mei lan
Pursuit Driver
I hate when I'm reading a book and the errors therein cause me to focus on them more than on the book. So, if you are a fiction writer (or non-fiction, but I find these errors by far mostly in fiction books), please, for the love of everything literary, get thyself an editor or three. I'm not talking about spelling errors for those who aren't good spellers, or run-of-the-mill grammar errors. Those can be fixed easily, or if not caught, I can overlook them easily. But in the meantime, here are some tips from me as a reader:
- If you do not know the difference between discreet and discrete, do not use either word.
- If you do not know the difference between pour and pore, do not use either word.
- If you do not know the meaning of the word "nonplussed", do not use the word. It probably does not mean what you think it means.
- In your descriptions, please try to be legit. I was reading a fiction book where the main character was injured and loved ones gathered in an ICU waiting room in a Bozeman, Montana, hospital that smelled like "urine, sweat, bleach, and burned coffee". Srsly? In the United States not in a poor area (which I do not consider Bozeman to be), you experienced an ICU waiting room like this? I've been in nasty nursing homes that didn't smell like that. Come on, people.
- In this same book, a girl was a dr. She was 27 and had been practicing medicine at least a year; she did not enter medical school at a younger age than usual. So she started practicing medicine at 26? I don't think so. Graduate college at 22, graduate medical school at 26, internship for a year, residency for a year or more, putting you at 28 or 29 at the very earliest to begin practicing medicine - and that's without a specialty...add two-four years for that.
- For the love of God, use some creativity in plot devices. In this same book, it's winter, with a storm forecasted when this same dr. drives 30 miles over small mountain roads from Bozeman to home in the late afternoon. She has a flat tire, but cannot call for help, because - you guessed it - her cell phone is dead, and she has no car charger. SRSLY?!?!? I know people are stupid in real life, but give your characters SOME credit and come up with a more believable way to have them be stranded in a winter storm. IRL, in that sort of territory, I would expect people to have satellite phones. (I know from being out there a couple of years ago, I'm not going in a remote area again without a sat phone.)
- Speaking of drs., something I've seen recently a number of times that I find irritating is when characters address doctors as Mr. or Ms. Now, I wouldn't go all Jill Biden (oops, I mean DR. Jill Biden) on anybody if I were a doctor and someone addressed me that way, but if I were a regular person, I wouldn't dream of addressing a dr. as a mr. in a social setting.
- Please make your main characters at least a little bit likeable. I mean, I don't mind if they have character flaws (as do we all), BUT is it too much to ask that they not just be the most irritating, shallow, selfish persons alive? One of the reasons I don't like GWTW is that I vehemently dislike Scarlett O'Hara. IMHO, her only redeeming quality is that she has the grit and determination to take care of her family and friends during the time of stark poverty and horror during and after the war. I don't even give her credit for coming to her senses about Rhett Butler when she had mooned over that fop Ashley Wilkes during the whole book, because even that was in her own self-interest. I just finished a book (I skipped through big parts, because I was irritated) wherein the main character had slept her way through Hollywood for fifteen years, and then decided she wanted to go back to her old boyfriend from her hometown, and was offended when he didn't think she'd changed. If your person is of low character, and you use that as part of your plot, as in when he was 20 he was a complete reprobate, but after fifteen years of prison or the military or hard times due to his own stupidity, he has turned into a person of strong character, that's fine. It's the person who is unchanged from being a horrible person as a main character that irritates me.
- It always helps when you can create interesting/funny/whatever secondary characters. In the Code of Misconduct books, black former-UFC/MMA/whatever fighter Jay Taylor is such a character. I don't dislike the main character, but I love Taylor! Kinda like in the Janet Evanovich books - I read them as much to read about outrageous Lula, hot Ranger, dishy Joe Morelli, and esp. nutty Grandma Mazur, as much as to read about Stephanie Plum and whatever adventure/mess she has gotten herself into.
I'm sure there are more examples, but those will do for now. As you were.
- If you do not know the difference between discreet and discrete, do not use either word.
- If you do not know the difference between pour and pore, do not use either word.
- If you do not know the meaning of the word "nonplussed", do not use the word. It probably does not mean what you think it means.
- In your descriptions, please try to be legit. I was reading a fiction book where the main character was injured and loved ones gathered in an ICU waiting room in a Bozeman, Montana, hospital that smelled like "urine, sweat, bleach, and burned coffee". Srsly? In the United States not in a poor area (which I do not consider Bozeman to be), you experienced an ICU waiting room like this? I've been in nasty nursing homes that didn't smell like that. Come on, people.
- In this same book, a girl was a dr. She was 27 and had been practicing medicine at least a year; she did not enter medical school at a younger age than usual. So she started practicing medicine at 26? I don't think so. Graduate college at 22, graduate medical school at 26, internship for a year, residency for a year or more, putting you at 28 or 29 at the very earliest to begin practicing medicine - and that's without a specialty...add two-four years for that.
- For the love of God, use some creativity in plot devices. In this same book, it's winter, with a storm forecasted when this same dr. drives 30 miles over small mountain roads from Bozeman to home in the late afternoon. She has a flat tire, but cannot call for help, because - you guessed it - her cell phone is dead, and she has no car charger. SRSLY?!?!? I know people are stupid in real life, but give your characters SOME credit and come up with a more believable way to have them be stranded in a winter storm. IRL, in that sort of territory, I would expect people to have satellite phones. (I know from being out there a couple of years ago, I'm not going in a remote area again without a sat phone.)
- Speaking of drs., something I've seen recently a number of times that I find irritating is when characters address doctors as Mr. or Ms. Now, I wouldn't go all Jill Biden (oops, I mean DR. Jill Biden) on anybody if I were a doctor and someone addressed me that way, but if I were a regular person, I wouldn't dream of addressing a dr. as a mr. in a social setting.
- Please make your main characters at least a little bit likeable. I mean, I don't mind if they have character flaws (as do we all), BUT is it too much to ask that they not just be the most irritating, shallow, selfish persons alive? One of the reasons I don't like GWTW is that I vehemently dislike Scarlett O'Hara. IMHO, her only redeeming quality is that she has the grit and determination to take care of her family and friends during the time of stark poverty and horror during and after the war. I don't even give her credit for coming to her senses about Rhett Butler when she had mooned over that fop Ashley Wilkes during the whole book, because even that was in her own self-interest. I just finished a book (I skipped through big parts, because I was irritated) wherein the main character had slept her way through Hollywood for fifteen years, and then decided she wanted to go back to her old boyfriend from her hometown, and was offended when he didn't think she'd changed. If your person is of low character, and you use that as part of your plot, as in when he was 20 he was a complete reprobate, but after fifteen years of prison or the military or hard times due to his own stupidity, he has turned into a person of strong character, that's fine. It's the person who is unchanged from being a horrible person as a main character that irritates me.
- It always helps when you can create interesting/funny/whatever secondary characters. In the Code of Misconduct books, black former-UFC/MMA/whatever fighter Jay Taylor is such a character. I don't dislike the main character, but I love Taylor! Kinda like in the Janet Evanovich books - I read them as much to read about outrageous Lula, hot Ranger, dishy Joe Morelli, and esp. nutty Grandma Mazur, as much as to read about Stephanie Plum and whatever adventure/mess she has gotten herself into.
I'm sure there are more examples, but those will do for now. As you were.
