As someone suffering from a mild case of OCD, order and consistency play an important role in my writing. Things have to be meticulous, in every shape or form. However, when you are trying to write a book, sprawling over four hundred pages with some 50 chapters and perhaps 150K words, even the most obsessed author will begin to lose track.

No one has a perfect memory. And no one can really remember all the little details they wrote on page 39 once they refer to that same character or place on page 511. Indeed, let’s take my book two, yet unpublished as a nice example. First, a brief introduction. It’s the sequel to The Betrayed, and it has turned out to be longer than I have expected. I will not be disclosing any specifics right now, as I want to save this information for later. Call it a teaser if you will. Now, throughout the book, I introduce more than 190 miscellaneous characters, more than 70 places, and more than 140 different customs, rituals, historical events, and other cultural things that define the fictional world of the series. Do you honestly expect me to remember every one of them, to the last detail, including the layout of corridors in some palace, or the color of houses in a dockyard. Or as De Niro’s character Sam in Ronin asks: What’s the color of the boathouse in Hereford?

Solution – write down everything

So how do I keep track of everything, making sure my OCD is not harmed? Well, I write down everything. Every last detail. After I complete writing a chapter, I let it rest a day or two. Then, I summarize it. I outline the plot, I carefully mark down the date, and I list the notable events happening in that chapter. For example, a hero gets a new talisman, or someone gets wounded, or someone else makes an important decision.

Then, I also keep a character page for each of the protagonist. The pages include their looks, their hair and eye color, notable traits, skills, inventory, family members and history, cardinal events in their past, cross references to important events listed in the summary, retinue, everything.

Likewise, I have a separate wiki-like page for miscellaneous characters and the world, which include all the details mentioned in different chapters, going as far as elaborating on customs, idioms, curses, popular phrases, dress code, economy, and other bits.

When I next need to write about someone mentioned in one of the previous chapters, be it a few days or a few weeks later, I always ake sure to read several chapters from the summary page, examine the notable events revoling around that particular character, and only then begin the new chapter. The carefully laid out hierarchy and timetables help me maintain consistency. And this works. Looking back at the editorial process for The Betrayed, my editor found only one issue with a specific character doing something that was slightly out of sync with their previous decision about twenty pages earlier. That’s all.

Not a simple thing, I must admit, because there’s an approximately 15-20% overhead for evert written chapter. However, it is easier than rewriting everything from scratch and fixing mistakes after the fact. It’s best to write perfectly from start, since this way you avoid your internal conflicts as well as bad decisions and a clumsy plot.

And there’s a wealth of combat-proven experience. Enjoy.

Stay tuned for more goodness.