Keeping Notes - Tumblr Posts

Writing Tips Pt. 14 - Keep Notes and Reread

Two important details about writing I think a lot of beginners forget is that you should be keeping notes on what you're writing, and you should reread as you go along.

Keeping notes is important so you can reference things you've established in your story. You don't want your readers jarred out of the story because Alice's hair color changed partway through simply because you couldn't remember what color you'd made it and didn't feel like double-checking. If Bob's eye color keeps changing every scene he's in, it should be for in-story reasons and not because of authorial laziness. Other things you might track with note-keeping include which spells you've given your mage character, or who a character's family members are (and whether or not they have siblings). Even professional writers keep notes on the things they'll need to reference again.

I'm partial to keeping documents in a folder on my computer on different subjects, such as character backstories, family trees, magic systems, even something as silly as where everyone sleeps in their home base. Other authors may use index cards tacked up to the wall, or establish a wiki to help them link important things together, or have a series of notebooks they can pull off the shelf to flip through. There are different ways to do this, so find one that works for you.

And make sure you reread, unless you're writing your whole story in one marathon session. Each time you go to add a new installment to the story, whether it be a new chapter to an ongoing piece or a sequel to a previous work of yours, reread the older stuff first, especially if you don't keep regular and extensive notes. You will almost invariably forget important details if you don't do this, and it's quite immersion-breaking if your story loses internal continuity because you didn't review what you'd already written.

For example, if your hero has run afoul of one of the villain's machinations, it breaks immersion if your villain's motivation for the plot changes from chapter to chapter. If he was actively trying to kill the hero, but then later claims to have just wanted to scare him, but then goes back to wanting to kill him, then was just testing a contraption and it's the hero's own fault that he got injured and now the villain doesn't know what to do without the hero, you aren't creating good drama, you're just hurting your own story's continuity. What is your villain's motivation?

Yes, I have seen this before.

So at the very least, skim over what you wrote previously to make sure you aren't breaking continuity or introducing contradictions into your story.

I frequently write stories by hand in a notebook during moments of free time. Rereading also helps me remember what I was working on when I last had to pause so I can make sure I keep the story flowing properly, rather than suddenly cutting to a different scene because I forgot where I was, or having a random character show up because I didn't remember they were supposed to be elsewhere. I've even caught a few times when I went to write a turn of phrase and thought it seemed familiar, and sure enough, I'd used it just two pages prior.

So keep notes, and make sure you reread. Your continuity will thank you.