Writers getting details wrong...

Writing material that is going to be published isn't easy:  You're putting material out there for a world full of chuckle-head bloggers (like me) to nit-pick the smallest aspects of what you're created.  Heck....I feel their pain.  I've published a few articles in scholarly journals in my professional life and in my avocation I always have to be careful when reviewing comics at Weeklycomicbookreview.com for fear that I'll screw up some detail of Age of Apocalypse or the Clone Saga and have some rage encrusted troll attack me in the comments section.  So, I get it.

But, one thing I just can't forgive in a writer are those who purposely include details in their script but then get the details wrong.  All of us have those little areas where we know a hell of a lot.  So, anytime an writer decides he wants to fling around specific terms like the type of engine found in a particular car, scientific details, etc. they do so at their peril because someone reading the material is an expert on that subject.  And, when they screw up those details, especially in a fictional work that is meant to be anchored in reality, it pops the whole bubble.  We, the reader, are supposed to be suspending disbelief and letting the story flow over us: "This stuff could really happen!"  But, then these factual FUBARs arise and suddenly the suspension of disbelief is gone and the reader is on Wikipedia checking your facts instead of reading the story.


When that happens, you've failed as a writer.  And....there's probably a little big of Fail on your editor's shoes too.

So, what caused this plea for factual accuracy in fiction?  Well, I've been reading the new Walking Dead novel, Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga.  I'm about half-way through the novel now and it's fun enough; not timeless fiction, but enjoyable for TWD fans.

But, it has this factual error that has me banging my head against the wall.  You see, I know a lot about guns and have shot, used and owned guns my entire life.  That's often a curse when reading fiction because most writers are not firearms experts, but they seem to really enjoy writing about them because they are cool.  Most knowledgeable gun folks have long since learned to ignore the minor factual liberties that the creative class takes with firearms, but Bonansinga goes to a whole new level.

At one point in the novel, the protagonists take refuge in a house and scour it for supplies.  They specifically find "Marlin Model 55 shotguns" which are known as "goose guns. Fast and accurate and powerful, the Marlins are designed for killing migratory fowl at high altitudes...or in this case, the bull's-eye of a skull at a hundred-plus yards."  Many, many problems with that sentence.... On the plus side, there is such a weapon as the Marlin Model 55 and they did make a type of that shotgun called the "goose gun".  Let's talk about the problems though...

• For one thing, the Model 55 is a bolt-action shotgun and is almost universally reviled as one of the poorest long guns ever made.  If you were in a zombie apocalypse and could only scavenge Model 55's, you would be pissed off and the zombies would eat you.  They also rather uncommon because they're a piece of crap.  Imagine the bad luck of only seeking refuge in the home of a douche who owned such crappy weapons!
• The statement that the shotguns are "fast".  It is unclear what "fast" means.  Heck, Bonansinga probably doesn't know what he means by "fast", but let's assume that Bonansinga means they fire rapidly.  This is actually the biggest disadvantage of the Model 55.  The bolt action mechanism causes them to be slower than any other type of multi-shot shotgun ever produced.
• The statement that the Model 55s are "accurate".  Shotguns are, by design, not accurate.  They fire a pattern of small pellets that disperse the farther they travel.  The key with a shotgun is to adjust the density of the pattern so that at the distance you expect targets to be, so that you have a reasonably dense pattern (so that the projectiles don't pass harmlessly around the target) but also a reasonably large pattern (because shotguns are usually fired at fast moving objects and even with a pattern that is 2-3 feet across, excellent shots still miss all the time).  Shotguns are not "accurate".
• Hitting bullseyes on a skull at 100 yards is silly.  At 100 yards, you are shooting a rifle.  For one thing, at 100 yards, your pattern has soooo expanded that you pellets are spread over 20 feet or so.  For another, the pellets are spheres and spheres are just about the worst ballistic object possible because they shed energy so quickly.  At 100 yards I doubt the pellets would even break the skin.  You would have to lob the shot at a target 100 yards away like you were doing indirect artillery fire because the pellets would just hit the ground if you fired the gun level.  

So, why is this a big deal?  It's annoying because Bonansinga has gone out of his way to be dead ass wrong.  Why not just say they found "shotguns" and leave it at that?  Who wouldn't be happy with that explanation?  I'm into guns and wouldn't read "shotguns" and think, "Why is he being so damn vague?!?!?  I demand to know what KIND of shotguns these are."

But, Bonansinga isn't even done yet!  On no!  He later goes on to describe "levering" the shotguns open implying that these Marlin Model 55s are not bolt-actions (which they are), but side-by-sides or over-and-unders (which do lever open).  Then he mentions a character thumbing back the hammers on the shotguns to cock them which is just such total BS because except for reproductions of antique firearms, shotguns with external hammers aren't produced anymore because we developed the technology for internal, self-cocking hammers over 100 years ago.  And...later he describes the shotguns as 20 gauges.  Now, the Model 55 was produced in 20 gauge (which is a smaller cartridge containing less powder and fewer pellets), but the "goose gun" was a 10 gauge beast of a shotgun.  A 20 gauge would be very ill-suited for shooting birds at "high altitude".  These mythical shotguns are semi-major supporting characters in the book and he's gotten it all wrong.

The problem I have with this is that it's just lazy writing.  I read this and it tells me that Bonansinga didn't give a crap when he wrote this story and that his editors didn't give a crap when their reviewed it.  No one said, "Hey!  You're got a lot of details here.  Is this stuff accurate?"  So, now I wonder what else he screwed up in the book that I'm not knowledgeable enough to catch....

The point is: Writers.....don't include hyper detail unless you know what you're talking about.

- Dean Stell