A continuity error is an internal contradiction: eyes that change colour, a Tuesday that follows a Thursday, a character who is somewhere they cannot be. Readers notice them, and they break the spell in a way a clumsy sentence does not.
The professional mechanism for catching them is a style sheet, and it is better sourced than most craft advice, because it is written into editorial standards.
Continuity Is a Named Editorial Responsibility
Worth establishing, because it is often treated as the author's private problem.
Editors Canada lists "checking for consistency and continuity of mechanics and facts" as part of copy editing, and its Professional Editorial Standards require an editor to:
"Recognize and either query or resolve instances of questionable accuracy (e.g., anachronisms in fiction), inadequate research, imbalanced content and lack of focus."
That parenthesis, "anachronisms in fiction", is a professional body writing fiction continuity directly into its standards. IPEd's Australian standards include a whole section titled "Completeness and consistency", and its developmental editing definition names "logic" explicitly.
So this is work an editor is expected to do. It is also work that is far cheaper to do yourself first, because an editor charging by the hour finding your timeline problems is an expensive way to discover them.
The Style Sheet Is the Actual Tool
A style sheet is a running record of every decision and fact that has to stay consistent. Editors Canada's standards require copy editors to:
"Develop a style sheet, or follow one that is provided, to track, identify and consistently apply editorial style (e.g., abbreviations; treatment of numbers; vernacular usages; Canadian, British or American spelling)."
The EFA describes copy editors as "preparing the style sheets that guide consistency and accuracy across the manuscript."
And IPEd's glossary makes the point that matters for a novelist. It defines a style sheet as a:
"List, usually alphabetical, developed by an author while writing or an editor during an edit, detailing points of editorial style for a particular publication or series."
"Developed by an author while writing." A professional body explicitly endorsing authors keeping their own style sheet during drafting, rather than leaving it to an editor afterwards. That is the sourced recommendation this page exists to make.
What Belongs on a Novelist's Style Sheet
The editorial standards cover mechanics. Fiction needs those plus the world:
Mechanics, which is what the bodies specify: spelling variant, treatment of numbers, how you render dialogue interruptions, whether you use serial commas, how you handle emphasis and internal thought.
Names and spellings: every character, place and invented term, spelled exactly once and thereafter copied. This is where most errors enter, because a name typed from memory forty times will not be typed the same way forty times.
Physical facts: eye and hair colour, height, scars, handedness, what a character drives, which hand they hold a weapon in.
Relationships and ages: who is older, who is related to whom, how old everyone is at the point the book opens.
Chronology: what day it is, how much time has passed, what season it is, phases of the moon if you were unwise enough to mention them.
Geography: what is north of what, how long the journey takes, which window looks onto what.
Build it as you draft. Reconstructing one from a finished manuscript is a full read-through, which is the expensive version.
Finding the Ones Already In There
Since no authority publishes a method, this is craft advice.
Search for every proper noun. Find each character and place name and read the hits in sequence. Contradictions surface fast when the mentions are next to each other rather than eighty pages apart.
Read the timeline separately from the prose. Extract just what happens on which day and read that as a list. A chronology that works scene by scene often collapses when you see the whole sequence.
Track one character at a time. Follow one person start to finish, ignoring everyone else. This is how you find someone in two places at once.
Check what changed in revision. Most continuity errors are created by editing, not by drafting. A cut scene that established a fact, a moved chapter, a changed name: each leaves references behind.
Ask a beta reader to note contradictions specifically. The EFA's definition of beta reading includes identifying "plot problems, inconsistencies, or unclear sections", so it is a reasonable thing to ask for. Fresh readers catch what you cannot, because you read what you meant.
What Deckle Does
Three features address this directly, and they map onto the three kinds of continuity above.
The Codex is a structured store for characters, places and anything else recurring, with your own fields. It is a style sheet for the world, kept beside the manuscript rather than in a separate document you forget to update. Since IPEd's definition is a list "developed by an author while writing", this is that list. See tracking character consistency.
The Timeline holds events in chronological order, independent of the order they appear in the book. That separation is exactly the "read the timeline separately" technique above, and it is where a sequence that reads fine scene by scene reveals itself. See checking story chronology for consistency.
Find and replace across the manuscript is how you run the proper-noun sweep, showing every occurrence of a name in one list. See finding and replacing text across your manuscript.
One thing worth knowing about revision specifically: taking a snapshot before a structural change means the version that established a now-missing fact is still recoverable, which is useful when a reader flags a contradiction and you cannot remember what the scene originally said.
For the surrounding stage, see developmental vs line vs copy editing.
Common Mistakes
- Leaving continuity to the editor. They will catch it, by the hour, at developmental or copy editing rates.
- Starting the style sheet after the draft. IPEd's definition assumes it is built while writing.
- Trusting memory for spellings. A name typed from memory forty times will vary.
- Checking continuity only in the draft. Most errors are introduced during revision.
- Reading the book to check the timeline. Extract the chronology and read that instead.
- Mentioning moon phases, tides or train timetables. Every specific fact is a promise to be consistent.
FAQ
Q: What is a style sheet? A: A running record of spellings, facts and style decisions. IPEd defines it as a list developed by an author while writing or an editor during an edit.
Q: Is continuity the editor's job or mine? A: Both. Editorial standards name it explicitly, but finding it yourself first is far cheaper.
Q: When do most continuity errors appear? A: In revision. Cut scenes, moved chapters and renamed characters leave references behind.
Q: Can software catch them? A: Not automatically. Search, a structured reference and a separate timeline make them findable, but the judgement is yours.
Q: Should I ask beta readers to look for them? A: Yes. The EFA's definition of beta reading includes identifying inconsistencies.