SDMB - Straight Dope discussion

What's the worst mistake you've ever caught a writer making?

I read a book once where about halfway through all of the main characters' names changed. I think that might be tough for the rest of you to beat. :D

...and that made it past the editors!? Or was it vanity press?

Wow...the ones I've caught pale in comparison.

Rabies in Australia in one book (I'm pretty sure it's been kept out).

JK Rowling's astronomy knowledge is -- just terrible. Fer instance, she has two towns in England having sunrises at significantly different times. That's just not going to happen. She has Venus up at 11:30 at night. Orion visible in June. Stuff like that.

It wasn't vanity press, but it was (if I remember correctly) a romance. Those things are churned out so quickly that I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often!

Most writers' errors pass right by me. If I don't have personal experience to the contrary, they can say anything.

The most recent boo-boo was a writer putting a character in a 1958 Mercury Comet. No such thing -- they didn't come out until 1960 -- but I only knew that because I once owned one.

One vanity press error was a doozy. The book was pretty well-written, so the goof was a surprise. Character A had gone to an apartment intending to kill Character B and was standing outside the door. Character B opened the door and left, just walked right by Character A. We never saw Character A again -- that plot point was just dropped!

I was forced to read Digital Fortress, by Dan Brown, for my book club, and it made me realize just how bad his research was. It was set in Seville and a lot of action centered around the cathedral tower. He had them running up the stairs of the tower, fighting on the stairs, falling down the stairs, etc. Well, I had recently been in Seville, and one of the main points of interest about that tower is that it has no stairs! It was originally built as a minaret, and they build a ramp up the inside so a horse could be ridden up for the calls to prayer.

I always knew he took a lot of liberty with the truth in his books, but that really drove it home for me.

Oh, and the dang "Left Behind" books are famous for this. The first book, which I could only stomach for ~50 pages, had La Guardia as an international airport, and airplanes in radio contact to airports from thousands of miles away. Lots of other stuff, too, that I'm blocking on.

The only Star Trek novel I've ever read mentioned that after he made a mistake, Wesley Crusher felt like a gazebo.

Oh, I've felt like a gazebo LOTS of times. :D

What in the world did the author really mean?

OK...that one made me giggle. The only similar word that comes to mind is gazelle, but that really doesn't make more sense.

Maybe the character felt like building a gazebo? In order to improve his state of mind.

But in the creative frenzy, the author missed the word 'building' and the underzealous proof-reader/ editor never questioned the 'feel like [building] a gazebo'.

Anna (posting from her back garden, which is full of gazebo like structures, so she knows whereof she speaks, more or less - both in terms of building, and in terms of feeling like.)

Well, he just did something incredibly embarrassing (it was Wesley, after all) and he was ashamed to face Data. How gazebos are shaming, I don't know.

He felt like gazpacho. He was hungry.

Maybe he actually felt a gazebo. He put one on the holodeck and went and fondled it, sadly.

Gah! I just found another one (non-gazebo related this time).

I'm reading "Back When We Were Grownups" right now. The main character is 53 years old. She met her husband in 1968 when she was 20 years old. Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd just came through the area.

Dennis and Floyd came through in 1999. I know because I was evacuated during the flooding.

1999 minus 1948 does not equal 53.

*headdesk*

Okay, strike that. Anne Tyler finally cleared up--at the freakin' END of the book no less--that the meeing took place in 1966. After saying it was the "late sixties" throughout the book.

*kicks book*