That pesky thing called continuity

Good morning!

When writing a novel, there is no way to sit and write the entire thing from start to finish without a break. At least, not unless you are superhuman. People need to do things periodically, like eat, sleep, work, shop for necessities, those kinds of things. So, what happens if it has been several days since you worked on your novel? Well, you sit down, open the file, read where you left off and begin composing. And, let's say that you have forgotten a small part of what you wrote a week, or even a month earlier. If you go ahead with the piece and find later that you have written something rather important to the story that isn't consistent with an earlier passage; what are your remedies?

Well, you may feel that the earlier passage was particularly well-written and hate the idea of scrapping it. Besides which, it may be so deeply woven into the fabric of the story that there is no way to totally expunge it without adversely affecting the story. If that happens, there is no remedy except to rewrite a significant portion of the story. So, what is the best way to avoid experiencing such a catastrophe?

Stop what you are doing and actually read your work. Sure, you can skim over it quickly. Sometimes there is no other choice, especially if the work has gotten long and unwieldy. But you must be familiar at all times with the circumstances and occurrences in the story. So, you must read your work several times while you are writing. By the time you are finished with the piece, you will be heartily sick of it and ready to pitch it into the nearest oubliette, but you will know your work forward, backward and be able to drop into it at any page and know what is going to happen next as well as what has happened up to that point.

Other writers may have other ways of achieving continuity, but this is the method I use and it works very well for me. Whatever method you arrive at, use it well and it will not disappoint you.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of A Taste For Blood, Questionable Interests and others.
Available on Kindle