The mistakes I have made
Have you ever read a book and noticed a major mistake, something like the hero’s eye colour changing mid way or a historical fact being wrong? The more you read, the more you will come across these and I thought I would spend today’s blog on this theme – and invite you to leave comments on the ones you have spotted. This is a form of I-Spy for book lovers!
Some mistakes do not belong to the author. Little things can get changed by an over zealous copy editor or an auto correct.
In the first edition of my book, The Ship Between the Worlds, a fantasy pirate adventure, some gremlin had got hold of the list of chapters and changed chapter eleven from ‘Walking the Plank’ to ‘Walking the Plant’. Hmm, a very different chapter that would be! It was corrected in later print runs.
Most mistakes, however, are the author’s fault. I notice them most when I read historical romances by American authors set in England. I believe they crop up because the writers assume they know us but don’t. I’m sure it works the other way too (and I’ve made my own mistakes here). My favourites are a romantic walk where the young couple watch the turtles in the rivers of the English countryside – oops – and to read posh butlers offering to ‘fix’ a plate of food for someone rather than ‘help’ or ‘serve’.
Time to ‘fess up myself. I made a mistake in one of my Cat Royal books. 
Croquet wasn’t called this until 1820s onwards and before that rejoiced under the name Pall Mall (a corruption of a French word). I had my characters playing the game under the wrong name thirty years too early. I changed it for the American edition. You see, historical research carries on after the book is published and I’m sure I’m not alone in the ‘I-could-kick-myself’ reaction when I realise I’ve missed a trick.
So tell me, what have you noticed or what mistake, if you are a writer, do you wish to get off your chest?
I’ve seen ALOT of mistakes in books Julia but, I think, because I like the Author and their work so much, I just ignore them and keep reading.
xx
FYI, Your covers are Always lovely. They go with the stories SO WELL.I love the books to BITS. xxx They’re all on the same shelf, lined up. Proudly.
Thanks, Laura.
In one of my published books I read that a character’s moustache dropped. I really meant it to droop, but total shedding is certainly dramatic!
Actually that’s not a bad image!
Love this post! I remember reading a book where a little boy with blond hair and brown eyes was kidnapped – and when they found him he had blue eyes. Clever kidnappers.
Your Pall Mall problem is part of why I’m nervous of writing historical fiction; must be so easy to make mistakes. I read another great post on historical mess-ups – about lighting a fire – at the History Girls blog, if any historical writers want more reasons to panic!
What was the name of the book?
It really annoys me when American fiction writers say things like a “British accent” and I just want to sit them all down very nicely and explain that really there is no such thing as a British accent, there is an English accent, a Welsh accent, a Scottish accent and an Irish accent and they are all very different and real English people don’t talk in the way they think anyway. I don’t know why it annoys me so much, probably because I am both Scottish and English and it annoys me that when people refer to things as British they mean English.
I think an English accent means RP as I doubt they have west country or Brummie etc etc in mind!
I heard Patricia Briggs say at a conference that in one of her early novels the main character carried a bag of herbal remedies, or simples. In the galleys, the simples had all been changed to samples.
I know a friend whose book nearly came out with “the silent football of God” (footfall!) – and the main character’s eye colour changes in “Skallagrigg” by William Horwood.