I
was looking at some of the writers’ discussion forums on Amazon.com the other
day and found one called, “Hilarious Mistakes (Mostly in Self-Published
Books).”
The
forum asked readers to contribute any comical mistakes and typos they’d come
across in books. The minute I started
reading the list of mistakes, I was hooked.
The problem with self-published books is anyone can write and publish one nowadays, and sometimes the editing (or lack thereof) leaves a lot to be desired.
In a story about the war in Vietnam, for example: “Private Thompson desperately wanted to go search for Natalie, but he couldn’t risk going a-wall.”
I’m
really hoping he meant AWOL.
And,
on the subject of breaking the law, one book had: “He realized what he had done
could send him to a penile colony.”
All
I could envision was a nudist colony – all males.
Sometimes
the readers’ comments are just as funny as the writers’ errors. One author
wrote about a woman who worked in her family’s restaurant in Rio de Janeiro in
the year 1502.
A
reader commented: “A family restaurant in 1502? I can see it all now…the boar
is cooking on a spit over a fire above a pit. The guests are led to tree stumps
to sit on, and they pay for their meals with turnips. There is little trouble
getting a reservation.” And instead of
Ronald McDonald, they have a court jester?
A
book’s description also had me chuckling: “This book is a copulation of the
author’s most popular short stories.”
I
think the author had better keep a close watch on those short stories of his,
or they might keep breeding behind his back.
Then,
in a love story about a princess: “She waded through the collection of
gold-diggers and rogues to find a suitable husband and provide her with a male
hair.”
To
which one reader commented, “I guess that immediately eliminates all of the
bald guys!”
And
in another book, a new country was created: “Dominic loved and missed his native
country of Guadalajara.”
I
think this one, however, should get the award for the most creative spelling:
“He was very intelligent - an aspiring pupil of oceanology and a future
valid-Victorian.”
And
another one: “She could tell he’d had too much to drink because he walked with
an unsteady gate.”
I
have a couple unsteady gates in my yard he can borrow if he needs another one.
Anyway,
we all were having fun with this forum until someone named Rick joined and
accused us of being evil trolls who were mocking serious writers and
deliberately trying to make them look foolish.
Many
replied that if authors write something they intend to sell to the public, they
shouldn’t make readers pay good money for books filled with mistakes.
Rick
responded with, “Don’t tell me you’d actually stop reading a book just because
it has a few mistakes in it! Nobody’s
perfect! Besides that, if the plot is good, you probably won’t even notice the
mistakes!”
One
reply was, “Maybe the authors should read this forum, then! Don’t you think
they might want to know when they do make errors, so they can correct them –
especially in the e-book formats, which are easy to change?”
“No!”
Rick answered. “Give them credit for actually finishing a book and stop picking
on them!”
So
this Rick guy single-handedly put a damper on a forum that previously had been
nothing more than some innocent fun. After that, every time someone tried to
post another error he or she had discovered, Rick would comment, “Ha, ha! Very funny!
Get a life!” or something equally as negative.
I
began to get the distinct feeling Rick might have been one of the authors whose
goofs were mentioned in the forum.
And
speaking of goofs, I'm currently writing a romance novel and was reading over what I'd written the other night, when I found a mistake that made me burst
out laughing. I wrote: “He pulled a pistol from the waste of his breeches.”
I’d
unintentionally made the poor guy sound as if he’d had an unfortunate accident
in his pants.
I’d
post it in the “hilarious mistakes” forum, but I don’t think I’m brave enough
to deal with Rick’s reaction.
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