I've just discovered another EBDism. I'm looking into Gertrud Steinbruecke's character for various reasons and have discovered that she left school at the same time as Grizel, having been given the role of Games Prefect when Grizel became Head Girl.

However, in Jo Returns:



I presume EBD was forgetting that she had appointed Bette Rincini as Head Girl and stuck Gertrud in by mistake, but it does boggle the mind a little...

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The writer's credo: 'Sometimes you've got to sacrifice the things you like' (Delta Goodrem - Born To Try)

I was reading Exploits last night. In one scene Frieda arrives at Die Rosen with a group of pupils, is greeted by Madge and departs shortly after for her brother's house. A few minutes later she arrives at Die Rosen with a different group of girls, and Madge exclaims at her new hairstyle.

I've noticed that one about Gertrud before. I know EBD didn't have computer databases etc, but, seeing as the school had only had 6 previous Head Girls by then, you'd think she could have got them right .

The scene in Jo Returns in which Jo muddles up two characters and then berates herself for not having made character lists always makes me laugh!

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

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Alison, me too!

The EBDism that has been annoying me immensely from the age of six is the scene where they're going off to Guide camp in Wrong, and someone (Elfie Woodward, IIRC) is leader of two different patrols. On the same page!

My latest frustration is with Exile, where Joey knows there's no news of Bruno von Ahlen because Frieda wrote to congratulate her on being the mother of three... but when Frieda arrives at the school in the final chapter, she has no idea that Jo's even had one baby, never mind three!

Regarding head girls though, EBD never can seem to remember who has been and who hasn't. Gertrud is a prime example, and also Daisy Venables. Interestingly, I think most of the girls whom she later assumes were HG but weren't were actually Games Pre.

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"In the absence of knowledge, it is easier to judge than to understand."
James Axtell, 'Moral Reflections on Columbus'

The EBDism that made me laugh recently was a scene in Island (I think) where Joey and a bunch of others are watching swimming races etc. whilst out in the harbour on the deck of the Sea Witch, and she falls about laughing at something and leans on Sarah Denny - the woman whose prime distinctive characteristic when first introduced was that she was terrified of water!

I'd happily try whatever therapy she underwent behind the scenes.

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Someone cooking meat at the den of the fox said, "We do not mention this in front of the mongoose." Sumerian proverb

Outskirts Of The Twenties: Polari

Non-CS fic: Late Back (Good Omens)

I think the list of previous head girls changes each time EBD mentions it!

I was re reading The Lintons last night and after Thekla is expelled, EBD writes that she wrote to Mademoiselle LePattre 'many years later' to express her remorse.
But Mademoiselle LePattre died about four years after the incident so, whoever Thekla wrote to, it can't have been her.

I think the best of the lot is when Herr Mensch has recently died in Problem, but is alive and well the following year in Coming of Age .

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

Another one that annoys me is Molly and Dick coming home from India for good in Tom Tackles the Chalet School. But a couple of years later in Three Go they're still out in India and Peggy and Co are still living with Madge.

Also, in Lintons, Joey refers to her nephew as Noel and Frieda says she thought he was going to be called Jack and Joey replies that no, that was the original plan but he's now Noel. Yet he was referred to as Jackie for the rest of the series.

I guess EBD must have had an enormous pile of notebooks so it would hardly be surprising if she couldn't easily find whatever information. Or maybe she did it mostly from memory, or just didn't care that much? It does say in the biography that she wasn't very analytical.

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Tom Tackles isn't published until after Barbara and wasn't a stand alone book until Armada republished it. Rosalie, Tom Tackles and Mystery are full of EBDisms, especially Mystery.

I love reading the end of the fill-in books where the fill-in author is writing to explain exactly how they worked out how to explain the EBDisms which directly affect their book. I think it was a work of art for some of them to do this especially the one who wrote the fill-in the same term as Mystery.

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You should live each day as though you are going to live forever and as though you will die tomorrow.

But often she contradicts herself in the same book, or even in the same chapter. In Carola Storms she has a couple of scenes early in the book where Carola is in Joey's house to meet her father. Yet, later in the book when she's out for a walk with a friend, she stops to admire the house and wonders who lives there.

I think this is the EBDism I'm most willing to exonerate, as I view Mademoiselle's death as a product of the war, which naturally Elinor had no idea was going to happen when she was writing Lintons.

The Carola one has often annoyed me in the past, but actually now I sit and think about it, it could easily be explained by Carola just not being particularly aware of her surroundings the first time she went there--she was very excited to see her dad for the first time in years, but equally terrified of what he might say. So she was a little preoccupied. And maybe she just wasn't great with remembering locations. The second incident is something like six to eight weeks later, and I know I could easily forget a location I hadn't paid too much attention to initially in that space of time.



Another particularly exasperating EBDism for me is Peggy Burnett's age. You could get a really good Doctor Who crossover drabble out of trying to explain that! I swear she ages backwards for most of the Tyrol years, unlike Kitty who just freezes, whilst Mary grows up at an accelerated speed.

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"In the absence of knowledge, it is easier to judge than to understand."
James Axtell, 'Moral Reflections on Columbus'

Just a quibble, but I'd thought there weren't any Armadas until the 1960s - my Chambers Tom was published in 1955.

This was the first EBDism I spotted, because I read Exile long before the book Thekla is expelled in, so when I first read about her writing 'many years later' I was completely lost!

EBD often mentioned the future without actually planning the plot. IIRC at the end of Carola, Grizel goes off to NZ and EBD says she comes back 5(?) years later a much improved and happier woman or something to that effect. In fact G comes back depressed and embittered.

You have no idea how easy it is to make mistakes like that until you've written over a million words of your story! Fortunately I'm a fanatic at editing, but I still find mistakes in ND after posting - or other people tell me about them. Having notebooks - or notes on the computer - doesn't always help, and I do sometimes sympathise with the woman!

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"When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not more of a pastime to her than she is to me?" (Montaigne)

Hm, again it might not be as it seems. Grizel does come back depressed but then she improves and is happy - after marrying Neil. So it could be explained.

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Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary – it is the respective proportions of those two categories that make that life appear interesting or humdrum.
William Boyd//Any Human Heart

I have to agree (and my drabbles combined are well below a million words!). I'm obsessive about making out timelines, writing character bios, looking up words and phrases I'm not sure about in case they're anachronistic, checking my spelling and grammar and so on, and things still slip through the net. One example like the above was when I had two characters talk to each other briefly, only to then have them meet for the first time several chapters later. It was a silly mistake to make, but it did have the effect of making me a bit less critical of poor old EBD.

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'We command the power of the elements. Storm, Earth and Fire! I'd never dress like an oversized chicken and shoot moon beams from the sky' - Stormcaller Jalara

I've got as far as Peggy in my re-read of the series and only spotted my first EBD-ism when I got to Island (she refers to Hilary Linton when Annis returns after her adventure). You know what? I don't care! I love the CS world and if it doesn't always play by the rules, it doesn't bother me. (That's not to say I'm not hugely amused by the observations recorded above, of course.)