We Go Postal: What Gets Our Goat

For the Harrogate panel Five Go Postal, I have already recapped on some of the thoughts here (what gets the goat of some of our authors).  Since then, I have been having conversations on this theme; so here are some of my goaty gruffs and the goaty gruffs of my dedicated reading friends.

1. Research, of the inadequate variety.  A novel I stopped reading at circa page 60 was set in London at the start.  Someone caught a bus outside Sloane Square tube station to travel north to Knightsbridge (something I've usually done on foot in the past).  The bus managed to go over the Thames (south) to get there.  Later, when a dogsitter could not be found the dog made its way via a flight to Morocco with its owner, all in the course of a 24 hr turnaround time.  The UK pet passport scheme does not cover Morocco.  Another novel had constant reference to the wrong benzodiazepine all the way through but I managed to suspend my disbelief. 

Research, of the chuck it in your readers' face variety.  However much effort went in dear author, and however much fun you had with it, I really don't want to read passages that are like extracts from a technical manual.  Neither do I want to have to read four or five pages of detailed stuff to understand the complicated bit that comes later that sets the scene for your wonderful final red herring.  If the plot involves medical matters, please don't give me prose that reads like a set of NHS patient notes; this will prompt me to write my own DNR instruction.

A plot denouement that devalues all the brilliance that preceeded it.  You know the sort: the totally ludicrous ending, a failed attempt to give the incredible credibility, the cheat on the reader.  However great the parts that came before, such a denouement shatters into shards the reading experience.  Readers are not likely to pick up the next either...

Losing the throttle.  We're not talking strangling here, but pace.  Variation is welcome, but kicking off with the tension equivalent of a UK city A&E on a Friday night and then moving to the equivalent of a crematorium on a Sunday afternoon for four chapters is not good. You start to question what book you are reading and whether the printer made an error in the binding.  You do this when not feeling extremely bored with the book.

Unfair blurb that is misleading.  If you look closely you will see/work out that the fantastic recommendations on the cover refer to a previous novel and not the one in hand. The risk that the one in hand will prove to be pretty dire can frequently materialise.  As humans are capable of learning, such tactics eventually lead to not buying the next book.

Typos and mid-Atlantic English.  Oh come on, that typo sticks out so much, where was the proofreader?  Suffering from the runs for just a moment or two?  As for mid-Atlantic English, I suspect it's lazy ease of cross-Atlantic selling.  We can have the full English English apart from those words that end in "-ise" here.  Now, we have to face the influx of the Zebedees; it's all "-ize" now.  Why?  I am living in a time span that sees the great mucking up of our global language, through lazy books, through text speak, through twitter (though I am a fan) and through a major dip in education standards.  It's not evolution and progress.  It's making the language as valuable lemmings.

Ooh, it's all got personal in the plot.  For private eyes or public sector payroll employees of the detective variety, I hate it when the plot takes a personal turn on the protag detective and/or his/her family.  So well done before.  So a decade ago.  So much a cliche.  Can we have something new and original and interesting please?

Typos.  What is it with copy-editing and proofreading these days?  Why so many simple typos in final works of fiction?  Why the logistic problems (and errors) seeping through? I have a friend who texts the occasional "Read 2 typos already" when reading.  And yes, it does not impress.  We readers expect a perfect finished product.  We can't expect to get it from school these days, can we?  But our books should remain the ultimate in quality and they don't.  Should do better, publishers.  Please take note.

That's a start, with many things said before.  As a reader, what more can you add?

Comments

[cfr]

Barbara, I am sure I read that book quite a few years ago, but can't seem to remember it.

[Barbara]

A pet peeve of mine (I have a menagerie) is the convenient use of mental illness as an excuse for inventing a floridly weird and implausible villain. Very few if any mentally ill people are inclined to devote their lives to baffling police by abducting and dismembering women, always adding their particular brand of weirdness.

Which brings me to the detective whose entire career involves tracking serial killers. Difficult to pull off, given they are so rare.

And profilers. I don't do profilers. Nice plot device, having a character who can create entire stories out of thin air and two or three bits of evidence. It's the next best thing to clairvoyance. But the error rate is huge; I prefer reality to be at least acknowledged in my fiction.

I do make exceptions for books like Over Tumbled Graves by Jess Walter that pokes smart fun at the whole industry of serial killers and profilers.

[Chris]

... Or those one-liners on the cover that are supposed to grab you in a way that I'm guessing the title alone will not.

Worst culprit I spotted last year - ''The past is a Shallow Grave''.

[Norm]

I still don't know when to use -ise and -ize and I realize [OED] that I frequently get it wrong. This sort of thing does not worry me but authors let down by publishers who use crap cover art that has been used fifty times before, and ludicrously inaccurate blurbs really get my goat.
Actually I feel quite sorry for authors treated in this manner, if they had no input to these bloopers.

[Karen]

I simply couldn't finish a book that shall remain nameless but that is a part of a VERY popular mystery/thriller series. This particular book was set in New York City, and the author had no grasp of the streets and avenues or the logistics of getting around town. For example, he had people driving "up" Fifth Avenue (it only goes downtown), he had other characters driving from Manhattan to the town of Garrison in "45 minutes" (it's about a two-hour drive north of the city), and taking a subway ACROSS Central Park (there is no such thing, although city residents think it would be a great idea). These inconsistencies really spoiled not just this book for me, but all the other books in the series as well, because I couldn't help but wonder about what inaccuracies this author may have perpetuated about other locations.