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So, when you are reading stuff written by others, what drives you crazy? What cranks your shorts? What makes you want to hurl the manuscript across the room??? smile Here are a few of my pet peeves:

Homonyms. And people who don't "get" them:

Rain, rein, reign. It was pelting down RAIN when the new monarch drew REIN, dismounted from her horse, and entered the palace to begin her REIGN.... And yet you see them mis-used all over the place.

Meet, mete. I will METE out reward as seems most MEET and right to me...

Non-English terms in common use, that are gender-dependent: he had blond hair, she had blonde....

And then there are people who write about what they don't know: they've never fired a gun, but they write about firing a weapon and get it all wrong. They've never had sex, but write sex scenes. They've never eaten trout that they just caught, have no idea how good it can taste, but write about it anyway. They have never been near a horse, but they write about interactions with them, and completely gum it all up....

There are many others.... like consistency. *groans aloud*

One thing that makes me insane when reading fanfic, for instance, is when someone suddenly realizes in mid-scene (esp. in action sequences) that they forgot something crucial; then we end up with sentences like this:

"As the Orcs boiled into the clearing, Mary-Sue leaped down from her horse who stood there rock-solid despite his terror; she drew her sword and pulled out of her haversack the magical book (which Elrond had given to her in secret just before she left Rivendell, and which she had conveniently forgotten before now) and began looking for the right incantation..."

First of all... if the author really wanted to use the book, s/he should have written the encounter earlier where Elrond gave Mary-Sue the book. LOL! S/he should also try a) leaping down from a horse, b) leaping down while wearing a sword, c) drawing a sword, and d) trying to pull out, much less read, a book while holding a sword AND being charged by Orcs, who are NOT gonna wait while she reads.... wink S/he would learn that one generally cannot do all these things easily, that there is a sequence to such things...

Secondly... s/he clearly doesn't know horses. My horse has courage out the wazoo--but when he is afraid, even if I'm there whispering sweet nothings into his ears, he reacts like what he is: a prey animal. Other animals EAT horses. That makes them prey. Even the biggest, bad-arse stallion will fight THEN flee, when scared.... and they will buck, scream, fight to get loose and FLEEEEEEE....... smile

All of the above are consistency errors (well, OK, AND they are errors of inexperience generally committed by people who are unfamiliar with the things about which they are writing) because the writer did not go back later and try to massage into their text things they discovered they needed. It's maddening, esp. when with the internet there's little excuse. Someone somewhere will have posted something that explains how things work and why... all it takes is a little research!!

So! What makes YOU want to just plain scream and FLEEEEEE?

I didn't mean it to come across as offensive; I do apologize! I did say that people need to research these things because there are ways to learn how some of them are done.

I'm primarily talking about people who (as an example) write sex scenes where what they're describing is just not possible (or even likely to be pleasurable!) unless one of the people happens to be a contortionist. Or who write how they "think" something should happen, when doing that would be bad. For example, you mentioned firing an artillery piece on a ship in combat. You can get descriptions of those sorts of events, either from well-written fiction (where the author knows from experience) or in descriptive historic text from books or the internet. Yet countless times, people will put in some action like "the gun mis-fired! Quick--look in and see if the charge is stuck!" Ahem... right, IF you want your character to be blown to Kingdom Come... but not for real. Nor would you fire and re-load immediately without swabbing out the gun with water to cool it first... that sort of thing.

And yes, as you said... research. That's my point. I probably just expressed it poorly in my annoyance; I've been reading a lot of dreck lately. sad

But writing about gun crime or war, to use your examples, is different from describing what happens when you fire a gun (which is what I was talking about). If it is important enough to be in there, I feel it should be important enough to do correctly. Using the gun metaphor: I have fired many guns of many different sizes. And the differences are astonishing. I knew what to expect, but the first time I fired a "pirate pistol"--a single-shot, powder-and-ball Queen Anne replica--I was knocked on my butt due to the charge. Yet even some experienced writers who should know better talk about, say, a small person or a child firing a weapon and acting as if there's no recoil. Or they leap into a tank and can drive it as if it were the family coupe. Or riding a stallion into combat (which is only done for VERY specific reasons)... etc. etc. usw. It just doesn't look or "feel" right.

So I take your points... but notice I did say they need to research if they've never done it. I just expressed it badly. People can and do, for all kinds of reasons within the needs of the story, write about things of which they have no personal experience--and in many cases it is right to do so because the character in the scene has no experience him- or herself with it. But in my opinion the authenticity of a story is destroyed, no matter how good it might otherwise be, when something is described utterly wrongly by someone who had the wherewithal to research, if they had the wherewithal to write. If that makes sense. Otherwise, they write about it because they've researched and they know as much as they can. Or another thing one can do to make something more realistic and correct: ask someone to read the chapter or manuscript who HAS been in those situations, and ask if it is correct. One could thereby get a subject-matter expert as an editor.

