My answer: Famous authors (and their editors) frequently make mistakes in published books. Producing a 300 or 400-page book is a complex process. The website angelfire.com list a number of mistakes in Stephen King‘s books.
Often the mistakes are less obvious than word misspellings or grammatical errors, though we see some of that as well. More often there are subtle continuity mistakes. For example, on page 250 of CUJO, Stephen King writes that Donna wore tennis shoes when she stepped out of the pinto but on page 260 it says that she kicked Cujo with her sandal.
Dates, times and physical descriptions are the hardest to consistently maintain.
The job of the editor is to minimize these kinds of mistakes as well as errors in spelling and grammar. However, maintaining flawless continuity over the course of 80,000 to 120,000 words Is a challenge for any editor or author—indeed any human mind— especially in the heat of producing a credible work.
Readers can forgive a certain amount of inconsistency in an author’s work if the person is a good storyteller. Indeed, one may be so engrossed in the tale as to not notice minor lapses in memory and judgment. Such errors don’t seem to have destroyed Stephen King‘s career.
That said, it would be unwise for any author to turn out a sloppy manuscript and expect to be published. Unknown writers should work very hard to eliminate timeline errors and descriptive inaccuracies. These days, is not enough To merely run a spell checker. It’s best to have other trusted first readers review your document for gaps and flaws, or possibly have an experienced editor check it out with the help of AI.
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