What little things do you pick up because of your life knowledge/experiences?

[Jo Zebedee]

Nicked this theme from another website, but good fun.

For me, it's dodgy organisational structure and terrible leadership styles.

Take the Emperor. Terrible motivation and seccession skills shown in threatening/carrying out killing your workforce. If he'd had, y'know, upped his motivational approach, gone a tiny bit Theory Y he'd have had the Death Star finished before the rebel attack...

 

[Mouse]

I'm lucky, in that I don't know much about anything so if something's not quite right, I don't usually notice.

I'd probably notice something animal related. Or hotel related. I do get very excited when anywhere in the West Country is mentioned in a book too. Does that count?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Yep, they all count. I'm fairly sensitive to Ulster things.
And typos in thread titles... oops. Sorry, all.

 

[Glitch]

Most of my stories seem to involve a large corporate entity in some form or another.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Typos in thread titles? I don't see any of those.

I'm more likely to pick up mistakes when I know more about the historical period or the society than the author (apparently) does. Stupid, obvious mistakes they could have avoided with thirty minutes of research.

Life experiences? The big things like birth and the death of loved ones are so different for everyone, it would be hard for me to judge whether anything in a book involving either one of those would be accurate for someone else.

Perhaps the main thing that I've picked up from my own life is that some things that sound so dramatic in books are only exhausting and disheartening in reality. I notice when books are all about nobles fighting and backstabbing and not at all about the common folk who have to deal with the fact that all their lands have been turned into battlefields and there is no seed corn to plant a new crop.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

You're a saint, Teresa, thank you.

 

[Kissmequick]

Nicked this theme from another website, but good fun.

For me, it's dodgy organisational structure and terrible leadership styles.

Take the Emperor. Terrible motivation and seccession skills shown in threatening/carrying out killing your workforce. If he'd had, y'know, upped his motivational approach, gone a tiny bit Theory Y he'd have had the Death Star finished before the rebel attack...

Oh i don't know. I mean, people would do what he said, mostly. Let them hate, as long as they fear (Caligula IIRC)

ETA: so why did so many germans give up jews etc pre and during WII? to start with, because they believed (or pretended to because it was good for their health). In the end...because of fear. Fear that they would be next. They would die of they didn't. Their children would die if they didn't. Fear of the SS, of Hitler, of the people who DID believe.

Fear motivates -- see history.

Not ideal or fashionable but it works to a certain extent. "I can slack off, and die, or fix this wassanme and not die, Hmm. Choices."

Tbh "the emperor can kill me with a stray thought, even if I'm as powerful as Darth Vader" would probably motivate me quite a lot.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Alien planets with trees, insects and reptiles usually make me lose interest in the story. On one level, it's unimaginative. On another level, it's convergent evolution taken to a ridiculous extreme - even if the reptiles are sentient!

Another pet peeve: humans in futuristic technological societies performing complex mathematical calculations or time-sensitive processes. In a recently read and (relatively) recently published example, the narrator detailed the time-sensitivity of a manoeuvre, then showed the captain giving a command to the first officer, who passed on the command to the engine or artillery room (I can't remember which; I was so irritated that I read no further.)

 

[hopewrites]

Pregnancy takes 10 months 10! Just because most women didnt know the first month for centuries doesn't mean it doesn't count. 40weeks gestation is T E N months.
*guah*

Other than that my feathers dont get too ruffled. Emotionally inconsistent actions. But mostly because they cause me to draw the wrong conclusions.

 

[steve12553]

Pregnancy takes 10 months 10! Just because most women didnt know the first month for centuries doesn't mean it doesn't count. 40weeks gestation is T E N months.
*guah*

Other than that my feathers dont get too ruffled. Emotionally inconsistent actions. But mostly because they cause me to draw the wrong conclusions.

Sorry. I'm a stickler for math. 365 days divided by 7 days/ week = 52.14 weeks. Divided by 12 months per year = 4.34 weeks per month. Divide that into 40 you get 9 months and 1 week. Of course, I'm assuming you're correct about the 40 weeks because on that end, I don't have a clue. That last time I was closely involved with something like that was 35 years ago. And also working that out in my head was something automatic and easy in the background. Laying out a proper proof took some work.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Tis true, indeed, that fear can be a motivator, KMQ. but in terms of efficiency of work outcomes it's far from effective, especially if what you're building requires a trained workforce ( which I assume an average death star does). But, yes, the Emperor does do autocratic leader very well, he just has a dearth of other leadership styles to support it.

