

(Now, a good editor offered to help. Although I try my best, I appreciate his patience.)

This is why I [normally] stick to writing about people I know!

Em

 

[nice90sguy]

Writing "waste" instead of "waist" during an intimate scene. Ouch.

She patted her waste. "I've eaten too much," she said glumly.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Suddenly getting a character's name wrong midway through the story.

Come to think of it, I have written two stories (one stand-alone, one episodic) where I included Lit members other then me as MCs (both are works of fiction, I have never met any Lit member IRL, at least AFAIAA).

I did find myself often using their real names (assuming they are actually real) instead of the modified versions I had adopted for the story. Always caught it in read through though.

Em

 

[KeithD]

I just mentioned one on another thread--using "turgid" in a story that should have used "flaccid." Another is that I located Fenwick Island in Maryland in a story when it's in Delaware, and put Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in Maryland in another story, both locations that I jolly well know.

 

[Bazzle]

My character name changed halfway through. It took 3 months for someone to spot it!

 

[EmilyMiller]

My character name changed halfway through. It took 3 months for someone to spot it!

I had no fewer than four separate people point out my error to me, all pretty much immediately.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

I just mentioned one on another thread--using "turgid" in a story that should have used "flaccid." Another is that I located Fenwick Island in Maryland in a story when it's in Delaware, and put Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in Maryland in another story, both locations that I jolly well know.

I think it’s easy to be lazy if you feel you know the territory.

Em

 

[KeithD]

I think it’s easy to be lazy if you feel you know the territory.

Em

In both cases they were within sight of the state I mistakenly put them in. I was just thinking ahead to where the story was headed.

A bigger blooper, though, was in havng a private car driving around on Fire Island, NY, which doesn't allow private cars driving around.

 

[TxRad]

How about a digital camera in a story set in the 70's.

Swapping names in the middle of a story or better yet, swapping POV in the middle of the story. Trying to fix it after the story was posted was even more fun.

 

[AlexBailey]

Probably not my biggest…

I was referring to time zones in a story and said that Hawaii is three hours ahead of California.

 

[MrPixel]

..."waste" instead of "waist"...

I am so, so vigilant for that one. Too easy to do when the brain is on homophone autopilot.

 

[KeithD]

I am so, so vigilant for that one. Too easy to do when the brain is on homophone autopilot.

At the slightest opportunity, autocorrect will (while giggling) make that change for you itself.

 

[32aa]

A couple.
In one that was set in the late 60s, I used the word "gay" in conversation in reference to the MC's sexuality. It was pointed out to me that at that time, the word "gay" did not mean what it does today.

In another, my editor wanted to introduce a third character into the story. I wrote a number of paragraphs and placed them at the end of the story, separated by about half a page, just to keep it separate. I changed my mind and didn't include it. It got overlooked in the final edit. When it was published it was pulled up and attached to the end of the story. Had comments, "Who is Jess?" and "Where did Jess come from?" I just replied in the comments on what happened and it took care of that. But what and embarrassment.

 

[Djmac1031]

Looks like I'm not the only one who's played the Wrong Name Game lol.

Most notably during a scene where the male character Tom is having a conversation with a woman named Tammy.

Midway through, Tammy magically becomes Trish, another character in the story.

But at the end, it's Tammy who stands up and leaves.

I had several readers call me out on it, of course. They were actually very kind about it.

All I could do short of resubmitting an edit was post a comment apologizing for the snafu and clarifying that the female character involved in the conversation was indeed Tammy, NOT Trish.

 

[Djmac1031]

Writing "waste" instead of "waist" during an intimate scene. Ouch.

Waste happens, I guess...

 

[AlexBailey]

Waste happens, I guess...

Tighten a corset around it?

 

[Djmac1031]

Oh. I guess I'm gonna go ahead and admit to this rather embarrassing one:

I've used the word "prone" several times in several stories to describe someone laying on their back.

Then a reader finally pointed out to me that "prone" actually means face down, and the word I should have used was "supine."

A word I'd never heard before in my life .

 

[soflabbwlvr]

changing the name of a character halfway through

 

[MajorRewrite]

I have changed character names and ages. Commenters LOVE to point out the mistakes, even if they’re the 10th person to do so. I delete the repetitive comments and refuse to edit the stories to fix the mistakes.

 

[EmilyMiller]

In both cases they were within sight of the state I mistakenly put them in. I was just thinking ahead to where the story was headed.

A bigger blooper, though, was in havng a private car driving around on Fire Island, NY, which doesn't allow private cars driving around.

I included a Hitachi in one of my early stories set in college. I seemed to recall that it was cordless, but couldn’t remember precisely (it was six or seven years ago). I have a cordless one myself and wondered if I was conflating things. So I went to look up when the cordless version came on the market. It was the year before my story, so cordless it was .

Em

 

[Rob_Royale]

Nothing major. I added a string of pearls on a my nearly naked main female character and mentioned them later in the next paragraph. I ended up changing my mind and deleted the original mention but not the reference later.

 

[MetaBob]

A bigger blooper, though, was in havng a private car driving around on Fire Island, NY, which doesn't allow private cars driving around.

While some Fire Island communities might completely bar their use (Cherry Grove comes to mind), private cars are not completely prohibited on Fire Island, just severely restricted (to full-time residents who apply for one of the strictly limited number available -- I believe that number is 145):
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-I/part-7/section-7.20

I could be wrong.