more problems I bring upon myself

Disabled

Things I do not have the brain to deal with tonight: the continuity error I just caught during my copy-editing slog. The CE didn’t flag it for me, because it’s not the kind of thing she would notice; you have to know the floorplan of the Cromwell Road corner houses to know that I got something wrong. Yes, this means that shui_long would be the only person on the planet (other than me) to notice. I don’t care. It still annoys me, and I have to fix it. Either Louisa’s bedroom faces the street and is above her mother’s boudoir, or it’s directly off the servants’ staircase; it can’t be both. But I’m coming down with a cold and just don’t want to deal with it tonight.

Really, what god of writing did I piss off to saddle myself with this kind of historical nitpickery?

0 Responses to “more problems I bring upon myself”

  1. la_marquise_de_

    You have my sympathy.

  2. aliettedb

    Ouch.
    On the plus side, there’s still time to fix it, no?

  3. stevie_carroll

    Oh dear. I know that problem. I’ve still not drawn out a proper floor plan for the big rambling stately home, although I did spend far too much time today working out the timing of three consecutive journeys between it and London in the mid 1960s.

    You have much sympathy from over here.

  4. shui_long

    You don’t have to fix it just for me…

    I wouldn’t be absolutely certain about how the upstairs floorplan of those houses varies from the ground floor, in any case; and the one you’re using has subsequently been demolished, so you’re free to reconstruct it exactly as you please to suit the book. If any of the following would cause a problem, please feel free to ignore it.

    Looking at examples of plans, I would probably expect the boudoir of the mistress of the house to be at the back of the house, rather than the front (the same applies to the master’s study). Typically the main “public” rooms used for entertaining, such as the drawing room, would face onto the street. Architects usually tried to put a morning room or breakfast room where it would have the benefit of the rising sun, i.e. on the E or S side of the house; the dining room, normally used only in the evening, could be on the darker side of the house. The boudoir would be best placed where it could benefit from afternoon sunlight, usually on the first floor (2nd floor in American), but as it was a private room would typically be at the back of the house – which fits with the broadly E-W orientation of Cromwell Road, and a house on the southern side of that road.
    The bedroom of a member of the family might be adjacent to the servants’ stairs, but not “directly off” that staircase.

    • Marie Brennan

      If you’re curious, this is the floor plan I’m working from. It includes the first floor as well as ground, though not anything above; I’m having to extrapolate from what it shows here, regarding the placement of principal walls and staircases.

  5. starlady38

    I hope that’s not my cold–wishing you the brain to deal with it soon.

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