Author's Lack of Knowledge About What He Is Writing About

[arcticfox2005]

I recently downloaded a set of 10 western novels (99?) to my Kindle from Amazon. The first on was not bad but 2 pages into the second one I deleted all of them because of the absurdity of the author.

The main character was in Colorado, headed to Idaho Springs on horseback and it was supposed to be 5 hours away. Then the guy talked to his horse and told him that they would be spending the night in Durango where the horse would have a warm dry stall for the night.

I have been to both of these towns and most of you probably know Durango is way down south, near the New Mexico border. Idaho Springs is less well known, west of Denver on I-70. Incidentally, it is at the southern end of a road you must travel if you are ever in the area - Oh My God Road. It goes up to Central City and is not for the faint of heart.

I knew this was hogwash - Mapquest says they are 322 miles apart!

What is really lame about this is how could anyone write about an area of the country and know so little about it? I figured I would eat the 99? and the whole set went into trash.

Anyone else ever run across a mistake like this?

 

[arcticfox2005]

I apologize, I meant to post it to The Shade Tree to begin with.

 

[Isaac-1]

Ah, when this topic comes up the book that always comes to mind is Uncle Tom's Cabin, as I live in western Louisiana perhaps an hours drive from the setting of much of this book, whose author had never traveled to the region. 

 

[arcticfox2005]

Slightly off the subject, but it's interesting to see a place on TV that you have been to.

We were watching last night a recorded episode of Gold Rush and Parker was being interviewed from Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. His parents home is in Haines, Alaska and they had some aerial shots of Haines. I immediately recognized the grocery store on the main drag where we shopped a few years ago. It is unusual in that the store entrance is only the width of a narrow sidewalk off the road and the parking lot is behind the store and about 30 feet below it. There is a staircase connecting the parking lot and the store and it was clearly visible in the film.

It was Wow, there's the grocery store!

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Artistic license? Near always distracting, maybe downright offensive, to those in the know.  But it is fiction, right?  Authors often choose towns or events or reasons that readers will find familiar, whether factual or not.  After all, the readers will mostly be unacquainted with the region or culture and it's just a story. 

I find the freebie or $0.99 books full of such things. The authors are usually struggling beginners and maybe haven't yet learned that discerning readers are put off by scenes that stretch credulity too far. I've deleted some myself when they are just too poorly written.

One of the cool things about traveling extensively by RV is that you often are familiar with obscure places and maybe even have learned a bit of local history. That can become a spoiler, though.

 

[BinaryBob]

With social isolation, I have been reading a lot lately. Great authors with compelling stories are roughly 12-15 bucks downloaded on the kindle.
That adds up in a hurry, so I signed up for "BookBub" - a daily assortment for 99 cents.
Much of the writing style is horrible. Do we need a page and a half describing what someone is wearing, and their surroundings, completely irrelevant to the story?
I do feel bad for these folks trying to be authors.. Don't quit your day job.
Back to full priced books.

 

[Isaac-1]

Gary the thing I find even more annoying is tv shows and movies set in rural America, that are obviously written by people that have never set foot out of California or New York.  It is not just the outdoor shots showing the wrong type of terrain and vegetation, which you can sometimes forgive, but also the writers complete lack of concept of population density, distances, etc. that completely ruin the shows for the informed viewer.

Let me give three example from shows from recent years:

1, there was some pseudo military show on a couple of years ago that featured an episode with an oil rig which had been hijacked off the coast of Louisiana.  The thing that completely ruined it for me were the mountains in the background of the shots of the oil rig, which I suspect from the looks were CGI anyway.  I live about a hundred miles inland in Louisiana at an elevation of 250 ft above sea level, we don't have coastal mountains here, or anywhere on the gulf coast.

