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Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

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Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#61

Post by ajdude »

kriro wrote: post #29

I guess my pet peeve of "firing an arrow" is also a gun mistake of sorts. It can be found in many fantasy books. A bow is not a gun, there's no gunpowder involved. If a commander orders his archers to "fire" what should they do, set their bows on fire?

I was just watching Tom Scott's latest video, he mentioned firing a trebuchet and the guide pointed this out that you don't "fire" a trebuchet since it doesn't involve gunpowder, you launch it.

Tom's commentary later was that he disagreed with that sentiment. "I disagree with those potential comments. Words change their meaning overtime. In modern English, you can fire an arrow, you can fire a torpedo, we were gonna fire that trebuchet"

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#62

Post by darksaints »

One of the things about fiction is that it gets almost everything wrong. It isn’t just guns. It’s professions like spies and snipers, cars, boats, planes, programming/hacking, radios, technology, etc. And those are just the areas that I personally know they get wrong, because I know more than the average person in those areas.

Some people judge fiction way too harshly for inconsequential but inaccurate details which only serve for narrative structure. There are actually tons of authors who get all of these details right, but you almost never read their books because if they can get them published at all, nobody reads them, because they absolutely suck. An author that gets these details right and is actually a good storyteller is extremely rare. It’s basically a list consisting of Tom Clancy and John Le Carre.

It’s just a pet peeve. At some point you have to let it go, or you’ll end up wasting your time writing blog posts begging authors (who largely don’t care) to talk to you so they won’t get inconsequential details wrong.

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#63

Post by enaaem »

nkrisc wrote: post #48
kriro wrote: post #29

I guess my pet peeve of "firing an arrow" is also a gun mistake of sorts. It can be found in many fantasy books. A bow is not a gun, there's no gunpowder involved. If a commander orders his archers to "fire" what should they do, set their bows on fire?

This is a good example of movies using inaccurate depictions that audiences will easily understand instead of accurate depictions that may confuse them. Just think of it as a translation.

I wonder what would happen if someone would make a serie or movie with realistic historical fighting? It might just break all previous works. For example armour that actually works and spears being better than swords.

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#64

Post by kibibu »

dn3500 wrote: post #7

I'm not a handgun expert at all but I've caught a few of these, like the guy who racked the slide on his revolver. The author who really impressed me, although not with his handgun knowledge, was Tom Clancy. I was in the anti-submarine warfare business in the 1970s and some of what he wrote in Red October I only knew from classified sources.

Until it came to anything vaguely to do with computing or electronics, which turned into basically magic

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#65

Post by wizzwizz4 »

skinfaxi wrote: post #18
nottorp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. But I think sometimes we're more justified than the gun nuts. Take for example the movie series favorite "we'll track him through his GPS".

More justified for what?

IT mistakes are frequently glaring plot-holes that render entire sections of the story impossible. Gun mistakes are generally a choreography problem, a weapon that's possible but just hasn't been manufactured, or someone learning information about the gun's state via the wrong channel (where such an information channel does exist).

Sure, sometimes a bullet impact throwing someone off a cliff is plot-relevant, but I couldn't name a single example. On the other hand, I can think of several examples where (supposedly) state-of-the-art encryption is cracked digit by digit, or where a radio receiver is tracked from a distance where the receiving pattern would be orders of magnitude below the noise floor (most often from orbital satellites), or where a device is remotely "hacked" that is not even plausibly connected to a network (less common, now that everything is IoT, although it's really prevalent in works set in the late 90s / early 00s).

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#66

Post by amiga386 »

folbec wrote: post #36
kriro wrote: post #29

I guess my pet peeve of "firing an arrow" is also a gun mistake of sorts. It can be found in many fantasy books. A bow is not a gun, there's no gunpowder involved. If a commander orders his archers to "fire" what should they do, set their bows on fire?

And what about archer companies doing "volley fire" ? As in what looks like 99% of Hollywood movies. https://acoup.blog/2025/05/02/collections-why-archers-didnt-...

The worst archery bollocks I've ever seen in a film is in Timeline (2003)

The French are defending their castle at night from an English siege. They simultaneously exchange volleys of arrows with their tips set on fire. Very cinematic.

Then the dastardly English commander calls for "night arrows". What are those? They're arrows whose tips aren't set on fire.

