Continuity Blues

I head off to Melbourne later today for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Conference, which I’ll post about on return. It’s a three and a half hour flight, and I will get there at almost midnight. Must get up early enough to imbibe a strong coffee before tomorrow’s first session – at least I only have to listen, not talk! A highlight of the trip will be a puppet theatre version of Shaun Tan’s wordless graphic novel, The Arrival.

It’s been a chaotic week for me. My car number plates were stolen at the weekend which meant a lot of running around to get replacements. At the same time the car stereo finally died, and I needed to replace that in time for transporting the kids – they get sad in the car without the Wiggles. Yesterday included explaining the complex animal wrangling regimen to the friend who is looking after my house and its occupants while I’m away. (The two dogs have three different medications each, with varying doses. One dog is severely epileptic, the other feeling his age.) Today I look after my grandchildren until just before I need to hop on the plane. With the need to switch my brain rapidly from one mode to another, the book I’m working on has been suffering not only from lack of attention, but also from continuity issues.

Apparently there are some freelance editors who specialize in continuity checking for novelists. I assume this is like the continuity person who works in movies, making sure all the details are consistent within the many takes that may make up one scene. Some authors, especially those who write epic fantasy, employ one of these editors to read the ms before it goes to the publisher. Such an editor can pick up places where there are two full moons in one month, or where a river suddenly starts flowing in the opposite direction. It’s quite easy to make this kind of error, and the publisher’s editor doesn’t always pick it up. One well known fantasy author lopped off a character’s arm in one book, then let him reappear with it miraculously reattached in the sequel. I made an astronomy error in my most recent book, related to the possible position of a sickle moon, which nobody picked up for the first edition.

I’ve just finished reading right through my completed chapters (approximately half a book) to get a sense of how well the story is flowing along, to pick up errors of this kind, and to find out whether the dynamic between the two main characters is working in the way I want it to. There’s a developing relationship between two quite guarded people, and it needs to have a gradual escalation in intensity.

There was good news and bad news. Overall the story works pretty well. The way I can tell this is more instinctive than analytical. If I start reading and keep at it for long stretches with no desire to put the pages down and make a cup of tea, go for a walk, check my emails or read a gossip mag instead, it probably means it’s working as an entertaining story. My manuscript passed that test. However, there is a difficulty with the setting – for a long stretch of the book, a small cast of characters is trapped in quite a restricted environment. I found four supper-table scenes in which this group is chatting over a meal, a sensitive topic comes up and one or other of the two main characters gets up and storms out. Four! Definite rewrite required there, not too difficult to achieve. I must find another place where the entire household can plausibly mingle, and another mode of dummy-spitting for these two characters. (For those who don’t know the term, a dummy is the same thing as a baby’s pacifier, and spitting the dummy is the equivalent of throwing a tantrum or losing one’s cool.) I can’t just cut, because the misunderstanding and angst of these suppertime scenes is integral to the plot (dark secrets gradually revealed – will the truth come out too late?) and to the relationship between the central characters (a to and fro dance of attraction and wariness.)

Right now I plan to power on towards the end and come back to that issue later. Once the conference is over, it’s back to a set word count per week for me. This sounds uncreative, I know, but without that self-imposed discipline I may fall behind and go into that head-spinning, unproductive state of mind that occasionally visits me when there’s a little too much going on in my life. Meanwhile, I’m off to hear a fascinating lineup of writers, editors and illustrators speak at the conference, with expectations of being well entertained and learning something along the way.

Photo courtesy Flickr’s Aliteratia

Juliet Marillier

Juliet Marillier has written twenty-four novels for adults and young adults and two collections of short fiction. Her works of historical fantasy have been published around the world and have won numerous awards. Juliet’s most recent series was Warrior Bards, of which the third and final book, A Song of Flight, was published in 2021. Her collection of reimagined fairy tales, Mother Thorn and Other Tales of Courage and Kindness, had its trade release in  2022. Mother Thorn is illustrated by Kathleen Jennings and published by Serenity Press.
Juliet is currently working on a two-book fantasy series. The first book in this duology, The Amber Owl, will be published by New Dawn in February 2025.
When not writing, Juliet looks after a small crew of rescue dogs.

www.julietmarillier.com