Picking Up Where We Left Off—Literally

When I begin a novella in the Lovers and Liars gay historical romance series, I literally pick up the characters where I left off. If someone’s water breaks at the end of a book—which happens in A Deadly Game of Malice—that character better have the baby in the next one.

It’s all about continuity or keeping things consistent from novel to novel, or in my case, novella to novella. Believe me, it isn’t as easy as it might seem, especially if you write different books in between installments.

Sometimes inconsistency can lead to a good thing, but usually not.

When I created Caroline’s little village in Kent, I had a photo of an English village I found online and used it for reference. Small, intimate, and isolated, the village was an actual location in Kent and a perfect fit for my story.

In Weep Not for the Past, the second novella, I dropped a river smack dab in the middle of town—something from my imagination that worked well for a scene between Caroline and Leslie; something that wasn’t there before but now was.

Five novellas down the road, in A Deadly Game of Malice, I was glad to have this bit of rushing water handy as I sent one of my victims head over heels right into it. See what I mean? A good thing.

But most of the time, continuity problems can be a big deal for the series writer.

Here’s an example:

Readers expect characters to change but not necessarily in their physical descriptions, unless you’ve covered a great deal of time from book to book. Lovers and Liars moves slowly through the early years of WWII, so I need to remember Leslie is tall, thin, wears thick glasses with broken frames, and worries over his dwindling blond hair.

I also need to keep in mind Caroline went from a pageboy to short-cropped hair from the first book to the second. It wouldn’t do to have Cyril fondling her long tresses in A Manx Tale, the third book, unless she’s wearing a wig. ☺

Another example:

One of my major characters was shot—only a flesh wound mind you—at the end of Bomber’s Moon, yet I failed to address this injury in the next novella. And the weird thing is I didn’t think about this lack of continuity until just the other day, after I’d written five installments. Like I said in an earlier post, I’m not the smartest or sharpest knife I guess. (Mixing metaphors here? Another one of my many talents.)

Okay, here’s the question you’ve been waiting for:

When you read a book in a series, do you notice these inconsistencies much, and if so, how do they affect your reading enjoyment? Do they throw you out of the story? Do they annoy you or do you just move on?

Until next week when we talk about a writer’s greatest fears and how they can creep into their fiction.

The best is yet to come.

Paul