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The murder victim as contortionist?

(8 Posts)
absent Sat 23-Feb-19 03:39:59

"The lividity marks showed she'd died prone on her back…"

If it hadn't been a library book I would have thrown it across the room! Don't they have sub-editors or editors any more?

janeainsworth Sat 23-Feb-19 05:31:43

Author, absent?

absent Sat 23-Feb-19 05:58:13

Anne Cleeland. I think it is actually an American team of two who write rather offbeat and silly murder stories set in London. They are not too great on how British police work and much given to sidewalks rather than pavements, projects rather than council estates, and so on, but lighthearted and amusing reading. I always take the stories with a pinch of salt, but that particular sentence got right up my nose!

sodapop Sat 23-Feb-19 06:44:19

Sometimes one particular error is a step too far isn't it absent I find I can't concentrate on the book after that and just look for mistakes. Do you find that errors are more common now, I seem to find a lot more than I did.. I read work by new authors from time to time and there are so many silly mistakes it takes away the pleasure of reading.

absent Sat 23-Feb-19 06:52:30

I worked in publishing for more than 30 years; I did sub-editing, editing, commissioning editing, proof-reading indexing and ran my own editorial business. It annoys me when things are wrong – whether it is mistaken use of language, such as I have just quoted or inaccurate details.

janeainsworth Sat 23-Feb-19 10:06:56

One thing that annoys me is when dialogue uses words or phrases that simply weren’t used at the time in which the book was set.
For example ‘any time soon’ being used in the 1940’s.

Jane10 Sat 23-Feb-19 10:30:17

I agree. Also the use if the word 'gotten' has me deleting a book from kindle! I especially dislike American authors writing or trying to write books apparently set in the UK.
I had an awful time re correcting a book of mine set in Scotland but which had been copy edited by an American resulting in painful howlers!

janeainsworth Sun 24-Feb-19 07:41:54

jane10 I frequently use the ‘report content error’ facility on my kindle to suggest improvements when there have been typos or other glaring mistakes
smile