Didn't mean to be aggravating, sorry!

Jasta

I understand this, but as was afore mentioned, some people just can't do some things. Yeah, research is great and all, but you're not going to get EXACTLY what is accurate; even people who have experience are going to get things wrong based on the conditions. Conditions are everything.


Heh heh. Whoops! I made a mistake somewhat like this once where I forgot to write in a character, but it turned out for the best anyway, because it stuck to reality and was absolutely accurate. (You may not understand; in fact, you probably don't, but as long as you get the gist of what I'm saying...). Anyway, it's hard to remember small things when writing, but I totally agree that it's annoying. If you're going to write, be prepared to reread and catch stuff that you forgot.


I call it realism in writing. This doesn't annoy me as much as other things, but when I'm really well-educated on a subject and they get something wrong then it might plant a little bug in my brain. I was once reading a thread on it on a proboard somewhere where they were discussing it. There example was something like:
The two men creeped out of the cave before sunset. Not wanting thieves to take their possessions, they saddled their horses and ran down the mountains and into the woods. They ran all night and didn't stop until they were out of harm's way, despite their weariness.
Something like that. Their complaints were:
* Why didn't the horses run away?
* If they were worried about thieves, why didn't they guard the horses?
and
* The horses would have died of exhaustion; they can't run that fast for that long.
And it makes sense after you read about these points that that one paragraph is incorrect in several ways and is completely unrealistic. Therefore, I make it a habit of mine to reread what I've written with a sharp eye to catch any mistakes like these.

And to answer your question, the only things that make me disgusted are corny names (like Pillflop or Caterpillow (<~~ I really saw that in a book)), way too much dialogue, and a lack of realism.

I would consider the legal reason you can't a good one not to.

I would never expect you to risk life and limb just to know about how it works, but still you must admit that what you write, even with all the skill in the world won't mean as much to you unless you've been on the deck and actually loaded a cannon. In my position if I absolutely HAD to write about cannons which I am now. I try to get as close as possible. I would look up the weight of cannonballs, and I would carry around equivalent weight just to get a feel for it. In my case I even plan of working with black powder charges just to get that feel of production and explosion. I understand that you recently went on a trip on a tall ship. (If I'm not mistaken) as cool as the trip would have been for pleasure reasons alone, I'll bet that you probably have a page or two of notes on the experience.

Don't break the law, but we have looser gun laws here. I could go and fire one tomarow if I were determined enough.

There is little I could write that I couldn't do some part of. If I were to write about a man who ran several miles from crazed dogs. I wouldn't go and find crazed dogs but I sure would do the running. I might even do it in the rain, with the scratch marks and tattered clothing from just escaping the dogs. I would do as much as possible. That's all we can really ask. Does that mean that you can't write without the experience, no, there are plenty of good stories that do, but you should try.

Now that I think about it, Fort Gains(sp?) on Dauphin Island does blank cannon demonstrations, and I may be visiting there again in several months.. I'll bet that a little coin and a convincing argument would get me close to one.

When you work with an entire world you find that any and everything will need to be known eventually. As of now I have a couple scenes with some traditional Spanish style Galleons, only adapted to house 2 foot tall dwarves. Then there is Dursin's house which was at onetime a french naval ship gone pirate gunship, but it now has a house attached to it and is beached. Then there are a seven Atlantean Elf ships which are like traditional tall ships with decorative metal siding, and inboard motors.

So overall they're tall ship-ish, but the Elves still have working tech from before the Arcane War.

ANYTHING you can get me about the working of ships, or the living conditions. I asked for this in Tall Ships in the Museum so you can save answers for there.

Thanks, Widigo

Actually, it would probably get you a lot of credence if you just went to the people who do the demos and asked every question you could think of. I've been a re-enactor in several different historical places over many years, and I can tell you from experience there is nothing a docent likes better than a polite, attentive person with lots of excellent questions. They also like it when people let them talk a lot about what they know. smile Hang out at the cannon demo; watch to see who seems to really know their stuff, and have your questions ready. And though it seems shallow... go there nicely dressed. Clean, pressed pants, a nice shirt and a winning smile will get you all kinds of close time with the cannon people--and they're far more likely to listen, speak, and maybe even share.

Alas tho... when it comes even to blank shot demos they probably have certain insurance and site restrictions. If you stick it out though, you could ask (after about a good half-hour of attentive listening and showing your interest) if they ever allow civilians to pull the lanyard. We would occasionally do that with our Civil War mountain howitzer, if the person came across well.

Good luck--and if you get to fire one, let us know!!

Topic revival!

Re-writing the first half of chapter 1 is driving me mad!