2, The opening of the TV show Young Sheldon, which is set in east Texas, features terrain which does not exist in the region, the nearest similar terrain is perhaps in extreme west Texas 500 miles away.  This would be the equivalent of showing the Grand Canyon in the opening of a show set in Los Angeles (490 mile separation)

3, The Neflix show The Ranch, supposedly set in rural Wyoming, in some episodes they mention being a 7-8 hour drive from Denver, yet often talk about driving over to various chain casual dining places for dinner ( Crracker Barrel, Olive Garden, etc.) as well as the nearby Bass Pro shop.  Not to mention that they have broadband internet and watch Netflix on the rural ranch (which I will give them as wireless internet has became viable in the last couple of years).  In my experience driving across much of Wyoming multiple times in the last decade there is no place in the state excluding maybe Cheyenne that has enough population to support all these stores that are within an easy drive of this "ranch", instead you drive 70 miles to get to the nearest Wal-Mart which is the smallest Wal-Mart you have seen in years.

p.s. Bob, you might want to see if your local library supports online e-book downloads through overdrive, etc. which will let you read many of the same e-books for free

 

[BinaryBob]

I would gladly put up with geographic inconsistencies, if the author provides a good story.

Thanks Isaac. I'll check out alternatives to downloads.

 

[John From Detroit]

You make a good point..  I will tell you about one book I have NOT read but I've met the author. and a couple I have read. but not met the author.

We were at teh Guest of Honor banquet at a Science fiction conventions an the guest author was talking about a book he read where one of the settings was a bar.. The Runway 50 bar..  So named because it was at the end of Runway 50.

Runway numbers are the compass heading/10 so they go either (i'm not a pilot so I'm not sure) from 0 to 35 or 1-36.. There is no Runway 50 anywhere.  So sayeth the Author Guest of Honor.

Turns out the author of the Runway 50 bar story.... Was the Master of Ceremonies for the dinner.. (We had a couple of red faced authors I can tell you)

The other books are by the author of "The Rosary Murders" and in fact that is one of 'em. I think the other is "Murder by Mind" or "Murder in the mind" (I know the title contains murder and mind)

Set in Detroit. and .. the priest author is from Detroit and was spot on with many landmarks.  at least at the time of publication.. some of those landmarks are history now. but I was there BEFORE they left the scape so i know 'em too.. Like the Weather Phone on the Bell Telephone Sign.

 

[NY_Dutch]

One of my favorite current read for entertainment authors is former fulltime RV'er Nick Russell. Some of us my remember his "Gypsy Journal" newspaper that's now the name of his blog site. Nick has written a number of non-fiction travel books, but his current genre is the fictional "Big Lake" and "John Lee Quarrels" law enforcement themed mystery series'. The Big Lake series is lighter reading than the Quarrels books, but both are good reads in my opinion. Getting back to locations though, Nick makes it quite clear that the town of Big Lake is fictional along with the usual character disclaimer.

 

[LarsMac]

I recently downloaded a set of 10 western novels (99?) to my Kindle from Amazon. The first on was not bad but 2 pages into the second one I deleted all of them because of the absurdity of the author.

The main character was in Colorado, headed to Idaho Springs on horseback and it was supposed to be 5 hours away. Then the guy talked to his horse and told him that they would be spending the night in Durango where the horse would have a warm dry stall for the night.

I have been to both of these towns and most of you probably know Durango is way down south, near the New Mexico border. Idaho Springs is less well known, west of Denver on I-70. Incidentally, it is at the southern end of a road you must travel if you are ever in the area - Oh My God Road. It goes up to Central City and is not for the faint of heart.

I knew this was hogwash - Mapquest says they are 322 miles apart!

What is really lame about this is how could anyone write about an area of the country and know so little about it? I figured I would eat the 99? and the whole set went into trash.

Anyone else ever run across a mistake like this?

Oh, yeah, a number of times. Even some of the best writers miss the mark, now and again.
Louie L'Amour was well known for his attention to detail, and even made a few boo boos.
 
BTW, Oh My God Road is now quite the easy run. Nothing like the old days. Big and wide, though it still has a number of grades that make running an RV over it a bit of fun.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

so I signed up for "BookBub" - a daily assortment for 99 cents.
Much of the writing style is horrible. Do we need a page and a half describing what someone is wearing, and their surroundings, completely irrelevant to the story?

I've found the writing gets better at about $2.99/download.
Since I write professionally myself (non-fiction), I recognize what they are trying to do with those descriptions.  Can almost hear the lectures they received in writing class about setting scenes, showing attitudes, demonstrating character foibles, etc.  It ain't easy to do it right!    I'm sympathetic to those trying their hand at a novel, but sometimes it's hard to endure.  But all of us were beginners at one time or another, so I try to endure.  Not always successfully, though. 

