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Post by monklady123 on Jun 27, 2024 21:30:47 GMT
I'm reading a book called "American Spy" by Lauren Wilkinson. It takes place in the early 80s in Burkina Faso, West Africa during the time that Thomas Sankara staged a coup. The main character is an American woman who is sent there to develop a relationship with Sankara. The book is fun for me since I lived there when I was in the Peace Corps. And everything is authentic... her descriptions of the capital city, the place names in the capital, the names of everyone in Sankara's government, the opposition people, etc. I lived there during Sankara's coup and two years after that. All of those facts are correct. -- Except she mentions Tenkodogo, the seat of the Mossi empire. She got that right, but then she says that Tenkodogo is "several hours north of Ouagadougou". I lived in Tenkodogo. Back then it was a large village/small town. I'm sure it's grown a lot in the years that I've been gone but I am quite sure that it wasn't relocated to several hours NORTH of Ouaga. It is in fact SOUTHEAST.  Why get all those other details correct and not notice that you've placed Tenkodogo in the wrong place? Especially when it figures into the story. Movies do this sort of thing all the time. I haven't seen "No Way Out" in years but I don't ever forget that they put a subway stop in Georgetown. lol. There is no subway stop in Georgetown. But for some reason the movies don't bother me as much as this book does. lol. I find the movie "mistakes" (I put that in quotes because I'm sure that the "No Way Out" producers knew there was no subway in Georgetown, but did it anyway because it helped advance the story) amusing. But not this one in the book, this one just annoys me. lol at me.  But really, how hard is it to get your geography correct? Those of you who live in places that have been written about or filmed, what do you think about these odd mistakes or misrepresentations? |
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breetheflea
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,596 
Location: PNW
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Post by breetheflea on Jun 27, 2024 21:42:47 GMT
I read a book a few years ago where they just zipped across Portland like there was no traffic and acted like it was rural... yes, it annoyed me. The Portland in Grimm was much more accurate  |
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Post by monklady123 on Jun 27, 2024 22:07:25 GMT
I read a book a few years ago where they just zipped across Portland like there was no traffic and acted like it was rural... yes, it annoyed me. The Portland in Grimm was much more accurate  Yes that pesky traffic. It's like on "Criminal Minds" when they leave Quantico and arrive in DC ten minutes later. hahahahahahahahaha  |
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Post by librarylady on Jun 27, 2024 22:11:27 GMT
Yes, big errors such as that annoy me.
I recently read a book and some previous reader had used a pencil to indicate a couple of errors. I was a little amused. That person must have really been bothered to point out the things she/he did.
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Post by Zee on Jun 27, 2024 22:36:31 GMT
I LIVE for medical errors in books and on TV/movies.
It both annoys me, and gives my life purpose pointing them out to DH. 🤣
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Post by monklady123 on Jun 27, 2024 23:06:16 GMT
I LIVE for medical errors in books and on TV/movies. It both annoys me, and gives my life purpose pointing them out to DH. 🤣 lol... My dh is the same with that TV show "The Diplomat". I can't watch it with him because he spends half the time saying "What?? that would never happen!" or "no way, not at any embassy I've ever been in!" lol |
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Post by Delta Dawn on Jun 27, 2024 23:14:42 GMT
I read a book and the bad guy’s name changed part way through. He was Mr. Saito and became Mr. Saita. What? I found the line where it changed. That book scared the heck out of me!
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milocat
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,619
Location: 55 degrees north in Alberta, Canada
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Post by milocat on Jun 27, 2024 23:15:02 GMT
Doesn't bother me. Sometimes in the author's note they will say that they know that a detail isn't 100% accurate but needed the story to flow. I often find it's timeline errors, which I wouldn't have know until I read the note.
