Some Interesting Points About Detail In Fiction

[redfiona99]

nwhyte linked to a kerfuffle over a review of a book, and some interesting comments were made about it in his post here - http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1880791.html

The part that I'm interested in goes like this - an author makes an absolute hash of early modern English in his book. Reviewer points it out. Defenders of the author say 'so what, it's not like it really is early modern English, it's an archaic language that the author is choosing to represent as early modern English'.

The original reviewer made the point that having chosen to do this, the author (or his editors) ought to at least make it accurate. nwhyte then illustrates the point with an analogy, saying that it'd be the same as having an astronaut walk on the surface of a Jupiter-esque planet. Anyone who knew anything about Jupiter or gas giants would find it hard to continue to suspend their disbelief.

One of the commentators on the post says that it's an unfair analogy as the writer of the review happens to be history specialist and a specialist is bound to pick up on things more than a lay-person.

I find it interesting because I've been complaining about the science in the last Sherlock

Because while I accept the drop interesting coloured liquids on stuff to see what it is in older Holmes stories, that's not how it's done, not for chemicals anyway, nowadays. Now I think I might be being slightly mean because the previous one got the right jellyfish for the GFP-fluorescing animals, and, even if it did downplay how ridiculously difficult it is to get even mice fluorescing, the general jist of the science was not wrong.


but I'll give it a pass because it's not actually wrong. It's the same with CSI and it's spin-offs, I'm more tolerant than my friend whose Dad is a SOCO (scene of crime officer), because I see it as merely over-stating the powers of the science rather than being flat-out wrong, but when it's actively wrong, such as getting AMF the wrong way round, I'll complain.

To me, it makes more sense to be as accurate as possible, where it is possible, because it won't harm your work, and then fudge the details that you absolutely need to because you can't know what your audience knows more about than you. It's probably better to assume that they know more about it than you do.

Comments

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

I'm reasonably tolerant as long as there's internal consistency - if you get DNA tests back in a few hours in one episode of a show, it had better not be a plot point that they take 24 hours in another episode without an explanation. I was deeply pleased with one episode of Criminal Minds where it looked like the medicine was terribly wrong (a pregnant woman was being given various anti-estrogen drugs), and it was actually a plot point.

To watch Fringe we had to decide that it was an alternate universe. And then the show introduced alternate universes!

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

>> as long as there's internal consistency<< I think you might be right with that. I have to admit that part of my love for NCIS is because the machines sometimes go bing in the most inconvenient manner.

[idleleaves.livejournal.com]

I see it as merely over-stating the powers of the science rather than being flat-out wrong, but when it's actively wrong, such as getting AMF the wrong way round, I'll complain.

To me, it makes more sense to be as accurate as possible, where it is possible, because it won't harm your work, and then fudge the details that you absolutely need to because you can't know what your audience knows more about than you

Mm, yes. I agree with this. I'm like this with a lot of shows involving medical things - I can suspend disbelief on certain things, like when the capabilities of today's medical professionals and medical science are stretched and exaggerated, but when it's actually wrong, like backwards or just patently incorrect, then I facepalm. Hard.