It Doesn't Work Like That - Books That Get it Wrong

[Phillip]

Trike wrote: "Movies are exceptionally bad at portraying how jobs actually work. I mean, they don’t even try to get how to make movies right, and all they have to do is literally look around at what they’re doing."

Very true.

[CBRetriever]

keyboard clicks are really common in movies - very few keyboards click nowadays

[Esther]

Beth wrote: "The "breasting boobily" thing mentioned in the other thread is the big one (drumroll?) for me. Boobs aren't like makeup, subject to one's own constant scrutiny. They just kind of hang around almost..."

Boob awareness bothers me because it is almost always vanity connected. Having a large bust I am aware of 'the girls' most of the time but mostly because they are getting in the way.
I can only remember this problem referenced once by the female herself and in a non-leery way - in Angel the Buffy spin-off. They are threading their way down a tunnel though obstacles that are sensitive to touch when Cordelia looks downs and remarks 'I knew you girls would get me into trouble some day' (or some similar). Such a familiar problem!

[Esther]

Phillip wrote: "I’m an army bomb technician. There are countless military mistakes in all storytelling mediums but the one that really annoys me is standing on a landmine. If you step on a landmine and you hear a ..."

My son has just finished his basic training in the army engineers and we were looking at some action flic when he remarks 'That's not how a detonator works'! They even get the basics wrong.

[Leonie]

Cheryl wrote: "Great topic. I know nothing and am willing to admit it... I need this information from you computer, military, and other experts to be able to judge whether a book 'got it right' or not. Thank you!..."

I'm not a doctor, but I am a physiotherapist, so I have a good grasp of anatomy.

The things that I commonly see books getting wrong is the stereotypical shoulder wound. Or shoulder dislocation, for that matter.

The wound - you know the one, where someone gets shot/stabbed straight through the upper chest, just below the collar bone? Which means that whatever it was actually went through the lung/major blood vessels and brachial plexus...not to mention the shoulder blade if it came out the other side. And in reality, the injured person should be ex-sanguinating/coughing up bright frothy blood/ having a dangling arm and collapsing, yet they get on with everything because it's just a 'shoulder' wound?

Um...rant over....oops!

[Trike]

I read somewhere that >90% of shoulder gunshot wounds result in amputation. Even a glancing blow (aka “getting winged”) can kill you.

There was always a joke about American soldiers getting shot in the butt because they always had their asses hanging out, but the real reason is because it’s just about the only place you can be grazed by a bullet and not die of blood loss or shock, which means those men survived more often than guys shot literally anywhere else. Yet another false causation/correlation issue.

[Julieanne]

Anything and everything medical. Unless it is a published textbook, medical related anything should be left alone. Several people above have pointed out excellent examples of why. If a character passes out from blood loss, they are not going to wake up and save the day 5 minutes later.

[Leonie]

Julieanne wrote: "Anything and everything medical. Unless it is a published textbook, medical related anything should be left alone. Several people above have pointed out excellent examples of why. If a character pa..."

Yes! Totally. Or unless the writer has actually consulted someone who knows what they're talking about, like an actual medical professional.

[Jacqueline]

What do you mean someone who loses a lot of blood won’t come to and save the day?

[Leonie]

Jacqueline wrote: "What do you mean someone who loses a lot of blood won’t come to and save the day?"

(Hoping this^^^is tongue in cheek)

Several reasons:
1. Lose enough and you die. (Hit a major artery and you die very fast)

2. A large blood loss leaves you weak, breathless, and exhausted, even if you're alive, and/or conscious. And of course whatever injury it was that made you lose that much blood has other consequences.

3. Major organ failure as a result of your body attempting to conserve whatever blood you have left (can't make it up in five minutes) and redirect it to important places like your brain.

And I'm sure there are more reasons, but I'm only a physio, whose expertise is more in musculoskeletal injury.

[~ Giulia ~]

When talking about movies and computers, one cannot not mention the infamous image enhancement software that from one pixel of a very grainy picture is able to zoom in 100x and obtain a license plate reflected on a teaspoon...

