Keeping track

When writ­ing a nov­el a good mem­o­ry is vital. And more than any­thing else what you must remem­ber is your own work. The char­ac­ter who limps on page six must limp again on page one hun­dred and fifty, unless you can explain it away. And if you do ref­er­ence that limp on page six, you need to ref­er­ence it again, or else why men­tion it at all? Like­wise, the char­ac­ter that has a strong sense of smell should react (when it is there) to either sweet­ness or some­thing foul some­where. More sub­tle char­ac­ter­i­za­tion will enhance your char­ac­ters as you build upon con­sis­ten­cies. I am not ref­er­enc­ing fore­shad­ow­ing here, but depth of understanding.

That said, as you build your sto­ry, you can add these ele­ments retroac­tive­ly. That is, you are on that page one hun­dred and fifty, and only then real­ize it would help if you went back to page six to intro­duce some key ele­ment. Your read­er will nev­er know you’ve done this—nor should they. On the con­trary, they will appre­ci­ate the total­i­ty of your creation.

No one, no one, writes a book from start to fin­ish with­out going, to some degree, back­ward. It’s a way of turn­ing hind­sight into foresight.