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Post by monklady123 on Jun 27, 2024 23:17:39 GMT
Doesn't bother me. Sometimes in the author's note they will say that they know that a detail isn't 100% accurate but needed the story to flow. I often find it's timeline errors, which I wouldn't have know until I read the note. Yes, that's like the Georgetown subway stop which doesn't exist. lol. But they needed it for the flow of the story, because the main character needed to be in Georgetown. But the author of my book had absolutely no reason to relocate Tenkodogo, which she correctly called the "seat of the Mossi empire". The area where she relocated it to isn't even in the Mossi area, it's a different ethnic group. |
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valincal
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Southern Alberta
Posts: 5,805
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Post by valincal on Jun 27, 2024 23:30:34 GMT
It’s not exactly the same thing, but when I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society the main character (who is from the UK) used the American spelling of words in the letters she wrote. So minor, but it bugged me every time I saw a misspelled word. 🤪😄
ETA…for example, color for colour.
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Post by ntsf on Jun 27, 2024 23:57:20 GMT
all the shows set in san francisco and filmed in vancover bc.. aaahhh.. I hate it. or the interiors of SF houses that somehow look like ranch houses.. and no one worries about parking..
I also dislike westerns were people are really clean.. I mean.. really??
I'm a history nut so it does bother me. or women who are very much acting like current day women with lots of freedom and choice and not woman of their time.
I find the same problem in books. people esp write about SF and it seems based on something else.. not here.
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Post by Lexica on Jun 28, 2024 0:05:49 GMT
Is the author still alive? You could let them know about the error. I recently read a book series and the author invited his readers to email him with any questions or comments. He promised that he read every single one. Curious to see if that was true, I emailed him that I enjoyed his books and mentioned an error that I happened to notice. It wasn’t an earth shaking glaring mistake and I am pretty sure that I was the only one that saw it. And I think it only jumped out at me because when I was in court reporting school, I had a job as a test grader. We were only allowed a small number of errors on a speed test and we marked off one point for every spelling and punctuation mistake. We never corrected grammar because we were taking it down verbatim and people make grammatical errors all the time when speaking.
After doing that for so many years, mistakes can still jump out at me. About a week after I emailed the author he actually wrote to me to thank me for pointing out the mistake. He said he couldn’t correct it in the printed books but that he fully intended to correct it in the version that was downloaded via Amazon. I was impressed that he actually read my email.
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Post by littlemama on Jun 28, 2024 0:07:52 GMT
I think if you arent familiar with an area, it is easy to overlook those things. I would have no idea where the places in the OP were in real life so it wouldnt impact my enjoyment of the story. However, if it were set in my state, it would drive me crazy (Bird on a Wire has an error so egregious, I cant think of anything else about the movie)
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Post by peasapie on Jun 28, 2024 0:44:40 GMT
Yes and this is exactly why I can't read books that are set somewhere I have lived (mainly NYC and the Jersey shore). I'm so busy paying attention to whether the location details are accurate that I can't focus on the storyline.
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pilcas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,239
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Post by pilcas on Jun 28, 2024 0:58:10 GMT
I read a mystery novel and part of the plot included some Mexican characters and they all had Italian names instead of Spanish names. So many of them too. I don’t know how nobody caught it.
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Post by chaosisapony on Jun 28, 2024 1:23:59 GMT
Yes little things in books bother me. Like in fantasy novels where people are galloping their horses for days at a time over hundreds of miles and never stop to water or feed them. Or timelines that are so vague you can't figure out if something happened yesterday or a month ago in the story.
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christinec68
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,437
Location: New York, NY
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Post by christinec68 on Jun 28, 2024 2:07:49 GMT
Something like that would annoy me bc it’s just wrong but otherwise it’s very easy for me to suspend my disbelief when it comes to movies, books and TV shows.
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mimima
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Stay Gold, Ponyboy
Posts: 5,104
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Post by mimima on Jun 28, 2024 2:39:48 GMT
Always. And, I complain bitterly.
