geography fail
8 Nov 2009 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouAwhile back, Dear Author asked whether a book's location is important to readers -- as in, make you want to read, or not read. I had answered that what matters to me is is getting nods, the kind of local color that only a local would know. If I see that, I'm willing to forgive any blatant inaccurate locale details on the grounds that the author must've chosen willfully to change those for the sake of the story (like making a street one-way, or putting an apartment building where there's a park, that kind of thing).
Just a bit ago, I stumbled over the first three chapters posted online of a book published in '97, so I get that Google maps weren't at the easy fingertips of just anyone, but it's not like the internet (or libraries!) didn't exist at all. But still, in the second chapter, we've got:
zipping onto the Washington Beltway like the leader in a Grand Prix event
Alrighty, then. Who the hell calls it the Washington Beltway? It's simply The Beltway. (CP's contribution: "or the Capital Beltway".) This blares non-local at me. The localized (or local-assisted) version, to create a nod, might be "the Beltway's Outer Loop" -- which to a non-local might just be "some highway name of no import" while to a local it says "I did my research and know what locals call it!". Oh, and it also tells me, the local, that the person is going in a counter-clockwise direction around the beltway. A page later...
He was heading south on 95
Oh, okay, Inner Loop, then, and obviously over on the Maryland side, where it's 495/95, while the Virginia side is just 495. Or possibly not even on the Beltway at all, of course, having either already crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (or jumped on right at Old Town) and hung a left at Malfunction Junction and are now zooming past Lorton. Except that within a paragraph, we get:
The traffic was thick, thanks to the Fourth of July holiday weekend, but it was fast.
So definitely not a local. Maybe someone who thinks Chicago traffic is par for the course, but DC traffic doesn't do that. When it's thick, it's never much over 35mph. It may cruise slow and steady (and by most DC'ers eyes isn't even really traffic to speak of, then, kinda heavy), but when it's relatively fast and somewhat thick, it's not traffic, it's normal. (Compared to Chicago, however, it's about 10-15mph below Chicago speeds, with about a third fewer cars on the road; the Beltway is a major thoroughfare but it's predominantly semi-Southern drivers, not Midwesterners used to doing 80 on back roads.)
It's only traffic if it's really slow and really crammed, which it often is at the drop of a hat, especially on 495, 95, and 395 and heaven have mercy on you if you think to go through the Springfield-Franconia (495/95/395) junction on a Friday afternoon before a three-day-weekend. Take a lunch with you, because you'll be there awhile. Sitting. Going nowhere. That's DC traffic.
Next, we get a clue that they're in Virginia, so definitely near or coming up on Woodbridge... except not.
He spotted what he was after north of Leesburg, Virginia.
Say what now?
I mean, there's writing like a non-local, and then there's doing the Hollywood "Map? Who needs maps?" style of writing. Because this is kinda like saying you've just left Maryland, heading for Georgia, and your final destination is Missouri. Not exactly making any sense, unless you're doing some really fancy magic clause stuff. (CP's question: so now you're reading the bending-space-and-time genre?)
Not to mention that there's nothing north of Leesburg, Virginia. Except maybe a whole bunch of cows. And a buncha old houses. (CP: "There's that little town that had the two antiques stores and the gas station.") Hell, there's nothing there now and there was even less there in '97, before the building boom even swept through Leesburg.
That's something I could've forgiven if the author had given me enough nods to prove she either did her local research, or had been vetted thoroughly by a local. But lacking that, being on chapter 2 and already eyes-like-radar-beams for the next local-color screwup, isn't boding well for the rest of the story.
Well, the rest of the excerpt, at least. Three free chapters and enough of that and I can't even make it all the way through chapter 2. Next!
