I Is For Inconsistencies
For the Blogging From A to Z Challenge I’m doing you all a huge favor and filling you in on the 26 Things To Hate About Writing.** I’m hoping by the end of April, I will have convinced all of you not to indulge in the wild insanity of becoming a writer. If I can save even one person from offering themselves up in sacrifice to the mad and fickle word gods, I will have done some good in this world.
Check out each letter’s post here.
INCONSISTENCIES
So, you wrote a book. Congratulations, dummy. Oh, you wrote a series of books, and got them published? Do you know how much time that took away from staring at walls and contemplating your fleeting existence? You could have been brooding over how much you hate life, but instead you went and did something productive that made you happy.
Well, you’re not going to be happy for long. Go back and take a look at your series. Here’s what you’re going to find:
– That side character named Stacy in the first book is now Joyce in the third book. Maybe she hated her name because it reminded her of her dead grandma, so she got it legally changed. Yeah, let’s go with that.
– You wrote a series about vampires who can battle the sun, but in book 8 one of them steps outside at noon and is burnt to a crisp. Maybe he was weak. Maybe he had a skin condition or something.
– Despite the fact that three beta readers, two editors, and yourself read this twenty times, your hero’s dog in the first book became a cat later. Just pretend you were writing a shifter story all along.
Inconsistencies happen, and they’re one of the worst things about writing. They happen in the best-planned books, they happen to famous, successful authors. They get in there and they’re not caught until they are, usually by a reader. It’s okay I suppose, because it’s exactly like life. When I was twenty I could run a mile without getting winded, now I’m out of breath just looking at a set of stairs. Whoever is writing me is keeping crappy notes.
**Disclaimer: If you haven’t figured it out, these posts are pure satire and simply a humorous way to vent my writing frustrations. No offense is intended to anyone. Please, become or continue being a writer. It’s awesome, I swear. It’s super…duper, awesome…heh heh.
Categories
Oh, my gosh. Brilliant. Yes, my writer was supposed to stick with my residual self image a la “The Matrix” but added a bunch of weight and a thick neck that belongs on a wrestler.
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*Takes notes about characters legally changing names to explain away inconsistencies* …for a friend.
Here’s my “I” post 🙂 http://nataliewestgate.com/2017/04/impatient-secret-diary-of-a-serial-killer
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I think it’s a good plot device! 😉
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This was one funny posting. I found you via Twitter.
I am blogging children’s book reviews. A-Z
Hey, Joe, I am old enough to remember. It was a total cop out!
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Thank you!
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I know I have already commented once, but I saw something on a T.V. show the other night I wanted to run by you. Do you watch an ABC show called Designated Surivior? To be brief two F.B.I. agents head out to North Dakota in mid-February chasing a lead. When they drive across the prarie their is greenery everywhere. I see that as Inconsistent. There is snow there until April.
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I don’t watch it, but this makes me think of Shameless, which is set in Chicago. I live in Cleveland and we have the exact same climate. At one point they were trying to pretend it was December, but you could see by the trees it was actually early spring. I’ve caught a few instances on there where I could tell they were filming in the wrong season, because I’m from the region.
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I always wonder when the scene is on rain or snow how often it is real. We watch a lot of Hallmark movies at Christmas and their snow looks so fake.
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I must love inconsistencies, because I pepper them throughout the shortest and simplest of stories. It’s a… gift? Yeah, let’s go with that. 😉
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A skill, really. 😉
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Hahaha..I just the way you have described the inconsistencies in the book…Never seen it in any book while reading..Need to notice next time
Launching SIM Organics This April
*Menaka Bharathi *
*SimpleIndianMom*
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It always seems to pop up! When readers don’t notice it, I’m sure that’s the best for the author!
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Whoever is writing me isn’t keeping track either! No fair. Another funny post.
Doree Weller
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Gosh, these writers! 😉
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I notice it more in TV shows, perhaps I tend to watch my favourites more than once, whereas for books I rarely re-read and therefore don’t remember all details.
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TV shows are rife with it, and then they try to cover it up in later seasons!
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I don’t know why, but the word “dummy” will make me belly laugh every time. :0) I’ve found that using the characters bios in Scrivener has helped me have less inconsistencies over the years, and thank goodness, because they drive me crazy!
Operation Awesome
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That’s a good idea. I love the word ‘dummy’ too. 😀 Thank you!