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Post by melanell on Jun 28, 2024 2:46:59 GMT
It bugs me more in books than anywhere else. Except, as mentioned above, if there is a forward or author's note that specifies that things have been purposely rearranged in a historical fiction or a based on real life type novel. But in most published works by an established publisher, I expect editing to catch things like that. (Self-published works I cut more slack, and something like stories on Reddit, or fanfiction, etc., I have no expectations there.) I am far, far more forgiving of those type of errors in movies & TV shows. However, I'm a bit of a stickler for continuity in TV shows or series of movies. I feel like, come on, you invented all of this, you should be able to keep track of what you already told us! And even then, I am less annoyed in shows that aired pre-VCR days. But once shows knew that people could be watching episodes one after another, I feel like it was time for them to up their game in regards to avoiding continuity errors. And more so now than ever with shows being released to streaming immediately. One thing that gets me in TV shows/movies is how the interiors and exteriors of houses/buildings rarely match. Yeah, I get that in many cases the exterior is a location shot, and the interior is a set, but can you at least try a little bit to make them look like they could possibly be the same building?  |
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Post by lesserknownpea on Jun 28, 2024 6:33:20 GMT
all the shows set in san francisco and filmed in vancover bc.. aaahhh.. I hate it. or the interiors of SF houses that somehow look like ranch houses.. and no one worries about parking.. I also dislike westerns were people are really clean.. I mean.. really?? I'm a history nut so it does bother me. or women who are very much acting like current day women with lots of freedom and choice and not woman of their time. I find the same problem in books. people esp write about SF and it seems based on something else.. not here. THIS one bothers me so much. Books, TV, movies. Women and girls acting and speaking in ways that would get them in serious trouble. In ways it would never even occur to them to do. For that matter, I have a real problem with authors having characters from all over the world, from modern times back through centuries, behaving like modern Western men or women. |
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Post by melanell on Jun 28, 2024 10:48:12 GMT
I'm a history nut so it does bother me. or women who are very much acting like current day women with lots of freedom and choice and not woman of their time. THIS one bothers me so much. Books, TV, movies. Women and girls acting and speaking in ways that would get them in serious trouble. In ways it would never even occur to them to do. For that matter, I have a real problem with authors having characters from all over the world, from modern times back through centuries, behaving like modern Western men or women. I see this in a lot of period TV shows. And to an extent, I get it. Modern audiences wouldn't be as likely to like the characters of a show if they acted in period-appropriate ways at times, and unlike a movie, TV show creators need you to keep watching more and more episodes. But on the flip side, one would think they could find some sort of happy medium. |
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Post by gramasue on Jun 28, 2024 13:04:58 GMT
One thing that bothers me in books is that people never seem to have to go pee. Like, wake up in the morning and immediately make love? Yeah, no.
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Tearisci
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Nov 6, 2018 16:34:30 GMT
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Post by Tearisci on Jun 28, 2024 13:12:13 GMT
I haven't run across it so blatantly in books but I remember watching the show Jack Ryan where it shows him biking all along all of the monuments in DC to magically show up at the CIA. They're not even close together but looked good on TV. Lots of stories set in DC are filmed in Baltimore as well.
When i lived in Seattle, I would watch a lot of shows that were clearly filmed in Vancouver and it was very obvious.
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Post by aj2hall on Jun 28, 2024 14:08:49 GMT
Errors and inaccuracies bug me, too. I recently read a book that kept talking about a nursing internship, but clinical rotation would have been more accurate.
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Post by grammadee on Jun 28, 2024 14:16:19 GMT
Those of you who live in places that have been written about or filmed, what do you think about these odd mistakes or misrepresentations? Depends on the book and/or the author. Sometimes I trust authors to fill in knowledge of certain periods in history or parts of the world where their stories take place. I know their characters and plot are invented, but like to trust the authenticity of this background. If I discover a flaw in one part of it in one book, it will affect my view of that author and of bring doubt to all their other books. John Le Cary included a segment about Winnipeg, Manitoba, in one of his later books, and it didn't read true at all. Now I wonder how much he really knew about his other plot venues.
When i lived in Seattle, I would watch a lot of shows that were clearly filmed in Vancouver and it was very obvious. When I was visiting in Abbotsford, BC, my dgd's and I had to change our restaurant choice b/c their first choice was being taken over by a filming crew for a Hallmark Christmas movie (it was early summer). The girls told me that happened often in their picturesque downtown. Don't think I have ever noticed that city as a base for any of the Hallmark plots LOL.
