What’s the biggest blooper you have made in a story?

[EmilyMiller]

Nothing major. I added a string of pearls on a my nearly naked main female character and mentioned them later in the next paragraph. I ended up changing my mind and deleted the original mention but not the reference later.

Pearl necklaces in erotica, heaven forfend!

Em

 

[KeithD]

While some Fire Island communities might completely bar their use (Cherry Grove comes to mind), private cars are not completely prohibited on Fire Island, just severely restricted (to full-time residents who apply for one of the strictly limited number available -- I believe that number is 145):
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-I/part-7/section-7.20

I could be wrong.

That's a relief. When a commenter called me on that I immediately assumed they were right. The times I've been there, I arrived and left by boat and I had no need to worry about whether nor not there were cars while I was there.

 

[Voboy]

In another, my editor wanted to introduce a third character into the story. I wrote a number of paragraphs and placed them at the end of the story, separated by about half a page, just to keep it separate. I changed my mind and didn't include it. It got overlooked in the final edit. When it was published it was pulled up and attached to the end of the story. Had comments, "Who is Jess?" and "Where did Jess come from?" I just replied in the comments on what happened and it took care of that. But what and embarrassment.

I did something similar with one of my stories, a bulleted list of "here's where we're going next!" type stuff at the end. I'm fairly sure it's still there; in any case, I've forgotten which story it was.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Probably not my biggest…

I was referring to time zones in a story and said that Hawaii is three hours ahead of California.

It’s not just me!!!

Em

 

[Zootonius]

Oh, another,

"She visited an online dating sight."

I got a million!

 

[EmilyMiller]

I don’t really view this as a blooper, but I have a few instances of “stoped” in my stories where I intended “stopped”. Stoped it turns out is a word. Who knew?

Em

 

[Zootonius]

I understand Conan Doyle started a Sherlock Holmes story on a Spring day, and ended two days later on an Autumn day.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I understand Conan Doyle started a Sherlock Holmes story on a Spring day, and ended two days later on an Autumn day.

I remember that. It was The Case of the Missing Tardis. One of Arthur’s finest.

Em

 

[KeithD]

I understand Conan Doyle started a Sherlock Holmes story on a Spring day, and ended two days later on an Autumn day.

Oh, I can do that and slide a winter blizzard in between.

 

[AlexBailey]

I understand Conan Doyle started a Sherlock Holmes story on a Spring day, and ended two days later on an Autumn day.

Isn’t that possible by crossing the equator?

 

[EmilyMiller]

Isn’t that possible by crossing the equator?

Repeatedly… in a time machine… during a leap year…

 

[EmilyMiller]

I understand Conan Doyle started a Sherlock Holmes story on a Spring day, and ended two days later on an Autumn day.

Sherlock is full of inconsistencies. Maybe the best known is the location of Watson’s Afghan bullet injury. It moves from his shoulder to his leg.

Em

 

[AlexBailey]

Isn’t that possible by crossing the equator?

Repeatedly… in a time machine… during a leap year…

I looked it up. To travel from winter to summer (without a tardis or other means of time travel) you need to cross the distance between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn - a distance of ~ 3200 miles (5186km)

Geek that!

 

[EmilyMiller]

I looked it up. To travel from winter to summer (without a tardis or other means of time travel) you need to cross the distance between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn - a distance of ~ 3200 miles (5186km)

Geek that!

In a hansom cab.

Em

 

[Zootonius]

In a hansom cab.

Em

Silly story.

In Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine says she can take Elizabeth to London "...and as [the servant] Dawson does not object to the Barouche box..."

The Barouche is the carriage, the box is where to driver sat.

In the 1996 production Lady Catherine says "I can take you to London in the Barouche box" meaning Lizzy can sit with the driver. Point being, interpreting old literature is fraught with danger.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I just mentioned one on another thread--using "turgid" in a story that should have used "flaccid." Another is that I located Fenwick Island in Maryland in a story when it's in Delaware, and put Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in Maryland in another story, both locations that I jolly well know.

Did any of your readers catch those place names? I wouldn't have because I've never heard of either one. I have heard of Hinton, WV because my late ex-father-in-law lived there for quite a while. (Did I describe him properly? He passed before the marriage did.)

 

[gunhilltrain]

In a hansom cab.

Em

Like Madame Bovary?

 

[gunhilltrain]

Isn’t that possible by crossing the equator?

I think you mean the International Date line, perhaps?

 

[KeithD]

Did any of your readers catch those place names? I wouldn't have because I've never heard of either one. I have heard of Hinton, WV because my late ex-father-in-law lived there for quite a while. (Did I describe him properly? He passed before the marriage did.)

Yes, both the misplacing of Shepherdstown and Fenwick Island (by mere yards each rather than miles) were caught and pointed out by indignant readers who obviously didn't read any of the rest of the stories both because I had enough regional reference in them for them to know it was just a slip rather than geographic ignorance of the two places and because obviously the only thing in the stories important to them was getting the locations exactly right.

 

[AlexBailey]

I think you mean the International Date line, perhaps?

Lol,
No, this nerdy sidebar was based on going from spring to summer in two days.

I understand Conan Doyle started a Sherlock Holmes story on a Spring day, and ended two days later on an Autumn day.

It’s possible IRL if you cross both tropic latitudes (23.5N and 23.5S) in that time. I was thinking you could do it simply by crossing the equator, but that wouldn’t work because the tropic zones don’t have four seasons.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Pearl necklaces in erotica, heaven forfend!

Em

It was an actual necklace of pearls! Honest!

 

[ElectricBlue]

I think you mean the International Date line, perhaps?

No. That will get you to yesterday or tomorrow, depending which way you travel, but won't give you a seasonal swap. You've got to go north-south or south-north to swap seasons.

 

[Rustyoznail]

In a hansom cab.

Em

I have made any spectacularly dumb mistakes - that I know of. I have read of a lady being driven around London in a Handsome cab. And that was in a real paper book!

 

[KeithD]

I have made any spectacularly dumb mistakes -

Happily, dropping a negative is a notable mistake, but not a spectacularly dumb one.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Nothing major. I added a string of pearls on a my nearly naked main female character and mentioned them later in the next paragraph. I ended up changing my mind and deleted the original mention but not the reference later.

This is the kind of continuity error that bedevils filmmakers. There are supposed to be people who keep track of these things from day to day, but they always miss something.

https://screenrant.com/worst-continuity-mistakes-movie-history/

A notable error occurs at the beginning of Killer's Kiss, one of Kubrick's earlier films. The perfectionist Kubrick has a scene in New York's Penn Station, but the soundtrack has a steam locomotive, whistle and all. Except, Penn Station was entirely electric from the very beginning. He didn't have a lot of power back then, but I bet when he found out, he was going, "Please, please, can we fix this?" And the producers said, "No, Stanley, we released it a week ago."

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/48/7f/fb487faef79cc25c4c057731bcd88a1b.jpg