Greetings everyone and welcome back! I hope your week has seen you well so far. I have an interview today, so I am full of nerves and hope that it will go well. The job I'm going for would be fantastically perfect for me, so my fingers are crossed!
Last week we talked about perspective a little bit, this week I would like to change gears a little bit again. We're going to go back a little and talk about consistency. I believe I've mentioned before how not being consistent in some aspect of your story will cause readers headaches and table-flipping, this is something that is true for whether you're just writing a stand-alone story, or a multiple book series. If things aren't consistent throughout for whatever rules you're having the world follow, people will catch it.
It's similar to my mention of making sure to do your research, since the Internet is a thing and people have instant access to information. Research should also include your own work as well. Going back and making sure names are correct is one thing (I'm sorry, but too many side characters gets confusing for all parties involved.) but you should also make sure that something isn't said/done that gets contradicted later on in the story. If that does happen, and it is done on purpose, just make sure to point that stuff out. (Don't even get me started on time travel. We've been over this, I am not going to write it. It causes a medical condition known as Spontaneous Brain Melting, and it's terrible.)
An example that I'm not looking forward to is that when it comes time for it, I'm going to have to reread 'The Light Rises' to make sure that I've a) Touched on everything that needs to be addressed for 'Rending the Seal' and b) That the world still makes sense. I'm not looking forward to it because to me 'The Light Rises' is done, and I'm terrified I'll open to the first page and find some glaring and terrible error and will fall into a despair that will be dramatic and eternal. I'm still going to do it though, because I know that things need to line up and be accurate. Especially since 'Rending the Seal' is a prequel; I don't want to say something happened one way in 'The Light Rises' only to have something completely happen in the prequel. I will not be that kind of person!
If you are writing a series and something drastic does change between books, again for my own example in the time (in story) before the sequel to 'The Light Rises' and 'Daughter of the Shackled King' the way magic works will have changed, make sure that you explain why. It doesn't have to be long, just that there was some kind of event or evolution in whatever changed that made it different now than it was back then. Maybe hint that something major and then go back to it later on in a super-secret last book that takes place in the middle of everything. That could be fun!
Thanks everyone for stopping by again. I hope the interview goes well and that soon I'll be all smiles for life after my work closes at the end of June. I look forward to seeing you all back here on Friday for the reviews. Until then, I hope you all have a good week and wish me luck!
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