[Leonie]

~ Giulia ~ wrote: "When talking about movies and computers, one cannot not mention the infamous image enhancement software that from one pixel of a very grainy picture is able to zoom in 100x and obtain a license pla..."

🤣🤣🤣

[Jacqueline]

Lol Leonie

Yes it was tongue in cheek 😜 I’d like to think I’m not quite as stupid as I look 😂

[Rosina]

One thing that annoys me is not generally in SF or Fantasy, but in the English cosy mysteries, or Regency romances, where the author is convinced that every second Englishman is a peer, but doesn't bother to find out how titles, particularly courtesy titles, work.

And in the same mystery genre, authors who pretend to be English, but have no idea of the English police ranks, or the role of Scotland Yard.

[Jess]

Amnesia in mystery novels and thrillers is a classic. Retrograde amnesia (no memory of past events) is very rare and when it does occur the memories lost will typically only go back to a few hours/days before the trauma. People forgetting their identity or who their loved ones are is ludicrous. Much more common is antegrade amnesia where the person is unable to form new memories but books also get this wrong with weird things like people being able to function fine throughout the day and then their memory randomly re-setting when they sleep. Why would this happen?

Another one is adventure type books that are set in a time period where women wore very restrictive clothing (e.g. Victorian, Western, Pirate etc), yet seem to be able to do very active things like running, riding astride, hiding behind things. Seriously, try doing any of those things in a hoop skirt and corset! A book that I enjoyed that lampshaded this is Murder as a Fine Art where a female character wears bloomers (not what you're thinking, they actually looked like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomer...) and there is a comment about how getting across London would have taken her twice as long in the fashionable clothing that her uncle had been trying to persuade her to wear. That made me chuckle.

[Esther]

I am curious as to whether real amnesia is anything like Memento.
That seemed more realistic to me because it was so disabling and because when he later read a couple of the notes he had left himself he totally misunderstood his own intention as so often happens to me in real life.

[V.W.]

~ Giulia ~ wrote: "When talking about movies and computers, one cannot not mention the infamous image enhancement software that from one pixel of a very grainy picture is able to zoom in 100x and obtain a license pla..."

I like the zoom in on the reflection in the eye. Instant ID!

[V.W.]

CBRetriever wrote: "keyboard clicks are really common in movies - very few keyboards click nowadays"

Maybe they just like to use mechanical keyboards. I find them much more responsive and comfortable for the fingers. They seem to be making a come-back, especially for gamers.

[V.W.]

It is really disappointing that even current day films and TV still rely on the "hit on the back of the head knock out", with the victim waking up after a nice nap apparently no worse for wear.

I'd love to see a film where people get hit like that and keep dying, shocking everybody.

[Phillip]

V.W. wrote: “I'd love to see a film where people get hit like that and keep dying, shocking everybody.”

Or, wake up and be slobbering vegetables for the rest of their lives.

[[deleted user]]

One peeve I have is about war/action movies showing explosions as big balls of fire: real high explosives don't produce flames! How often do you see a guy throw a grenade that then explodes in a ball of fire and projects the bad guys ten feet in the air? Way too often to my taste! An exploding grenade will create a tiny flash point at the center of a grey puff of smoke, plus a blast wave and fragments, that's it! An explosive charge is about the same, but bigger and with bigger debris thrown up and around. The only explosive weapons that will produce flames are F.A.E. (Fuel Air Explosives) and thermobaric weapons.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

My "favorite" "you've just been shot, why are you doing things now" scene:

The main character (who has a little magic, so we can assume that helps a bit) has just been shot twice I believe once in the arm/shoulder region and once in the hip/leg region. She keels over from pain and blood loss. Wakes up being carried home by the love interest. He patches her up while she passes out again and then they have sex.

