NaNoWriMo

[hwango]

Once again, I find myself quantifying things with RPG-like stats. This is because continuity errors irritate me. If I say at the beginning of the story that Orremar is better at Dream magic than Isharin, then I want to make sure that I don't contradict myself later on. Or, more likely, accidentally get into a case where I state that A is greater than B, B is greater than C, but then say that C is greater than A.

Most of this probably won't even come up in the story, but I'm concerned that I'll forget whether or not I said how good someone was at something, and then have them do something more powerful than they should, or portray them as weak when I shouldn't. Still, it feels a little silly. I'm really not interested in making a gameworthy system for how magic works or anything - just keeping my story internally consistant.

I know that I'm getting bogged down in what are actually trivial details, and that the story itself is far more important, but unfortunately tiny details like this prey on my mind if I don't address them.

Comments

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

Then you're writing stories for true fans. The same type of fans that quibble about the tiny details and mistakes seen in books and movies.

I don't think it's a bad thing to have notes about some of your character's abilities. It will definitely help with continuity and you'll know when you need to develop a mechanism for character improvement. If, for example, one of your characters needs to best another in an arena he has never been especially good at then you'll know there needs to be some write up about his new found abilities either before or after the encounter.