Now, these are errors that should be caught in copy-editing. They're not spelling errors; they're usually grammatical errors. And going further, it's usually a matter of a missing word or a subject/verb issue. And for the most part, I can ignore these mistakes. I mean, take my Collection Development book—it's 400 pages long. There's bound to be a few mistakes in there, especially if they fall into tricky-English-rules land. I don't expect perfection when it comes to copy-editing. After all, there's still a very human element to that process and let's face it, nobody's perfect.
However. There are some errors that I've spotted recently that I think occurred more out of laziness than an honest mistake.
There's a rather significant mistake in Delirium by Lauren Oliver, which is what inspired this post. And by significant, I mean, this seemingly innocuous mistake actually serves to undermine the theme of the book.
My previous post gave a brief summary of what the book was about: a world where love is classified as a disease. Okay, so given that information, you'd think that the word “love” would be a pretty loaded word in this book, more so than in any other book. That's why I was able to make note of this incident.
On page 16 of the book, Lena is talking with her aunt about her final evaluation before she is cured, and Lena launches into an “acceptable” speech about her likes and dislikes. She states “I really like children” and when her aunt tells her that she makes a face when she says it, Lena replies, “I love children.” Now, I thought this was a little odd when I first read it, because this is a world where love is considered a disease. It seems rather odd that the world would be used so freely in the novel.
However, Oliver takes great care to construct a world that isn't necessarily in the future—that is, except for the whole “procedure” to remove the ability to love, the world Lena lives in is pretty much identical to ours. No cool medical advances, no awesome pieces of technology...nothing. So, I thought, since this world is so similar to the one in which we actually live, she's keeping with the colloquialisms. Perhaps Lena is just being sarcastic when she says “I love children,” in response to her aunt's nagging.
Except. When Lena is out in the Wilds with Alex, he shows her the stars. On page 298, he asks her what she thinks of them, and this is the passage that follows:
“I love it.” The word pops out, and instantly the weight on my chest dissipates. “I love it,” I say again, testing it. An easy word to say, once you say it. Short. To the point. Rolls off the tongue. It's amazing I've never said it before.
Wait, what? Lena has said this word before, 212 pages earlier. And in a lighthearted, meaningless way.
I don't think it could be argued that Lena use of this word on page 16 is a simple case of her just being a teenager and being sarcastic. This passage on page 298 clearly attests that Lena knows that this word has meaning. And that she's never used it before, until now. Allegedly.
Talk about a huge, gaping error. Now I realize, not everyone is going to nitpick or remember like I am, but sometimes, it's the little things that can completely derail a story. My thesis advisor told this great story about how one of her students wrote a decent story, but that there was this coffee cup that showed up in every scene. Which doesn't seem like a big deal, but the action of the coffee cup wasn't consistent. One moment the character would be pouring a new cup, the next she'd be rinsing it out because it had stayed on the counter all night. This coffee cup was a completely tertiary detail to this story, but because it was inconsistent, it threw focus off the real action of the story and as a result, the fiction lost its impact.
Which, basically, is what happened with Delirium. Once again, I recognize that nobody is perfect, and mistakes do happen. But I know that as a writer, if I were going to attach that much significance to a single word, I'd do a simple ctrl+f to make sure that I wasn't contradicting myself. As the passage on page 298 is written, Lena using the word “love” is a big step in her character development. But because she used the word earlier in the novel, this is basically meaningless. Don't you think, if Lena speaking the word “love” was going to be such a big moment, you'd do a simple ctrl+f search of your manuscript just to make sure you hadn't accidentally slipped it in earlier?
And now that I think about it, I know I've encountered a similar problem in another book recently. I can't remember the specific book or the problem, but I do remember that once I spotted the contradiction, I was pulled from the story and its effectiveness was lost.
Now, the Delirium example that I gave is an extreme one. I guess my point here is that even in a 400+ page book, the little things matter. And people will notice the little things. There's a lot of things you can get away with in a book that you can't get away with in any other form of media. But then again, there's an equally long list of things that you absolutely cannot get away with in books. Minor contradictions, no matter how asinine they may be, are one of them.
Makes you appreciate the job of a copy editor that much more, doesn't it?
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