*rubs temples*

[CBRetriever]

I'm starting Dun Lady's Jess which will probably be full of not quite right details. However I lived the book when I first read it years ago in paper version, so I'm interested to see how it measures up now

When hikers Dayna and Eric find a young woman naked, terrified, and speechless, they're sure she's the victim of foul play. But the truth is much more shocking: she isn't human at all. She's Dun Lady's Jess, a horse transformed into this new shape by the spell that brought her and her rider, to whom she is utterly devoted, into this world.

Possessed now of human intelligence but still a horse deep inside, Jess desperately searches this world for her master and rider, using her fiery equine spirit to take on human idiosyncracies--and human threats.

[[deleted user]]

Allison wrote: "My "favorite" "you've just been shot, why are you doing things now" scene:

The main character (who has a little magic, so we can assume that helps a bit) has just been shot twice I believe once in..."

Maybe they are into S&M?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Michel wrote: "Allison wrote: "My "favorite" "you've just been shot, why are you doing things now" scene:

The main character (who has a little magic, so we can assume that helps a bit) has just been shot twice I..."

Yikes, that would be an extreme version of the kink if so!

[Tomas]

I just read this thread from zero to here at once, so a few comments of mine:

To "monthly problem": in the series started by The Path of Flames, the issue is avoided because (view spoiler)[the magic she wields makes her sterile (hide spoiler)].

Another abundant issue in movies: ammo. Characters are rarely shown reloading (unless it's to hinder their progress) and the number of bullets once can fire from a single magazine would put a chaingun to shame.
Also, the "shoot a few times at the cover of a fuel tank and car explodes" thing. I don't know if shooting a fuel tank can make it go boom (doubt it) but the lid is definitely not conveniently in one line with the actual fuel tank.

[AndrewP]

CBRetriever wrote: "keyboard clicks are really common in movies - very few keyboards click nowadays"

For an end user no, but for system administration the GUI usually only lets you do the basics. There is still a lot of command line interaction required, even more than there used to be in some cases.

[Cheryl]

Tomas wrote: "I just read this thread from zero to here at once, so a few comments of mine:

To "monthly problem": in the series started by The Path of Flames, the issue is avoided because [spoil..."

Yeah, well, because that makes sense... not.

The main reason that I know of irl that some women don't get periods regularly is because they're so very lean from training hard and not eating enough... which women on fantasy quests might be, sometimes.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Maybe if by sterile they mean she has no uterus? Or has undergone very early menopause?

[CBRetriever]

yep, sterile usually means that their eggs aren't fertile, not that they don't pass an egg a month, unless their ovaries are removed, they'll still have monthly cycles

[Ada]

The amount of times I saw or read characters who were speaking 'Dutch' when in fact it's German is astonishing to me.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon]

I often get distracted by shows/movies, more than books, where people are meant to be injured by aren't really incapacitated by their injury in any way.

ETA: The worst being that one terrible Aliens movie where the lady gets a c-section to remove her alien baby and is then running around with freaking staples in her abdomen.


Also, I love how, no matter how damaged the boys of Supernatural get, they're always healed by the next episode. Even before angels.

I also do stage combat, though, and it's kind of funny how our teachers straight up say how unrealistic stage and movie fighting actually is, but real fights are, frankly, boring.

So, yeah, definite artistic license. ;)

[Trike]

Leonie wrote: "Jacqueline wrote: "What do you mean someone who loses a lot of blood won’t come to and save the day?"

(Hoping this^^^is tongue in cheek)

Several reasons:
1. Lose enough and you die. (Hit a major..."

I do find it interesting how humans can have unusual and idiosyncratic reactions to experiences that normally kill people. Like that guy in the 1800s who got shot in the abdomen leaving an open hole directly into his stomach that allowed a doctor to experiment on him. That guy eventually got married and had kids, and even outlived his doctor, despite the fact that food he ate would literally fall out of him. (!!!) This guy: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-... Most people would have died from any number of things: trauma, blood loss, infection (that’s a big one, even today), malnutrition, etc. Yet he lived a long, productive life.

I even had an experience with catastrophic blood loss that nearly killed me, but even when I was on the precipice of permanent lights out, I was able to carry on as normal.