Just a bit ago, I stumbled over the first three chapters posted online of a book published in '97, so I get that Google maps weren't at the easy fingertips of just anyone, but it's not like the internet (or libraries!) didn't exist at all. But still, in the second chapter, we've got:
zipping onto the Washington Beltway like the leader in a Grand Prix event
Alrighty, then. Who the hell calls it the Washington Beltway? It's simply The Beltway. (CP's contribution: "or the Capital Beltway".) This blares non-local at me. The localized (or local-assisted) version, to create a nod, might be "the Beltway's Outer Loop" -- which to a non-local might just be "some highway name of no import" while to a local it says "I did my research and know what locals call it!". Oh, and it also tells me, the local, that the person is going in a counter-clockwise direction around the beltway. A page later...
He was heading south on 95
Oh, okay, Inner Loop, then, and obviously over on the Maryland side, where it's 495/95, while the Virginia side is just 495. Or possibly not even on the Beltway at all, of course, having either already crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (or jumped on right at Old Town) and hung a left at Malfunction Junction and are now zooming past Lorton. Except that within a paragraph, we get:
The traffic was thick, thanks to the Fourth of July holiday weekend, but it was fast.
So definitely not a local. Maybe someone who thinks Chicago traffic is par for the course, but DC traffic doesn't do that. When it's thick, it's never much over 35mph. It may cruise slow and steady (and by most DC'ers eyes isn't even really traffic to speak of, then, kinda heavy), but when it's relatively fast and somewhat thick, it's not traffic, it's normal. (Compared to Chicago, however, it's about 10-15mph below Chicago speeds, with about a third fewer cars on the road; the Beltway is a major thoroughfare but it's predominantly semi-Southern drivers, not Midwesterners used to doing 80 on back roads.)
It's only traffic if it's really slow and really crammed, which it often is at the drop of a hat, especially on 495, 95, and 395 and heaven have mercy on you if you think to go through the Springfield-Franconia (495/95/395) junction on a Friday afternoon before a three-day-weekend. Take a lunch with you, because you'll be there awhile. Sitting. Going nowhere. That's DC traffic.
Next, we get a clue that they're in Virginia, so definitely near or coming up on Woodbridge... except not.
He spotted what he was after north of Leesburg, Virginia.
Say what now?
I mean, there's writing like a non-local, and then there's doing the Hollywood "Map? Who needs maps?" style of writing. Because this is kinda like saying you've just left Maryland, heading for Georgia, and your final destination is Missouri. Not exactly making any sense, unless you're doing some really fancy magic clause stuff. (CP's question: so now you're reading the bending-space-and-time genre?)
Not to mention that there's nothing north of Leesburg, Virginia. Except maybe a whole bunch of cows. And a buncha old houses. (CP: "There's that little town that had the two antiques stores and the gas station.") Hell, there's nothing there now and there was even less there in '97, before the building boom even swept through Leesburg.
That's something I could've forgiven if the author had given me enough nods to prove she either did her local research, or had been vetted thoroughly by a local. But lacking that, being on chapter 2 and already eyes-like-radar-beams for the next local-color screwup, isn't boding well for the rest of the story.
Well, the rest of the excerpt, at least. Three free chapters and enough of that and I can't even make it all the way through chapter 2. Next!
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no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2009 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2009 09:42 pm (UTC)(I should also note that if I were under the impression that the author were either a local or had enough local-help to be able to nod at me, I would've gleefully forgiven erasing the toll road -- I mean, hell, I wanted to erase it enough when I had to drive it every freaking day.)
no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2009 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2009 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2009 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2009 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Nov 2009 12:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Nov 2009 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Nov 2009 02:18 am (UTC)somewhere in an alternate reality, where the Grand Prix is only 20feet long -- because that's about as far as they might get before slamming into another car.
no subject
Date: 9 Nov 2009 01:13 am (UTC)This is so much why I can't do NaNoWriMo. I don't mind revising a story for language or minor plot holes/missteps, but damned if I am just going to sail into a story without ACTUAL RESEARCH AND MAPS TO HAND FIRST. XD
no subject
Date: 9 Nov 2009 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Nov 2009 03:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Nov 2009 05:54 am (UTC)TH=his was my post on the same issue a while back: PCH is not a straightaway.