However, short of going to outline, there are a number of simple ways to deal with the inevitable small glitch.
Use your word processor's search functions. If you don't know where you left a secondary character or plot element, then search for it (use a couple of varients on the name you call it). If you need to change every instance of "Mogalia" to "Tervain", same thing.
Farm it out to some of your alpha test readers (and I mean readers, not fellow writers). Readers are better at pointing out small glitches without wasting your time telling you what to do about them. If your alpha readers are worth their salt, then they'll spot most small glitches.
Remember that fantasy novels don't have their own facts that need to be kept straight. Everything that you need to work at keeping internally consistent is a matter of invention, not fact. If you are having problems keeping facts straight (sunrise in the east, water flows downhill, etc), that is a different problem that requires a whole other order of solution.
The problem is that there are TOO MANY notes. the story flows along easily, but i have at one time made a main character who started a romantic subplot with another main character, who after reviewing turned out to be her cousin! ACK! The plot worked out GREAT! So I had to change someone's father...
[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited June 20, 2004).]
I also start with a white board and have my core idea in the center and add idea bubbles coming of that core as I get new ideas for the story.
Shawn
To some extent I use them all. But to add, I have a marginal talent for drawing, so I create my world and my people visually, making notes about them on the page. I also use timelines, maps, outlines, pages of notes and questions and key elements I need to remember to resolve. These things I keep on the wall above my computer where I can easily see them and refer to them while I write without having to open up yet another window on the computer or sift through my many notebooks to find.
Ni!
If I forgot to put something in a previous chapter, I type in red what needs to go there and put it in either after I'm done or when I'm stuck and need to do something productive.
Here's the tricky part, and I think the part you're talking about. Every page, every paragraph, and every sentence we make decisions about our story. Many of them are small decisions, seemingly unimportant at the time, but sooner or later you want to reference say, what color dres your protagonist wore to the party. The best you can do is search for it. The real trouble is when you forgot that you had already decided your character was wearing a blue dress tonight and later you stick her in a green dress. Readers can catch this, but they can also miss it. All I can say about those things is that I've seen these things in published novels too and usually I don't even care. :-)
Character sheets are very important. Every time you make a decision about a character you need to have a place to add it to your sheet. If you want your character ot have blu e eyes, write it down and later you won't change them to green. If you ever name a character (in other words, they step out of the backgroun enough to warrant a name rather than "the receptionist," write down their name and where you ran across them in a character sheet. I use an excel spreadsheet for that purpose. Actually, I've got one novel that's gone through so many drafts that I have named characters that don't actually appear anymore...but if I ever run into the King's Secretary again his name wlil be Marnin.
Remember, an outline is a simplification, a way of keeping your most important plot elements straight.
Sometimes my mom's eyes are blue, sometimes they're hazel or grey. Occasionally, one may be green. And I don't think it's because some divine pen has slipped. But, she's always my maternal parent.
Some details can be a bit fuzzy. Other details cannot.
If a tattoo one day moves from the left arm to the right arm, it should have a reason to do so. Cousins should not accidentally have subplots because you temporarily forget who you made thier parents out to be. If skywalker had kissed the princess passionately, we'd all be a little grossed out
(except for people in arkansas )
point being, when you create a world, good writing can be fuzzy at times, but you have to have the facts so that you do not contradict.. and i dont think good fantasy can be entirely fuzzy, becuase there is no point if a picture is not drawn in the words. it would be like a bad cell phone connection, and no body likes those ..
[This message has been edited by cgamble (edited June 21, 2004).]
I accidentally had cousins getting together in a story of mine....real trouble is, they wre main characters. I changed one parent first, then the other parent, then made these two parents brothers in such innocent and completely separate decisions that it only occurred to me months later what I had done. That's what comes from having complicated family hierarchies in your story including adoption, kidnapping, unknown biological fathers, etc.
But seriously. There are several programs out there for keeping track of the bits and pieces of your story. I was using Chalk on my PDA for a while. Dramatica is supposed to do this well for PC's but I haven't tried it. You can download a free trial (www.screenplay.com), but I've got dialup, so HA! to that.
BHJr
Art
(subfolders)
Concept, Finished, Maps
Characters
Good, Evil, Neutral, Minor
Civilizations
History
Characters, World events
Legends, Myths, Prophecies
Folklore, Prophecies, True Legends
People, Places, Things
Guilds, Places, Magical Artifacts, Inventions
Plot
Misc, Notes, Goals
That's how I keep track of who's who and what's what. And just in case, I keep a backup copy on CD and a printout copy in my files...somewhere....*peers* I think. ^_^
My system may be complicated but at least it's organized in a way that works for me!