The problem with stories in books and movies is that *every* example is one of these extreme — and extremely rare — events, so they start to seem common, replacing what normally happens. Add to that ignorance on the part of the writer, or a decision to champion fiction over fact, and these become codified in our collective imagination as How Things Work.

That’s why I like it when authors actually get it right. Such as in Station Eleven where the girl relates matter-of-factly how her brother died from an infection he got by stepping on a nail.

[Trike]

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "I also do stage combat, though, and it's kind of funny how our teachers straight up say how unrealistic stage and movie fighting actually is, but real fights are, frankly, boring."

It’s always hilarious to watch movie fights where the combatants are swinging their arms and legs with wild exaggeration, easily allowing their opponent to duck under the attack.

Most fights end up with both people rolling around on the ground grappling like drunken wrestlers.

Sword fights also tend to be over very quickly, within a few minutes. Also, you have nearly full range of motion in even plate mail armor, so knights who weren’t armored for jousting or against firearms didn’t walk around like Robocop.

[Tomas]

Allison wrote: "Maybe if by sterile they mean she has no uterus? Or has undergone very early menopause?"
In the case I mentioned... I am not sure what exact words it used but the explanation is very short, like "sorry, the power you wield completely eliminated your procreative functions" - again, just loosely re-told by my words - without much detail.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Tomas wrote: "Allison wrote: "Maybe if by sterile they mean she has no uterus? Or has undergone very early menopause?"
In the case I mentioned... I am not sure what exact words it used but the explanation is ver..."

It's nice that they at least thought about it. I'll accept this :)

[Karin]

Beth wrote: "The "breasting boobily" thing mentioned in the other thread is the big one (drumroll?) for me. Boobs aren't like makeup, subject to one's own constant scrutiny. They just kind of hang around almost..."


Yes, this is so very true. No woman stops to examine her body the way certain male writers have them do! That article defining "male gaze" nails that spot on. Not only that, but the male writers don't have men do that with their own bodies, so clearly that is put in there for nothing at all to do with the plot. I can't remember where I read something like this in the past couple of months or if I bothered finishing the book after that inane passage.

[Karin]

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "On a slightly different vein... there was a little thing which jumped out at me in a book I read recently, because it had a woman, in the early 1930s, being really freaked out about not having shav..."

Yes, this is very true. One needs to be accurate, because for many years only prostitutes shaved their legs, and no "respectable" woman who have done so. They started after short dresses and skirts became the style, but not right away.

This is true of other things as well, such as gender assigned colours; that is relatively recent. In the nineteenth century pink was a common colour for men's underwear. Pink was considered masculine due to its close association with red, and red was definitely primarily for men for some time in many places.

[Karin]

MrsJoseph wrote: "ANY Romance book that features a "virgin" who is involved in finger penetration but is still sporting a hymen.

Any Romance book that has the hymen at any location past 1 inch or less from the vag..."

Did I mention I minored in Women's Studies when that's all the area was and did a lot of Women's History classes, etc? So some of these are things I've learned about in the past.

There are girls and women who use tampons and still have a hymen. Hymens have great variation. Some hymens are not very narrow and some girls are born without them. Some stretch. There are some women who can still have their hymens after certain finger penetration, and even some after intercourse, but most girls' hymens have worn away before they are adults even if they are virgins.


Here are 7 myth busters that are all medically correct although this site is a bit annoying with gifs, etc

https://www.yourtango.com/201172815/7...

[Karin]

Trike wrote: "I read somewhere that >90% of shoulder gunshot wounds result in amputation. Even a glancing blow (aka “getting winged”) can kill you.

There was always a joke about American soldiers getting shot i..."


