It's just the little things....

Well, some of my visitors have gone home again now, the last one goes tomorrow, but as she is also a bookworm we are spending a lot of time reading and talking books, which we've kind of done all weekend. 

All three of them had a major nagging session at me on Monday about keeping up with my own writing, and specifically writing the continuation of the novel length piece I wrote, they've read, it's been basically edited and now I am far too chicken to submit it anywhere because on a personal level I don't feel that it's good enough (though in my heart of hearts given the current state of some YA/Children's books it probably is, but I am a chicken).

One of the things were were talking about was what bugs us about books we are reading, which for me boils down to two gripes, one minor one and one, totally personal, major one. 

The minor ones.... why can't authors keep their characters biography's straight?  Ok, so, the author of one of the series of children's books I read/collect is notorious for this - her characters age strangely, change family histories, sometimes even names... but these stories were written between about 1925 and 1960 when let's face it children's books were churned out by major publishing houses with not too much editing and proof reading.  These days, with agents and professional editors, not to mention beta readers, surely it should be something that's picked up on.

Two that have stood out recently for me was an MC explaining he cooked well because he was the youngest of four children and spent a lot of time with his mother, a few pages later the MC's are talking about whether their parents were alive, and the same MC explains that he was an only child arriving late in his parents life. 

The other one was two different spellings of the MC's name within a paragraph, yep on the same page, which is just poor editing really

So the major gripe, and personal one for me... because of my hobby I have spent the last 15 or so years learning a lot about dog breeds, canine and lupine behaviour, body language and anatomy as well as lupine pack structure (I don't subscribe to domestic dogs living in packs .. and I live in a multi-dog household).  This means I have huge issues with paranormal stories involving any form of wolf shifters, dog shifters or werewolves generally.  If the basics are wrong, particularly regarding body language and pack dynamics, which are easily researched, I'm afraid I end up getting so wound up by the book that I don't enjoy it (I'll still read it, cos hey, it's a book and this is what I do). 

The other part to this gripe is authors that spend an inordinate amount of time describing a dog in detail, only to then name it as a breed that it either doesn't match their physical description or doesn't exist in the time/country they have set their work in...

See, just the little things, but they can really ruin a good story.