The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[ownedbycats]

Reading rant: Long conversations with no dialogue tags. Who the hell is talking?

Especially bad when:
a) the characters don't have particularly distinct voices
b) there's more than two characters in the scene
c) Multi-paragraph dialogue.

[SomeSteve]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Reading rant: Long conversations with no dialogue tags. Who the hell is talking?

And sometimes the author seems to lose track, too.

[John F]

Originally Posted by HLS

Prices for ebooks annoys me and the long wait for a library copy even more annoying. $17.99 for a new release? If it turns out to be a crappy book you wasted money. I tried to rent prince Harry's book from the library and it had a 2 year wait list so I caved in and bought it. it was a snooze fest.

If you are doing this often, it is probably worth your while to pay for a library card at a library with shorter wait times/more copies.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Reading rant: Long conversations with no dialogue tags. Who the hell is talking?

Especially bad when:
a) the characters don't have particularly distinct voices
b) there's more than two characters in the scene
c) Multi-paragraph dialogue.

It's even better when you're reading an author like Cormac McCarthy who can't be bothered to use quotation marks!

[mrscoach]

When you realize someone responded to another person talking, but both comments are on the SAME LINE, nevermind the same paragraph. Then realizing at least one whole page is like that. I don't remember the book or what the plot was supposed to be because I wasn't going to try to decipher their fifth grade writing. I DNF'd that quickly and deleted it. I read enough bad writing when I have to grade papers.

Or, another I remember, a writer always put who was doing the talking at the first of a paragraph. Why was that bad, you might ask? Because after some confusion because of wrong pronouns, I realized the writer really meant the speaker at the first of a paragraph was the one who spoke in the previous paragraph.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

It's even better when you're reading an author like Cormac McCarthy who can't be bothered to use quotation marks!

Oh, don't get me started about McCarthy.

Originally Posted by mrscoach

When you realize someone responded to another person talking, but both comments are on the SAME LINE, nevermind the same paragraph. Then realizing at least one whole page is like that. I don't remember the book or what the plot was supposed to be because I wasn't going to try to decipher their fifth grade writing. I DNF'd that quickly and deleted it. I read enough bad writing when I have to grade papers.

Or, another I remember, a writer always put who was doing the talking at the first of a paragraph. Why was that bad, you might ask? Because after some confusion because of wrong pronouns, I realized the writer really meant the speaker at the first of a paragraph was the one who spoke in the previous paragraph.

I hope you rated both of those very, very lowly. We see that not "often," but too often, at my shop. No beats, no dialogue tags, no quotation marks (grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........) no this, no nuthin'. I wish I had the income to say "for the love of Ch***t, please, go take a damned writing course!" It's infuriating and exhausting to watch.

Moreover, I kinda hate taking money from people whose books obviously will never sell, but I'm not rich enough (ha, ha ha, "rich enough," there's a phrase that doesn't apply to me in any way) to be noble and turn them down, telling them that. (sigh).

Hitch

[issybird]

In a book I'm currently reading:

You can deduce that drinking was the norm on British Sundays from these Puritan bans on alcohol, which were never fully enforced, not even in the seventeenth century, at the height of Puritan power. Puritan efforts to legislate Sunday drinking out of existence have left on the record a pungent portrait of the raucous Sundays common when the laws were enacted.

OK. But then:

The Sunday Law enacted under King James VI in 1656 reads:

Now hold on there. King James VI? Generally when referring to King James in the seventeenth century he's James I, his English number. James VI refers to his Scottish title. But in any case, not only was James long dead in 1656, there wasn't even a king at all. Hence the Puritan blue laws; it was the period of the Commonwealth in England.

So in trying to figure out what exactly the author meant, I had an aha! moment and thought maybe she was referring to a Scottish law passed during James's reign there and had transposed the numbers, i.e., 1566. But no dice; James became King of Scotland in 1567. Close, but doesn't work.

Sigh. Yet another instance where an author doesn't know what she's talking about and is wittering based on half-assed research. But I did come up with a fascinating but totally irrelevant fact which may have influenced the author whose topic is the Jewish Sabbath: the Gematria for Sunday Law is 1656!

