Consistency Matters for Writers

Last week I talked about starting a book series. One of the biggest difficulties writers face when they decide to write subsequent books in a series is consistency. Of course, that’s as true of writing a stand-alone book, as much as it is a series. Few things pull a reader out of a story as much as the author changing basic details they have already established. If the readers have been imagining a tall, blue-eyed hero through most of the story, based on your early description, and on page 199 you describe him as average height and brown-eyed, they’re going to be upset. And you should be upset too. There are plenty of things that can spoil a book. Why wouldn’t you want to fix them, to make your book the very best it can be?

Here are some of the consistency traps you need to be aware of:

Names

If your character is Marie on page one, she shouldn’t become Maria on page 90, unless you make it clear it’s one character’s nickname for her. Likewise, Mr Fairclough shouldn’t become Mr Fairchild as the story evolves. If the house is called Rosebud Cottage, it can’t turn into Rose House. Most writers I know toss aside such concerns. “I know my characters,” they say. “Only rookies forget important details like that.”

Oh really?

It’s human nature to forget things. Writing a book takes a long time, even years in some cases. You’d be amazed at how many mistakes even successful writers can make. For instance, I recently read a book in which the hero is shot. He returns fire and hits one of the two assailants. About three chapters later, we meet the assailants, and neither one has been injured. OK, maybe our hero was in error when he thought he had hit one of them, but that’s not what the book says. And, yes, it made me mad.

Details

So how have you described your hero? If he’s six foot tall with black hair and blue eyes that’s who he must remain, unless he has some reason to change his appearance. Even then, he can appear with grey hair and brown eyes, but his height can’t change. (I’ll allow the caveat for Sherlock Holmes who did sometimes manage to look shorter — see The Empty House — but only with effort.)

Dates need to be watched carefully because these, too, are easily forgotten. Be particularly careful of changing from US to UK date and vice versa. Also, remember that there are many spelling differences between the two countries, as well. Just remember, the smaller the detail, the greater the likelihood that you will forget it.

Places

It can be strangely easy to forget where your story is set, or to get mixed up about the geography. For instance, you set your tale in Columbus, Ohio and then mention it being on the border of Kentucky (that’s Cincinnati), or that it’s on the Great Lakes (Nope. That’s Cleveland.) You describe the place where your character lives as mountainous, but a cursory view of the terrain shows it’s completely flat. It’s not unusual for writers to mix up places with similar or identical names. For instance, in England there are two St. Ives, one in Cornwall and the other in Cambridge. It’s even more confusing in the US where many states use the same names for cities. How many Washingtons are there?*

Easy Fixes

All is not lost though. There are some simple ways of preventing / correcting these errors.

Have a clear image of the people and places in your story. One of my tricks is to find photographs of people who physically fit the appearance of the character. Generic photos of handsome men, old women, or girl-next-door types are easily culled from magazines or the internet. Save the images in a folder and refer to them as you need. Pinterest is good for storing pictures, but it no longer lets you attach notes to them, which is a problem. You might consider using MS One Note instead. Or print / cut out the pictures and post them on a bulletin board.

Keep an ongoing list. I have several. One is for characters. This includes their full names, their role in the story, appearance, peculiarities, and any other pertinent information. I also keep a list of the places where the various scenes occur. In addition to details about them, I sometimes use photographs here too. For some reason, many of us find images far more memorable than words.

If you have a sneaking feeling you have changed a character’s name during the story, do a MS Word search for the various spellings in the document. You can then do a ‘replace all’ to change the wrong ones to the right. If only life’s errors could be so easily rectified!

Another way to catch mistakes is to find a Beta reader you trust. If they are attentive, they will find the little boo-boos you missed.

Do you have any tips that you use to keep your writing on track? Feel free to share with us in the comments. Thanks for reading.

*There are 88 places in the US called Washington.

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