By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/3/2015
On my lunch break today, I decided to catch up on a few books I had fallen behind on. Among them was Silk. I picked up the latest issue, branded with the “Last Days of…” banner given to all Marvel mainline Secret Wars tie-ins, and while I missed the cleanliness of regular artist Stacy Lee’s lines, I found […]
By: Darcy Pattison,
on 5/18/2015
When my picturebook, The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman was first published, I lied to my mother-in-law. When she saw this image of Tameka writing a letter to her Uncle Ray, my MIL noticed that Tameka was left-handed. I told her that I asked the illustrator, Joe Cepeda especially to make her left handed like my MIL.
Fast forward to the second book featuring Tameka in search of a wooden woman. Again, Tameka writes a letter, but this time, Cepeda drew her right handed. Because of my lie, I realized immediately that we had a continuity error, and Joe redrew a small portion of the image to make her left-handed again.
The Internet Movie Database regularly reports on the errors in movies (look for the “Goofs” link). For instance, for the Hunger Games, the IMDB reports 29 continuity errors. Here are the first three:
None of those is earth-shattering; none of those changes the plot; and most wouldn’t be caught by a casual movie-goer. Obsessive people find these things.
For Avengers: Age of Ultron, the IMDB reports five continuity errors – so far. Here are the first two.
You would think that after all the efforts from hundreds of people, that a movie would be a bit of perfection. How can these errors slip in? It’s the complexity, I think. When there are so many moving parts, it’s difficult to make sure that everything is in sync with every other part.
One revision I’m doing right now in my novel is for continuity.
Read Your Whole Novel in a Short Amount of Time. Writing a whole novel can take a long period of time, and in that extended time period, you may forget a detail here or there. Were Alice’s eyes blue or green? Is her middle name Elle or Ellen? Reading rapidly for continuity can help refresh your memory.
Create a Character Bible, a Plot Bible, and Story Bible. Some writers like to create a “bible” of sorts. To do this, take a page (or a file, or a Scrivener document) and write the character’s name at the top of the page. Under it, write down the details about that character. Name, age, description, background details, etc. Any time you start to write about the character (or when you go back to check continuity) refer to that page/file. If you write it down, it acts as the “word of God” about the character.
Repeat, as you like for the plot or other story aspects.
Beta Readers Finally, you can find beta readers or critique partners who are sticklers for details like this. Turn them loose and let them go to town.
Whatever you decide, it’s a good idea to do a last read-through for continuity before you send it out to editors. But if you DO miss some small items, you’re in good company with Hunger Games and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
By: MsLuhks,
on 6/4/2010
After reading Cindy’s contribution last month concerning birthdays, my mathematical mind took off on its own musings about numbers and age.
People use numbers to represent age in a way that is not only different from the way we are taught to round numbers, but also conflicts with the linear relationship age has with time. When else would someone round 23.95 to 23 instead of to 24? *
Contrary to the way we were taught to round numbers, we all represent age by rounding down to the last year. Now, I’d be the first to admit that it would be impractical, not to mention irritating, to hear a grown person saying, “I’m 32 and a half.” Think about it: in just one day, your 40th birthday, you go from rounding down to 39 to rounding down to 40. Really you just aged one more day, or several more minutes.
Time is continuous, but we treat age as though it is discrete. If you graphed age as a function of time, it would not be a straight line, but instead a floor function. And birthdays are the points of discontinuity, (points where the graph is not connected).
In English, we say “I am 25,” to mean “I have lived 25 years so far.” Other languages, such as Spanish and French, approach age slightly differently by phrasing it, “J’ai 40 ans,” (which translates from French to English as “I have 40 years”). “Having 40 years” really means you have lived for 40 years, but you’re experiencing your 41st year of your life! "Being 25" means you're in your 26th year.
This is different from the way we approach years as a function of time. When we say the year 2010, we indicate that it is the 2010th year since we started counting. When we say it’s June 4th, we indicate that it’s the fourth day in the month of June. However, if I were to say I’m 11, I’m really living the 12th year of my life.
Of course I understand the motivations behind common age-naming practices. You could call it vanity. You could call it fear of aging. We want our age to be represented by the smallest number possible, and for practical purposes, we need it to be a cardinal number. But if we’re already rounding down to the nearest year, why not take it further? Why not round down to the nearest 5 years? Try it! If anyone accuses you of lying, tell them you just round differently.
This piece was written for my brother Matthew, who this week switches from rounding down to 29 to rounding down to 30. Don’t worry. I’ll remind him that he’s really living his 31st year!
*I would love more examples of instances when we do round down like this. Please use the comment section to share them.
Or…readers of each book need to be encouraged to try other books, and a crossover can be a good way of doing that.
@Glenn –
Why do they need to be encouraged to try other books?
Or if we accept that premise, why does the way to encourage them need to be a solo title being roped into a crossover? There are plenty of other ways to promote another book without forcing crossover content into a solo book.
I NEVER NEVER buy crossover comics. I just can’t afford to get into a multi title series. I go for mini series floppies. I like the floppy format, and rarely buy trades.
@Zach – because Marvel is a business that needs to make money. One of the ways to do that is to get your current customers to buy more of your product.
And there are plenty of ways to do it. But including the character in a crossover is probably a very effective way.
@Glenn –
That’s a want, not a need. And the efficacy is questionable. Who knows how many readers you pick up vs how many you drive away?
The fact that sales reports show that sales go up on crossover issues, meaning you picked up more than you gained, at least for that issue.
I read Batgirl and Ms Marvel from Marvel and DC. To be honest, I didn’t understand a lot of what you wrote. I’m buying A-Force right now to keep up with Ms Marvel and it’s ok? I don’t understand a thing that’s going on with the wider series, but an all female Avengers is cool. It would be more fun if it was set in the normal universe.
@Glenn – But there’s no telling the sell through on those issues. Could be that the retailers that are programmed to think they need to up their orders and are now stuck sitting on unsold copies of those books, right? Just seems like a good way to make some readers feel obligated to buy a book, as opposed to being genuinely interested in a book. And if I were a new reader and thought that it was common for me to have to buy comics I wasn’t interested in to fill out a story that I AM interested in, then I might just say “F that noise” and not attempt to get into the comics that sound interesting.
No, retailers have a business to run, and they aren’t going to buy a bunch of books that won’t sell. It might happen sometimes, it’s not perfect, but it’s also not chaos. And it doesn’t matter WHY the consumer buys the book – obligated or otherwise – as long as they buy it.
As for your last example, sure that probably happens. But that doesn’t mean they also don’t have a bunch of readers who discover something new from the crossover either. There’s a reason they’ve been doing them for decades.