Tis a silly argument, but fun.

 

[HareBrain]

Effects of water pressure on underwater air-spaces. No, you cannot open the door of your mile-deep sunken aircraft and swim out!

Also, some idea where different birds live. Why are Great Northern Divers (Arctic Loons to Americans) calling in that nocturnal jungle scene? Or that twilight desert scene? Or that alien planet scene? Why would they be called Great Northern Divers if they lived in every vaguely unsettling low-lit wilderness in the entire universe??

 

[HoopyFrood]

Dinosaurs. And I'm not very forgiving about it, either I will actively shun people who say Brontosaurus!

That's definitely my biggest one and most likely to cause a rant.

 

[chrispenycate]

I think the word brontosaurus is much more impressive than the brachiowatsits that have replaced it. Thunder lizard; it's not its fault that early palaeontologists got its description a bit muddled.

I do tend to get a trifle pedantic about technical details, but mostly about things I've read about; there just aren't many SF stories about rock and roll touring (well, Spinrad's 'Little Heroes'). Or I can get pedantic about grammatical details or… quite a lot of things, actually, and very few of them have any direct connection with my life experiences.

But I do a good rant.

 

[Toby Frost]

Yeah, the Emperor was pretty stupid that way (like many villains). I remember some Roman working out that a person did about 5 times more work if you paid him than if you forced him. Then the death star would have been fully operational, my young fwend.

I read quite a lot of history in my spare time, and the things I tend to notice are when things don't make fit together properly, particularly in wars. I see a lot of writing which does the cheesy "brotherhood of ultimate warriors" thing, which is fine in about 1000 BC or in a Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film, but is less of a trump card in reality. I often find myself thinking "This reads like a computer game", which isn't a compliment. As Teresa says, people often concentrate on the glamorous bits (often the eeevil glamorous bits, which is what Grimdark is all about, really) without figuring out the dull bits. Sometimes, things just don't ring true.

Funnily enough, also dinosaurs for me. And British stuff.

(Isn't it Apatosaurus these days?)

 

[Bick]

Anything regarding the use and science of drugs in books. I'm an expert in the science of drugs, and authors usually get it wrong in some way or another. Both the Bova books I've read lately I really enjoyed, but both were let down slightly by a plot that required a drug-based plot device that was not realistic.

 

[HoopyFrood]

(Isn't it Apatosaurus these days?)

That's the one.

I think the word brontosaurus is much more impressive than the brachiowatsits that have replaced it. Thunder lizard; it's not its fault that early palaeontologists got its description a bit muddled.

Thunder lizard is a good 'un. But their fault for wasting it -- they should have double checked everything before getting excited and naming Frankendino

 

[Bick]

(Isn't it Apatosaurus these days?)

Yes indeed

 

[Montero]

Probably quite a lot.

I've done historical re-enactment and I pick up on wearing of costume details when authors who have not worn what I have make a mistake on how one moves and the limit of the movement.

On anachronistic economies - in particular abundant metal in an era of hand dug open cast mines and limited processing and transport.

As Toby - things British done a bit wrong. Some of Tom Clancy's books are a bit wince worthy in places - amazing how when his character is in London he saves Prince Charles and gets to visit the Tower of London. What ho chaps.

On people with no understanding of science having a plot point involving science (especially Physics and Chemistry).

That's all off the top of my head - but I'll probably trip over something shortly.

 

[Randy M.]

[...]
As Toby - things British done a bit wrong. Some of Tom Clancy's books are a bit wince worthy in places - amazing how when his character is in London he saves Prince Charles and gets to visit the Tower of London. What ho chaps.
[...]

I know very little about London and that sequence put me off. I'd mildly enjoyed The Hunt for Red October, but the first 50 or so pages of Patriot Games soured me on Clancy. I still don't know how anyone reading the interaction between Ryan and Prince Charles could ever take Clancy seriously again.

I guess that probably cues what puts me off fiction: I can accept the eliding and simplification of the subtleties of human interaction up to a point, but there are so many readable, entertaining writers who manage to show the currents and cross-currents, the motivations both overt and covert, of people dealing with each other that when a writer shows character interaction as less complicated that assembly instructions, I eventually get tired and walk away from her/him.


Randy M.