fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2801 ]

[ SECRET POST #2801 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2801 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 031 secrets from Secret Submission Post #400.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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01. http://i.imgur.com/8gESJwJ.png

I sort of get that - I've read fic where it bothered me. But to be fair, it only bothers me for places I know relatively well.

Yeah, Google is great, and obviously people should do some research. But, I also acknowledge it's really hard to get a feel for a place you've never even been to.

You can get names and places, even building, but that still won't give you all info. It's still hard to write realistically about a place you only saw on pics.

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queerwolf - 2014-09-04 00:46 (UTC) - Expand

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sabotabby - 2014-09-04 00:56 (UTC) - Expand

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kallanda_lee - 2014-09-04 00:56 (UTC) - Expand

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ellensmithee - 2014-09-04 06:26 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-09-04 01:29 (UTC) - Expand

As long as you're not putting a desert in the middle of NYC, I'm really not bothered by this personally.

How much research though?

Me too, 'Nony. But I bitched about it once on badfic and got laughed out of the comm. *shrugs* Honestly, any American who can't figure out how our federal and interstate highways are numbered and can't be arsed to Google... Honestly, even the San Andreas going off won't put I-45 anywhere close to Seattle. Ever.

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(Anonymous) - 2014-09-04 00:52 (UTC) - Expand

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gritsinmisery - 2014-09-04 01:14 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-09-04 08:08 (UTC) - Expand

This.

However, it doesn't help much when you're writing in a fandom that took place 10/30/50/100 years ago. I mean, I honestly just can't remember or figure out what the places in L.A. that I can google today were like during the run of Angel.

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(Anonymous) - 2014-09-04 05:44 (UTC) - Expand

The blatant errors that are easily fixed by reading the first link on a Google search, yeah, those irritate me. But things that you'd have to be a local to know or be able to easily find out, I can let those slide. At least enough that I can still enjoy the story.

I get you, OP. I find it off-putting whenever it's apparent that fic authors haven't done the requisite research (then again, I'm a weirdo and recently spent multiple hours researching underwear for a piece of smut).

While it could be argued that it's "just fic," I think that if you're going to do something, then you ought to do it right.

My first attempt beta'ing a fic I was shocked by the number of easily researchable errors the author had in it. I wrote back trying to be nice about them and giving the research about it. (Among other beta things.) The person didn't seem happy about it and ended up posting the stories later giving credit to a different beta. I didn't check to see if they'd actually fixed all of the errors I'd found, but I'd guess not. Seriously, people, Google is your friend.

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(Anonymous) - 2014-09-04 07:57 (UTC) - Expand

I agree completely, and what's more, I don't understand why people don't understand the fic opportunities in travel time. Saying you can make it from coast to coast in one day is unrealistic while driving, but you could reasonably stretch it to a week or more. SO MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A WEEK ON THE ROAD.

100 percent agree! I do a ridiculous amount of research and reading for throw-away one liners in my own fic, and i don't expect that from everyone, but *come on* - even a modicum of research is better than half-assing it.

Then there's the inverse problem, when you put a ton of research into settings / plausibility / whatever only to get comments informing you (incorrectly) that something hadn't been invented yet. :(

If this is a Supernatural secret I don't entirely blame the fic writers for aping the show. It's clearly implied that the Impala is, in fact, a TARDIS.

Distance and approximate travel time are relatively easy to look up. What's weird to me is when they get a character's appearance wrong (I'm mostly thinking about height and build, though I've seen people get eye color really wrong - blue for brown). Climate and geography are weird though because the show's may not really match up with it's supposed setting.

Re: Yeah, easily researchable things that are wrong bother me too.

annethecatdetective - 2014-09-04 02:45 (UTC) - Expand

This bugs me too, OP. I know Google can't tell you everything, but basic mistakes that could be fixed if the author had spent ten minutes on Wikipedia is just lazy.

:3c This secret made me think of the silly David Tennant movie "The Decoy Bride" where he plays an author who googled the setting of his one and only novel, to hilarious effect.

So much this. If it's very apparent that the author didn't do any research for the fic, I usually back the fuck out of it.

I give writers a pass on things they couldn't possibly know, but easily researchable facts? That'll cause me to back-button right out. Basic errors always say to me that the author doesn't respect their own work enough to polish it properly.(Needless to say, they're not respecting their readers much either.)

This bugs me when it goes the other direction as well. "Here, I have done ALL THE RESEARCH. Let me show you all of it, thinly disguised as prose!"

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(Anonymous) - 2014-09-04 07:51 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-09-04 08:01 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-09-05 01:46 (UTC) - Expand

Man, I still twitch every fucking time Nick Fury's GPS mentions a "17th avenue." You get the Metro stations pretty much right, you drop enough location cues to gather that SHIELD headquarters is on Roosevelt Island and the big showpiece shootout starts on Southeast Freeway, but you can't spend five minutes googling DC's street-naming system for your big car chase through downtown?

I know, I know, it's a super-petty thing to get mad about, but that's kind of the point--it's such a tiny thing that would've been so easy to look up.

(Meanwhile, Sitwell getting the airport names all wrong is exactly the kind of ungoogleable shibboleth that nobody can be expected to catch through research even if the results make locals snicker.)

Mistakes like this in general happen, obviously. Nobody's an expert in everything all the time but it's unreal how quickly something like that can pull a person out of a really good story.

My last experience with that was someone referring to Alexander the Great as "conquering for Rome"... which... yeah, no. It was a throw away comment but one that the character involved definitely wouldn't have made that mistake on.

Basically the moral of the story is, check this stuff out before you hit "post". lol

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i_paint_the_sky - 2014-09-05 01:33 (UTC) - Expand

Someone wrote a SPN fic set in my hometown and they mentioned the mall. We don't have a mall, lol.

I actually don't like it when authors get TOO detailed, because it feels more like I'm reading somebody's love letter to their home town or their travel diary from that one trip they took junior year of college than a fic. The best is when the details are correct, but it all blends seamlessly into the story - e.g. it feels like the characters have logical reasons to be where they are and they didn't go there because the author wanted to show of his or her local knowledge.

I agree with you, however, because while I don't mind authors being vague on the picky details, there's no excuse for errors of basic geography - distances, likely travel times, possible travel methods, landscape (are there mountains?), climate, and population size. All of that can be found on Google and Wikipedia. I don't care if the diner the characters stop at really exist or if they turned the correct direction from the museum's front doors to get to the bathrooms (although that kind of correct detail is awesome, if it doesn't feel forced) but not having the faintest clue where a city is located in relation to other cities and how one might get there just pulls me out of the story.

Lol, I'm getting flashbacks to that Shameless fic I read where the author stated that the entire South Side of Chicago knew the Milkovichs.

I think that realistic travel times are essential. Characters driving from Colorado Springs to northern Minnesota in an hour or two -- no. Plausible weather is good, too. If your plot requires lots of moody standing outside in the rain, consider Seattle instead of So-Cal. Less than an hour's worth of research can make all the difference.

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