Observations From a Picky Reader, by Karla Stover

 

By The Same Author:

Murder: When One Isn't Enough

A Line to Murder

Wynter's Way

Parlor Girls

BWLPUBLISHING.ca

If the word, "Scottish" refers to whiskey, why is my cellophane tape called "Scotch Tape"?

I'm just asking.

Is it wrong to be a critical reader, or does paying attention to other's mistakes make us better writers? The more fiction I read ( or see ) the more picky I become. I will start with the TV show, Fraser. I wasn't a fan but occasionally we watched an episode and the only one I can remember involved a thunder storm. Everyone was in Fraser's apartment, as they usually were, while outside the picture windows thunder and lightening crashed and flashed. It created good atmosphere except this was supposed to be Seattle and we rarely have thunder storms here on Puget Sound; if we do, they last about five minutes.

Another example I recall took place in Hollywood years ago when the book, The Egg and I was being made into a movie ( and not a very good one). One of the characters was named Geoduck pronounced Gooey Duck. The book's author, Betty MacDonald, was on the set during filming and why she allowed the name to be pronounced Gee (to rhyme with we) Oh Duck is beyond me.

Picky, picky you say but I'm on a roll. Several years ago my husband and I went to visit a lilac garden. It was 80 or so years old and had an interesting history so I read a book about how the garden came to be. The thing I remember most is that the gardener picked flowers from her yard for a funeral or something and the bouquet included asters and daffodils among others. Those two particular flowers bloom three or four months apart so how did she manage this? By poor research on the part of the author.

More recently I picked up a book with a creepy-sounding title and cover to match. As I recall, the author was a New Yorker which is probably why she filled the landscape with pine trees and had it rain practically all day every day. Yes it rains in Puget Sound but almost never does it go on for hours and hours on end. Generally half the day will be dry, and as for trees, well we have lots of cedar, fir, alder and madrone trees but not many pines. I rechecked this morning when I took my dog for a walk in the woods.

My writer friend Pat Harrington (Death Stalks the Khmer) always said books are like a 3-legged stool: equal parts people, place and plot. My own particular weakness is "place." Pat did an excellent job of getting into the heart of the local Cambodian community because she worked in it, dealing with the refugees and their customs, and problems in assimilating.  C.S. Harris, author of the Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries also does a really good job of recreating Prince Regency England. 

As for how to write about Puget Sound, I just discovered The Big Both Ways, a book that starts in Seattle and ends in Alaska. Boy did the author do a good job.

I discussed this with some friends Wednesday over lunch and we agreed that fiction writing demands a certain amount of fact checking to capture the reader's interest.

The 3 books I mentioned make me extra careful of surroundings.