Really? I am a surgeon's daughter (he's retired) and my sister is also an MD. It depends when and where and what type of ammunition is used and if there was gangrene involved. Prior to antibiotics, etc, infection was a far greater problem than it is today in the western world. So, during the civil war when most bullet wounds were in limbs, most limbs that received bullet wounds were amputated, but not because of the damage from the bullet. It was to reduce the chance of getting gangrene and other life threatening infections. There is an interesting scene in Enemy Women with an infected arm after a bullet wound after he refused amputation that is more accurate (but it spent hours in salt water which is a true help for many infections).

Once we had antibiotics, most limbs were NOT amputated after a bullet wound. There are some new bullets designed to destroy limbs when they hit them that are more likely to result in amputation than normal bullets, but I don't know that amputation rate.

Also, no one mentions how maggots could keep wounds clean. After I once read an article about the use of sterile maggots, I asked my dad and he saw it once (not with sterile maggots). A woman from Mexico (he spent 2 years in San Diego) came back for a post op visit and had a filthy, open bandage with maggots in the would, but it was completely clean from the maggots which eat rotting tissue, etc, not healthy tissue.

[Karin]

Trike wrote: "That’s why I like it when authors actually get it right. Such as in Station Eleven where the girl relates matter-of-factly how her brother died from an infection he got by stepping on a nail.."

Yes, and also how many people have missing teeth due to lack of dentistry, and some other accurate things.

[Karin]

Allison wrote: "Maybe if by sterile they mean she has no uterus? Or has undergone very early menopause?"

Sterile means no ova or that no ova can reach the uterus, so she can have a uterus but no ovaries. Or she could have been sterilized by either having her ovaries destroyed or by certain types of tubile ligation (it would have to be SEALED).

[Karin]

CBRetriever wrote: "keyboard clicks are really common in movies - very few keyboards click nowadays"

How about the speed in which things are hacked?

[CBRetriever]

Karin wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "keyboard clicks are really common in movies - very few keyboards click nowadays"

How about the speed in which things are hacked?"

no sounds, so it doesn't bother me as much

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon]

Karin wrote: "This is true of other things as well, such as gender assigned colours; that is relatively recent. In the nineteenth century pink was a common colour for men's underwear. Pink was considered masculine due to its close association with red, and red was definitely primarily for men for some time in many places. "

I just finished a fantasy book which, in fairness, is not our world, but i noted that they were doing thr "pink is for girls" thing in a time which was analogous to our Industrial Revolution.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Karin wrote: "Allison wrote: "Maybe if by sterile they mean she has no uterus? Or has undergone very early menopause?"

Sterile means no ova or that no ova can reach the uterus, so she can have a uterus but no o..."

Sure, but if the issue is "no periods" then I assume that it's at least a uterus removal if not a full on hysterectomy, with sterile being more colloquial than literal :)

[Cheryl]

A whole 'nother thing that writers often get wrong is location, sense of place, etc. SF, ok, different worlds, use your imagination.

But if your character lives in Sacramento and drives to Las Vegas, she's not going to get there in time for lunch.

[David]

Another common problem: total lack of understanding of orbital dynamics and how gravity works (on an astronomical scale).

The most recent one that I remember was in Leviathan Wakes/The Expanse where (view spoiler)[they try to deorbit Eros into the Sun by crashing a giant ship into it (hide spoiler)] which is just absurd. The energy required to do something like that would be impossible. They wouldn't even make a dent in its orbit, and if they somehow did impart that kind of energy they'd just smash it to smithereens which still wouldn't accomplish their goal.

That combined with a few other events in that series make me wonder if maybe their mental model of gravity is that things in orbit are somehow magically suspended there and will fall out of orbit if nudged. Which can be vaguely true if something is brushing against an atmosphere causing its orbit to decay, but not so likely in the short term for things orbiting millions of miles from the sun.

And yes, I did learn everything I know about the subject from Kerbal Space Program. People writing about planets and spaceships should really do the same :)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

David wrote: "Another common problem: total lack of understanding of orbital dynamics and how gravity works (on an astronomical scale).

The most recent one that I remember was in Leviathan Wakes/..."

[David]

Allison wrote: ...

Pretty much. I skipped the physics degree and NASA job of course :)