I read a book by a Newfoundland author that took place in Newfoundland, so you'd think she would get things straight. She was talking about the flowers that were blooming in the spring and she mentioned goldenrod. Goldenrod blooms in late summer/early autumn!!!! I didn't lose respect for her, I've read all of her novels, but I still remember that mistake.

I don't know about books but it used to bug me that on the TV series, 'Little House on the Prairie' that there were often large mountains in Minnesota. Also the leaves were still green and on the trees during snow storms. LOL

I grew up in the Midwest, so it is TV snow that bothers me. The character will walk into the house, and the flakes of "snow" are on his/her coat and hat for another 20 minutes of conversation. Or the snowstorm is really cold and blizzard like, but the character's face is just as pink and rosey as on a hot day. Poor make-up artistry--I don't think they know that very cold weather changes the immediate appearance of your skin as the blood rushes to deeper tissue. I don't expect them to show the breath of the characters in cold weather that is staged in Hollywood, but they could get the rest of it right.

hey now! that was the back lot of one of the so ca studios, lol...like in one scene of sparticus (shot on the back lot of universal)there either a car or airplane noise...lol

It doesn't bother me if its fiction...cause that's just what it is...fiction...I suppose if it was listed as a work of Non Fiction, and I knew the area...then it probably would bother me...

Yes it bothers me and it really bothers my DH. Drives him crazy when they don't get things right. Also TV shows, like Jericho which was suppose to take place in Kansas. I lived in Kansas for awhile, there are no really tall rolling hills or mts like the TV show pictured. Or at least I never saw any. It is the Midwest which is flat as a pancake usually. Sure looked like CA to me! Also don't like it when they make up fictional names for places that exist.
Clare

Oh yes it does bother me, sometimes I'm even tempted to write them a letter. Mistakes in a plot line are even more annoying.

That drives me nuts too. As a gardener I notice plants out of season or their geographical area. Some things are just so obvious like palm trees in Wisconsin backyards, how could they get it so wrong? Plastic corks on Champagne bottles in the 1800s. Zippers on clothing in the 1600s.

For interesting "catches" on these out of place things check out IMBD.com and go to the *Goofs* section for each movie for the anachronisms. You can register and add the ones you noticed.

Dean Koontz wrote a book that had a helicopter landing in a shopping center in Cedar City, UT in the middle of town. There IS no shopping center in the middle of town or even a place IN town big enough to land a 'copter! Drove me crazy. How about jet contrails in Westerns? Or, an oldie, black and white, tv show where the main character takes the halter off the horse in the barn to "set it free" and the horse bolts out of the barn wearing a Johnston rope halter. So now I notice things that aren't quite right. Oh, and the Sugarland Express with Goldie Hawn. The Mexican Border is only an hour away????? Try about 6 hours away!

Your title says it all-not earth shaking. If I like a book, it's generally because I like the charascters or the plot grabs me. If details are wrong,I ignore them.

I find it distracting. I expect the author to have a certain amount of credibility and consistency, even if it is fiction. The number one rule of writing is to be aware of your audience. Getting some details wrong shows a lack of awareness of your audience. The author should know the reader will be distracted by those sorts of errors, and that, as a narrator, some credibility will be lost. Also, the setting is a part of the story that should enhance the story. The author should choose it for a purpose in their overall creation. If accuracy of description doesn't matter, it's like saying an entire chuck of the story (setting) doesn't even matter. The author might as well say, "It doesn't matter where my story is set, pay no attention to that." In a good book, it should all come together, setting, plot, character, etc.

But, the world will go on. I just won't be likely to ever pick up anything by that author again. The quality of a book I read probably matters a little more than it should to my life. It definitely matters more to me than to most people I know. ;o)

I don't remember anything I read that was really off.
But I do hate spelling errors or words left out when I am reading. Just bugs me for some reason.

Trin

Probably very few people noticed it, but in one of Dick Francis' later books (I have every single book he wrote) he got nearly EVERYTHING wrong about radon gas, except that it's radioactive. I had always admired the extensive research that went into his books, and this was just plain sloppy.

There is a female author from the Pac NW (can't bring her name to mind right now) who writes mystery novels taking place in western Oregon. The streets are named right, neighborhoods are identified, everything lines up. I like that!

I was reading a fiction book (can't even remember the name, plot, or author!) but at one place, he/she said, "as i stated earlier", and it wasn't even a part of a conversation. I thought it must have been on his mind or something, as it just didn't make sense. I always wonder about proof readers letting some obvious slips get through

Yes, it does bug me. If you haven't a clue what you're writing about, set the novel in some completely fictional place. If you haven't a clue about science, leave it out!

Mary, I think that's the point that bugged me--if she didn't know Delaware enough to know the geography, why not call it something else entirely. Fiction is fiction--she had no need use a real state's name.

I think it's interesting when an author deliberately makes up geographical names, but they are actually accurate descriptions of a real place -- e.g., Sue Grafton's fictional take on Santa Barbara, as "Santa Teresa", and its surrounding areas. Street names are similar to the real ones. Just about everywhere she writes about is dead-on accurate.

I did read a thriller a few years ago set in my neck of the woods, and it drove me nuts that so many details were wrong -- siting some things in wilderness, where it really is well populated, noting a high school in my town, where there never has been one, etc. These things could have been checked so easily with a simple phone call or two to the local library. Or at least give the town a fictional name.

I don't recall noticing the kind of errors you mention in books I have read, but we see plenty of similar goofs in films and TV, especially period pieces.

Others have mentioned inaccuracies with seasonal foliage and plants. I remember a scene that was supposed to be in California, but clearly shot in Florida by the type of palm trees.

Last week's Ugly Betty (love it!) showed characters walking underneath the Santa Monica pier when they were supposed to be in the New York area. I can forgive that one -- I only noticed because I walked the same path two weeks ago.

Furniture, clothing, hairdos and makeup that are too modern for the story are distracting to both my husband and me. One of my all-time favorite movies, Stand By Me, shows stone-washed Levis on kids in the late 1950s.

I try not to let it bother me, but don't they pay consultants to help them avoid such mistakes?

Well, speaking about movies... I think it's the beginning of Foul PLay (but I could be wrong on that--could be another old movie) where there's a brief scene at a mansion on a cliff, overlooking the ocean, with palm trees, that had to be approached by a long, winding, tree-lined drive. And it was identified as Atlantic City! Grew up summering about 2 miles from AC--there are no cliffs, no isolated homes (every inch of Absecon Island has been built upon for many years) and definitely no palm trees. That was definitely California geography. DD and I laugh hysterically every time we see that glitch.