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by issybird

Now hold on there. King James VI? Generally when referring to King James in the seventeenth century he's James I, his English number. James VI refers to his Scottish title. But in any case, not only was James long dead in 1656, there wasn't even a king at all. Hence the Puritan blue laws; it was the period of the Commonwealth in England.

I like the Joan Aiken version of British History, where James II/VII isn't replaced by a Dutch Prince married to his daughter, so she has a James III and Hanoverian pretenders.

[Uncle Robin]

Another dealbreaker moment for me. In an historical romance set in Victorian England, this passage:

“He said you were the homeliest girl in St. Ives.”

Alice was truly shocked, for she’d always liked Julian and the two of them had been friends when they were children. “He did? How old was I? Perhaps I was the homeliest.”

Shaking her head, Elda said, “No. You were never the homeliest. I think he said that terrible thing because he didn’t want the other boys to know how much he liked you.”

“That makes more sense,” Alice said, laughing. It wasn’t that she was vain, but she did have a certain appreciation of the fact that she wasn’t ugly."

(e.a.)

In my experience, "homely" as a synonym of "ugly" is distinctively US, and it seems that at least one reputable Dictionary agrees

Oxford Dictionary of English :
homely /ˈhəʊmli /
▸ adjective
(homelier, homeliest)
1 British (of a place or surroundings) simple but cosy and comfortable, as in one's own home:
a modern hotel with a homely atmosphere.
▪️ simple and unpretentious:
homely pleasures.
2 North American (of a person) unattractive in appearance.


The reality is that if the author's character had been called "hopmely", they would have been cofused, not insulted. Yet another example of a US author making zero effort to have her characters speak their own language, not that of the author.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Another dealbreaker moment for me. In an historical romance set in Victorian England, this passage:
(e.a.)

In my experience, "homely" as a synonym of "ugly" is distinctively US, and it seems that at least one reputable Dictionary agrees

Oxford Dictionary of English :
homely /ˈhəʊmli /
▸ adjective
(homelier, homeliest)

2 North American (of a person) unattractive in appearance.

The reality is that if the author's character had been called "hopmely", they would have been cofused, not insulted. Yet another example of a US author making zero effort to have her characters speak their own language, not that of the author.

Minor nit is that the Oxford dictionary does not say that homely is distinctly US. Try to remember that there is a rather large country to the north of the 48 contiguous states whose inhabitants also consider themselves as North American and another rather large country to the south though homely may not be popular there though perhaps acogedora fills the niche. I will admit that reading "hopmely" did cause me to and then .

From another source:

(Canada, US) Lacking in beauty or elegance, plain in appearance, physically unattractive

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Minor nit is that the Oxford dictionary does not say that homely is distinctly US. Try to remember that there is a rather large country to the north of the 48 contiguous states whose inhabitants also consider themselves as North American and another rather large country to the south though homely may not be popular there though perhaps acogedora fills the niche. I will admit that reading "hopmely" did cause me to and then .

From another source:

All true, but still an error by the author, whether US or Canadian. I am pleased that my increasingly impaired motor skills provided some amusement.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I am pleased that my increasingly impaired motor skills provided some amusement.

Heh. I make typing mistakes all the time and always have, despite my motor skills being intact (albeit poor). I acquired the habit of reading all my posts and emails carefully before clicking Send/Submit decades ago. Otherwise no one would understand what I wanted to say.

[ownedbycats]

Thanks to a typo that I find too amusing to fix, my screencapture folder has been named "Screenshits" for a decade and a half.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

All true, but still an error by the author, whether US or Canadian. I am pleased that my increasingly impaired motor skills provided some amusement.

I tend to find amusement in almost anything including re-reading my own posts. I can't blame my typos on impaired motor skills, just being in too much of a hurry to properly proofread my posts before hitting save.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Thanks to a typo that I find too amusing to fix, my screencapture folder has been named "Screenshits" for a decade and a half.