I can’t stand it when the cover of a paperback doesn’t match the insides of a book. I read a real stinker of a book involving a submarine (I thought the title was “The Trident Incident” but Google isn’t finding it) and the cover shows a submarine with a number like “276” on the conning tower. However, in the book, the submarine has a completely different number, like “523”. This isn’t such a little thing, though, because in the book, a point is specifically made about someone recognizing the boat from a great distance because of the number on the conning tower.
In the same book, a major plot point is described, rather than shown. It seemed very clear that the author was sick and tired of his story.
(I keep the book in my library as an inspiration: if that hack can get published, then there is hope for me!)
I also can’t stand it when there is a major, factual error made by the author on behalf of a character who should know better. I love the escapist writing of W. E. B. Griffin. However, lately, I think his son (William E. Butterworth IV) has taken over the writing duties. In one recent book, he has a character named “Charlie Castillo” who is a “Texican”, someone who has lived in Texas since the earth cooled and who is very proud of his Texan heritage. In the book, this character makes a comment about Daniel Boone dying at the Alamo. (Spoiler alert: It was Davy Crockett.)
I can forgive a lot for the sake of the plot, but something this boneheaded about actual, factual history is just pure laziness on the part of the writer as well as the editor.
When one of the characters in a book is aspiring/unsuccessful writer who will write a bestseller at the end of the day. The character’s book is of course the same book we’re reading.
Ever gone swimming with one? I did once. Put my summer reading in my back pocket and jumped into the lake. I’m not even sure how I didn’t notice it, but I was about 50 feet away before it dawned on me. Took the rest of the summer to dry it out and attempt to flatten the pages, but it was all in vain.
It really bugs me when an incompetent or lazy writer does not bother to show us where his plot is set. So the events happen in Sumerian Uruk, in Nieuw Amsterdam, on Antares XII or in the Kingdom of Draconia? Then show the setting. I want to know how it looks, sounds, smells.
If you cannot do that, if you can only manage some guye talking to each other and occasionally throw a punch or blow a kiss, then don’t try to write a novel. Write for theatre.
It is a fine line, but that’s kind of my point. It makes sense to describe stuff when the descriptions either advance the plot directly, or inform us such that we can understand when the plot advances. I mean, it makes sense to describe a character’s weapon as " a fifty-year-old Vietnamese imitation of a South American copy of a Walther PPK" (bonus points to anyone who can name the book), because it firmly frames the gun as a total worthless POS. But some authors would describe a basic functional gun in terms that border on the pornographic, just because they can, even if the gun in question isn’t special in any way, and nor does it advance the plot any.
Another example would be that I can think of very few times it would be useful for a writer to describe the color of a refrigerator that a character got a beer out of, to use an extreme example of what I’m talking about.
God, yes. That’s why I stopped reading Clancy years ago - I don’t want to read 1000 pages of weapon specs.
David Weber is another offender in this regard: I’ve only been able to get through one Honor Harrington novel, in which Weber spent about three pages describing a missile attack, starting with the missiles leaving their batteries and concluding, pages later, with them striking their targets. He could argue that he was building tension, as the people in the doomed ship knew they were about to get clobbered and were waiting for the blow to fall, but if so, show the *people *, not the missiles.
Weber is also guilty of Fullformaltitleitis, as well: “Senior Engineer’s Mate, First Class Bobby McForfuckssake raised his coffee cup in salute to Navigation Lieutenant Junior Grade Academy Graduate and Two-Time Winner of the Clancy Award For Unnecessary Exposition Marissa O’Dowereallyneedtoknowallthis.”