I'm a history nut so it does bother me. or women who are very much acting like current day women with lots of freedom and choice and not woman of their time. Yeah, the women who either take over running things, or get to go and do whatever they want in a world where that was not very likely. Or the pioneer or indiginous girls and women who had all this time to day dream. Hello! The work of gathering and preparing food and keeping everything going in the home did not leave alot of time for THAT. |
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Post by monklady123 on Jun 28, 2024 14:56:11 GMT
I haven't run across it so blatantly in books but I remember watching the show Jack Ryan where it shows him biking all along all of the monuments in DC to magically show up at the CIA. They're not even close together but looked good on TV. Lots of stories set in DC are filmed in Baltimore as well. When i lived in Seattle, I would watch a lot of shows that were clearly filmed in Vancouver and it was very obvious. Yes, lol. And your post made me recall an episode of "NCIS" that had a storyline about the mounted police in Rock Creek Park in DC. The last scene showed Gibbs and a park ranger riding horses through the park. As they go down the lovely trail through the woods they come round the bend to a view of a mountain in the distance. lol... Absolutely no mountains that look like that anywhere in DC, and certainly not in Rock Creek Park. |
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RosieKat
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PeaJect #12
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Post by RosieKat on Jun 28, 2024 15:40:07 GMT
I'm more of a reader than a TV/movie watcher, however - the worst was being in the same room as my daughter watching Lone Star 911. There are a TON of issues with the setting alone. The most egregious was when a volcano just suddenly started spewing lava that basically covered Austin. (I wasn't watching the show prior to this, so I may have missed a couple of details, but that's the gist of it.) Austin is on an ancient fault line and there are a couple of hills that were ancient volcanoes, but none of it has ANY sign of seismic activity nor has it in forever. None. Besides which, volcanoes don't just spontaneously erupt!
If I've casually observed correctly, they also show things sometimes like people just riding around places on horses for regular transportation here and things like that, as if we weren't the 10th or 11th biggest city in the US.
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Post by Prenticekid on Jun 28, 2024 17:00:23 GMT
Often. They read like typos, and it is irritating. Some that bug me are common sense kind of things, and I just can't suspend belief. For instance, I feel like if you are going to write a book, you should probably look up basic legal things before representing something as a legal fact. Then I'm just reading the book thinking how dumb the author is and that the author thinks we're dumb. You just shouldn't try to wiggle around certain things.
Pittsburgh is often used for other cities in tv and film. So, I apologize if your city has looked like Pittsburgh! LOL
However, one thing I've never gotten over in the movie FlashDance is that the character took the incline UP to the SouthSide. You can't do that. First, neither incline takes you to the SouthSide. Second, the SouthSide is DOWN, not up! LOL
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Post by monklady123 on Jun 28, 2024 17:28:12 GMT
Often. They read like typos, and it is irritating. Some that bug me are common sense kind of things, and I just can't suspend belief. For instance, I feel like if you are going to write a book, you should probably look up basic legal things before representing something as a legal fact. Then I'm just reading the book thinking how dumb the author is and that the author thinks we're dumb. You just shouldn't try to wiggle around certain things. Pittsburgh is often used for other cities in tv and film. So, I apologize if your city has looked like Pittsburgh! LOL However, one thing I've never gotten over in the movie FlashDance is that the character took the incline UP to the SouthSide. You can't do that. First, neither incline takes you to the SouthSide. Second, the SouthSide is DOWN, not up! LOLlol...born and raised in Pittsburgh. Yeah. |
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Post by mikklynn on Jul 1, 2024 12:42:46 GMT
I can't remember the book, but it talked about the underground walkways to avoid the winter weather in Minneapolis. They don't exist! We have famous second floor skyways between buildings.
On the old TV show, Beverly Hills 90210, the Walsh family was from Wayzata, MN. On the show they pronounced it WAY-zotta. It's pronounced WHY-zetta here in Minnesota. How hard would it have been to call city hall and ask the correct pronunciation?
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Why get all those other details correct and not notice that you've placed Tenkodogo in the wrong place? Especially when it figures into the story. 
But really, how hard is it to get your geography correct?