The French soldiers, knowing there's a pile of archers at their door, and knowing exactly where they are thanks to the attackers all carrying torches, stand waiting for the signal to loose their counter-volley, and are surprised by the "night arrows".

Such nonsense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcUVOlbNb30

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#67

Post by alias_neo »

doikor wrote: post #52
alias_neo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the correct term? Loose? I'm sure I've heard that before. I know nothing about arrows except to identify the pointy end.

It is very tiring to hold back the shot in a position like that. In real life you just wouldn’t do that. And in general your archers know their range and will/should start shooting as soon as they have a target in range without any orders. The volley fire thing is from black powder musket/rifle days. Basically volleys were used so you can actually seen what you are shooting at (aim) and manuever (hard to move while r…

> It is very tiring to hold back the shot in a position like that. In real life you just wouldn’t do that

That makes a lot of sense, and is kind of obvious when you think about it. They'd just be wasting energy.

I suppose the way we see it portrayed in film (for some reason it's always LoTR that comes to mind), is for dramatic effect, with scores of arrows flying through the sky at once. But I was always mildly irritated (though without knowing why) by the fact that despite so many arrows flying, the vast majority would miss any target.

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#68

Post by kriro »

ajdude wrote: post #61
kriro wrote: post #29

I guess my pet peeve of "firing an arrow" is also a gun mistake of sorts. It can be found in many fantasy books. A bow is not a gun, there's no gunpowder involved. If a commander orders his archers to "fire" what should they do, set their bows on fire?

I was just watching Tom Scott's latest video, he mentioned firing a trebuchet and the guide pointed this out that you don't "fire" a trebuchet since it doesn't involve gunpowder, you launch it. Tom's commentary later was that he disagreed with that sentiment. "I disagree with those potential comments. Words change their meaning overtime. In modern English, you can fire an arrow, you can fire a torpedo, we were gonna…

There's a decent argument for using today's words even for settings that are no the current world. But for fantasy specifically I find it breaks immersion quite a bit. I'm not convinced by the "language changes over time" line of argument. If you take it to a bit more of an extreme it would also be fine to have characters say "cool" or even use some gen-z-ism etc, because hey words change meaning over time after all.

However, I'm also aware that I'm kind of a hypocrite because I'm totally fine with current world grammar and punctuation for example.

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#69

Post by short_sells_poo »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #49
short_sells_poo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of countries aside the US where citizens can and do own guns. E.g. gun control is strict in most of Europe compared to the US, but it's entirely attainable to most people without a criminal record to own firearms.

Yes, but typically not handguns, the prevalence of them in the US is unusual compared to other Western countries.

It's important to make a distinction between ownership and carry permits. Ownership permits allow you to own and store firearms in your home in a secure place, and take them (unloaded) to a shooting range.

Carry permits allow you to carry loaded firearms in public.

Carry permits tend to be heavily restricted, but I believe handguns are not. The UK is an exception in that gun control is significantly more onerous than any other European country and more or less bans civilian handgun ownership completely.

E.g. in Switzerland, it's trivial to get a handgun. Not any more difficult than buying a double barrelled shotgun or an AR-15 style rifle. On the other hand it's very difficult to get a license that allows you to carry loaded firearms. The regular firearm permit allows you to transport unloaded guns from your home to the shooting range and back.

There are a lot of shooting clubs in former eastern bloc countries as well, and both long guns and handguns are popular for sport shooting.

Re: Gun Mistakes in Fiction Writing: Handgun Edition

#70

Post by waltwalther »

542458 wrote: post #22
defrost wrote: post #3

(28th June 2021) .. and I didn't find a Mistakes: Long Gun Edition.

I'm not a deep-in-the-weeds expert, but if I had to put together an "obvious long rifle mistakes in fiction" article, it’d probably be: * People pumping shotguns after every round, or unnecessarily cycling the bolt after every round * Wrong action type for the gun * Wrong shotgun ammo for the context * Wrong safety type for the gun (most long guns have safeties, but they are operated in a variety of ways) * Magazine…

Generally, all long guns that are not auto/semi-auto must be cycled after every shot in order to chamber another round. This includes pump-action, bolt-action, and lever-action rifles/shotguns. There are exceptions, such as revolver rifles.

There are also instances when semi-auto pistols might need to be cycled after every round.

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