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inaccuracies in books
Nov. 12th, 2008 10:22 amHow much does this bother y'all/youse/you'ins? I find that glaring inaccuracies pretty much undercut the story for me. I'm trying very hard not to use specifics to identify the one setting me off at the moment, but I'm having to restrain myself from throwing the book across the room. Oh yes, it has plenty of "voice"--but there are some school aspects that need to be a bit better researched (this isn't the issue, but a comparable one might be to give characters the incorrect age, based on grade, or to stick puberty and all that goes with it to the wrong age--or no puberty to kids old enough to be experiencing it), and despite reference to modern technology, I can't help feeling that the story was originally set a generation or two ago. It's not NYC and then the provinces. The rest of us in the country are also pretty modern, you know.
Other things that have done me in with other books are lines in foreign languages that just aren't right. And I don't mean obscure or complicated sentences. I mean basic things you'd find in any phrasebook. Like Frohe Weihnachten (Merry Christmas, but literally, happy holy nights). Not Frohe Weinachten (happy wine nights). Or basic lines of Spanish (the accent marks are often misplaced on these.) I quit reading a book once by a big NYC publisher that had numerous Spanish errors. You can't convince me they couldn't find a Spanish speaker to proof it. How many Spanish speakers are there in this country?
I know that some things slip past copy editors. I guess I'm not too disturbed by that, as long as it doesn't happen over and over in the same book. The other kind of problems are really distracting to me, though. And yes--I realize that you can't ever fully write only what you've personally experienced. I'm not saying you can't write about another culture than your own. But you do need to be extra careful, do some research, and maybe have an insider look over it, too.
(Says this knowing her own tendency to write outside of her experience, fully realizing she may be subject to the same criticisms some day...)
Other things that have done me in with other books are lines in foreign languages that just aren't right. And I don't mean obscure or complicated sentences. I mean basic things you'd find in any phrasebook. Like Frohe Weihnachten (Merry Christmas, but literally, happy holy nights). Not Frohe Weinachten (happy wine nights). Or basic lines of Spanish (the accent marks are often misplaced on these.) I quit reading a book once by a big NYC publisher that had numerous Spanish errors. You can't convince me they couldn't find a Spanish speaker to proof it. How many Spanish speakers are there in this country?
I know that some things slip past copy editors. I guess I'm not too disturbed by that, as long as it doesn't happen over and over in the same book. The other kind of problems are really distracting to me, though. And yes--I realize that you can't ever fully write only what you've personally experienced. I'm not saying you can't write about another culture than your own. But you do need to be extra careful, do some research, and maybe have an insider look over it, too.
(Says this knowing her own tendency to write outside of her experience, fully realizing she may be subject to the same criticisms some day...)
