Oh, please

[helblonde]

I took last night to just relax and read. Yay! 

I managed to read, but David Weber managed to tick me off a bit with one plot point. (Well, with more than one thing, mostly because he seems to have written the past few books without an editor and he desperately needs one to cut most of his garbage.)

The heroine gets preganat and doesn't figure it out. Not even a suspicion. I have see this too many times and I just don't buy it. No, nay, never. Any woman that I have met who has had sex and knows anything about biology (which this character does), will have the "what if?" thought periodically, combined with a reaction that is somewhere between horified and ecstatic. Especially if she is showing symptoms.

Another peeve: why do all pregnant women in books seem to have morning sickness. This is way above the statistical norm. I mean really. Do authors have to torment their characters because they don't know any other way to show that a woman is pregnant? Read a biology book, people. And add morning sickness to having had sex, and why is she surprised she's pregnant? The character isn't stupid, right? She may not want to be pregnant, but she should be able to figure it out.

I don't buy the scenario and I've seen it often enough that I have gotten really tired of it. 

Bad author, bad, bad, bad.

Comments

[ysabella-dolfin.livejournal.com]

I didn't know I was pregnant with my first child untill I was 20 weeks. I know it seems odd but I was working 60 hour weeks at the time and I had an "incompetent cervix" (which they had to cauterize closed) so I was still having light periods. I was queasy for a few weeks, which I chalked up to the flu. I know it seems like I must have been a moron, but I was 20, I'd never been pregnant before and it wasn't really on my mind. I dind't put on weight or anything untill about then.

I have a friend who was 7 months pregnant before she realized she was pregnant (and they'd been TRYING for six years to get pregnant). She actually was avoiding me when I was pregnant with Sam because she was so depressed about her failed attempts to get pregnant... and she was pregnant the whole time! Boy did we have a laugh about that one.

[maestrateresa.livejournal.com]

I had a patient once who told me the story of how, some years before) she'd gone to the hospital with a terrible backache, and came home with a baby. She'd had no idea.

I also was told the story about another "surprise pregnancy" by someone else (her mother had her 20-years-younger baby sister by surprise).

Usually when it happens, the woman has had weight fluctuations and erratic and/or light periods, or is nearing menopause, and thinks that she's actually entered it.

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

Not attempting to defend anyone, but ...

In the case of male writers, my guess is that they honestly don't know. If you watch TV and/or the movies, the usual symptoms that a woman is pregnant include morning sickness and weird food cravings.

I honestly wouldn't have known until you said something here that this is above the statistical norm ...

[d-mon-chick.livejournal.com]

While I do realize that there are exceptions and everybody experiences things differently... I wasn't trying to get pregnant when I did and I KNEW it happened. There was no denying it. The physical symptoms were not something I could ignore. But I do know of one person who "psychologically" was in denial about a pregnancy until she was showing so much that it couldn't be ignored.


And morning sickness...why do they call it that? It can happen any time of the day or as for me, all the times of the day.


I have to agree that I get annoyed by this tired plot line as well.

[helblonde.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this isn't limited to male authors.