 

[skydivemark1]

You make a good point..  I will tell you about one book I have NOT read but I've met the author. and a couple I have read. but not met the author.

We were at teh Guest of Honor banquet at a Science fiction conventions an the guest author was talking about a book he read where one of the settings was a bar.. The Runway 50 bar..  So named because it was at the end of Runway 50.

Runway numbers are the compass heading/10 so they go either (i'm not a pilot so I'm not sure) from 0 to 35 or 1-36.. There is no Runway 50 anywhere.  So sayeth the Author Guest of Honor.

Turns out the author of the Runway 50 bar story.... Was the Master of Ceremonies for the dinner.. (We had a couple of red faced authors I can tell you)

The other books are by the author of "The Rosary Murders" and in fact that is one of 'em. I think the other is "Murder by Mind" or "Murder in the mind" (I know the title contains murder and mind)

Set in Detroit. and .. the priest author is from Detroit and was spot on with many landmarks.  at least at the time of publication.. some of those landmarks are history now. but I was there BEFORE they left the scape so i know 'em too.. Like the Weather Phone on the Bell Telephone Sign.

Runways numbers are the compass headings rounded to the nearest 10 with the last zero removed, 1 to 36 is correct. A runway going straight north & south is 36 and 18. Correct, there is NO runway 50 because there is no compass heading of 500  (Except maybe in the twilight zone). 

 

[LarsMac]

3, The Neflix show The Ranch, supposedly set in rural Wyoming, in some episodes they mention being a 7-8 hour drive from Denver, yet often talk about driving over to various chain casual dining places for dinner ( Crracker Barrel, Olive Garden, etc.) as well as the nearby Bass Pro shop.  Not to mention that they have broadband internet and watch Netflix on the rural ranch (which I will give them as wireless internet has became viable in the last couple of years).  In my experience driving across much of Wyoming multiple times in the last decade there is no place in the state excluding maybe Cheyenne that has enough population to support all these stores that are within an easy drive of this "ranch", instead you drive 70 miles to get to the nearest Wal-Mart which is the smallest Wal-Mart you have seen in years.

I think "The Ranch" is set in Colorado. There are several potential areas in which the Ranch would fit right in.

 

[LarsMac]

Runways numbers are the compass headings rounded to the nearest 10 with the last zero removed, 1 to 36 is correct. A runway going straight north & south is 36 and 18. Correct, there is NO runway 50 because there is no compass heading of 500  (Except maybe in the twilight zone).

A lot of fiction writers will use designations that are not real, to avoid being associated with actual places.

 

[Larry N.]

Runways numbers are the compass headings rounded to the nearest 10 with the last zero removed, 1 to 36 is correct. A runway going straight north & south is 36 and 18. Correct, there is NO runway 50 because there is no compass heading of 500  (Except maybe in the twilight zone).

I should add that this is magnetic heading (by the compass, as mentioned above), not true heading, and because of the shifting of the magnetic north pole, these numbers can change from time to time -- for example at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (used to be Jefferson County), runway 11/29 has changed recently to become runway 12/30 (yes, they're numbered opposite for the opposite ends).

 

[Larry N.]

A lot of fiction writers will use designations that are not real, to avoid being associated with actual places.

That's true, but unless it's science fiction they don't generally try to change scientific facts or the way things go in general. It's one thing to make up a city name, but quite another to talk about an apple tree having its acorns falling (equivalent to runway 50).

 

[skydivemark1]

I should add that this is magnetic heading (by the compass, as mentioned above), not true heading, and because of the shifting of the magnetic north pole, these numbers can change from time to time -- for example at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (used to be Jefferson County), runway 11/29 has changed recently to become runway 12/30 (yes, they're numbered opposite for the opposite ends).

Yes, I forgot to mention "magnetic".  I have seen 2 or 3 different runways change through time.

 

[Gizmo100]

I think "The Ranch" is set in Colorado. There are several potential areas in which the Ranch would fit right in.

You are CORRECT....."The show takes place on the fictional Iron River Ranch, near the fictitious small town of Garrison, Colorado.

 

[lmiller409]

Many Western Movies are set here in TX.  Many times I'll see the cowboy on his horse with snow capped mountains in the background.  So far I haven't found any snow capped peaks.  There are a couple that might get snow on them during a winter storm, but not many and the snow will melt in a day or two!