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I love your excuses for inconsistencies! You should hire yourself out to fix them for other people. 🙂
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Ha! I totally should! 😉 Thanks!
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My all-time favourite TV show is rife with inconsistencies. The writers once answered this by claiming each series took place in a slightly different universe. You could totally go with that theory for series in a book, and voila! Problem solved.
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Oh my God, that sounds like either a bunch of lazy writers or too many writers who didn’t know what each other was doing. It happened in one of my favorite shows recently too. Mind if I ask which show?
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Inconsistencies never bother me if I am super into reading the book.
Melissa @ My Creatively Random Life
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I can definitely let them go if I’m enjoying the book. I’ll be happy to ignore it!
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I don’t tend to spot these in books but in movies and TV shows they stand out a mile!
Debbie
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Oh gosh, yes. One of my favorite TV shows did this in an episode recently and I was like “wait a minute….”
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We need plot spackle, stat!
Heidi from RomanceSpinners
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TONS of it! 😉
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In consistencies in movies, television shows or books galre at me like a Super Nova and get me really steamed. Care enough about your work to read, re-read and read again. I think the bigger a project is the more likely there is to be gaps, because the writer knows what he writes, Or at least he or she thinks so.
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Same here! I’ve seen them even in the most popular of TV shows! One that I was watching very recently comes to mind, and it seems like in a later episode they realized their whoops and tried to clean it up with a lame excuse. It happens!
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I guess trying to write in the mistake is one way to deal with it, but the damage is done by that point, especially if it is a major plot turn.
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LOL I don’t know if you watch Shameless, but it was in that. Frank claimed he didn’t know who Sammy’s mother was, but then a few seasons later Sammy’s mother showed up and they were good friends who instantly recognized each other. They tried to explain it away with he was drunk that night.
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LAMENESS ABOUNDS! Come on writers, you have one job!
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They could have at least said he was lying or something!
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Think of the shower scene with Bobby Ewing from Dallas to explain his supposed “death”?
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Oh gosh, I’m too young to remember that, sorry. 😉
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Oh no, time has finally caught up with me!
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I think Dallas was on when I was very young. I’m 41, I just went and checked, it stared in 1978, when I would have been a toddler. But I’m surprised to see it ran through 1991! It looks like that plot took place in 1979-80 though, so again, I was just in kindergarten!
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Oh good I thought you were 20-someting.
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Oh I see Bobby Ewing was on the show for quite a while. I had no idea that show ran so long!
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If I remember right he was killed off and left for a year but there was such an outcry he came back and it was some kind of dream sequence and he popped up in the shower.
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I work with a lot of younger folks that do not remember hardly any television shows or movies I enjoyed growing up. making referneces to them is a total waste of time.
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Oh wait, that’s the who shot JR plot, nevermind!
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I have an eye for catching inconsistencies while reading. The one I find pretty irksome is the ‘change the tense from present to past with no heads-up’. The third example you mentioned is too hilarious 😀
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Those dog-cats, they keep popping up everywhere! 😉 Thank you!
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Ha ha I love the inconsistencies as described by you. I have never caught one in any book that I have read, some tonnes of times….. 🙂
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Yes, they tend to slip through, don’t they? And then they stick right out!
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Hahaha happens so often it isn’t even funny anymore.
Anna
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You gotta laugh or you’ll cry, right?
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True, eh? I caught one such inconsistency in one of my favourite series by one of my favourite authors once. And I did wonder at the time, how could he ever gotten this wrong?
But as you said, it happens.
@JazzFeathers
The Old Shelter – 1940s Film Noir
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It’s a lot of balls to juggle. Inevitably, one of them gets dropped. I even see it happen in TV shows!
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Life is full of inconsistencies so why can’t my book be? Spoil sport
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It’s called FANTASY for a reason, shhhh. 😉
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This is what I’m afraid of and why I’m stuck with my WIP. I guess we just need to be creative when we ferret out our inconsistencies in published work.
Individuality #Lexicon of Leaving
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Trust me, even though you try, something always slips through the cracks. I’ve seen it happen even with the most famous of authors!
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And so enters me… a content editor. Who spends his time finding fault in cartoons for kids and notices the tiny details that you’re like, “Why can’t you ever just enjoy something?” I’m too smart for my own good… lucky for you.
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We need content editors, though! They make sure everything works the way it should.
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I accept your praise.
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