How a Location Sheet Caught a Continuity Error in Chapter 14
Continuity errors in novels do not hide in big things, they hide in a door: in chapter 3 of my crime novel, the office door is on the right as you enter the kitchen; in chapter 14, written two months later, it is on the left. Nobody would have noticed, except that the whole scene in chapter 14 rested on what Bastien could see from that office. Here is how the location sheet caught the error, and what the fix did to the scene.
The sheet, written at chapter 3
The novel is called "The Locks". When I described the lock keeper's house for the first time, I filled in the location sheet in five lines, without really believing in it:
Lock keeper's house. Entrance through the kitchen, canal side. Office door on the right as you come in. Two windows onto the canal, none onto the road. You hear the sluice gates at night. Key under the rosemary pot, known to Helene, Bastien and Corbin.
Five lines, source chapter noted, and I never touched it again. The routine that goes with it is described in how to keep track of characters, places and timelines.
Chapter 14, written two months later
Bastien is hiding in the office. Someone comes in through the kitchen with the key. In my first draft, he eases the office door open, sees the visitor from behind at the sink, recognizes Corbin by his jacket, and the scene runs: he knows who has the key, he knows who came the night of the body. It is the pivot of the book.
I had put the door on the left. In my head, two months after chapter 3, the kitchen had turned around.
The alert
When I marked the chapter as finished, the Archivist reread it with the sheets in view and handed me this:
Chapter 14: "the office door, to the left of the sink". Location sheet, Lock keeper's house (chapter 3): office door on the right as you come in. Chapter 3 also places the sink under the canal-side window.
A The Archivist · Continuity keeper Pre-recorded demo
The Archivist checks chapter 14 of "Bellécume"
The Archivist
I compared chapter 14 with the sheets and the timeline. Three things to check:
- Scar. Nils's sheet says the scar is on his right cheek (chapter 5, the fall on the rocks). Here it is on the left.
- Timeline. Chapter 12 ends "in the first week of May". Chapter 14 happens "in the March rain". A deliberate flashback, or a slip?
- Location. Elea left Bellécume in chapter 11 for the Isle of Sleepers. She cannot have written "from Bellécume" the day before, unless she came back off-page.
Nothing to report on Theodore: he has been the lighthouse keeper since chapter 3 and his sheet lists no travel.
The Archivist
Noted. I suggest you change "left" to "right" and "March" to "May" in your text; I will not edit it myself. For Elea, as soon as chapter 13 is in the novel I will update her location and the alert will disappear. Do you want me to add "back in Bellécume, chapter 13" to her sheet in the meantime?
Pre-recorded simulation. The Archivist reads the sheets, locations and timeline of the novel; it flags, the author decides.
It corrected nothing. It put the two sentences side by side and let me decide. My first reaction was to change the sheet. Then I redrew the kitchen on a scrap of paper, with the door on the right and the sink under the window, and I understood that the scene no longer held.
What the fix changed
With the door on the right, Bastien easing the office open ends up in the line of sight of anyone standing at the sink: all Corbin has to do is glance up at the window, and he sees the reflection of the door moving. Bastien cannot look. He can only listen.
So the scene changed meaning. Bastien, in the dark, hears footsteps in the kitchen, and the footsteps limp. Corbin has not driven since his accident, his sheet has said so since chapter 4, and he has limped since the same day. Bastien recognizes the visitor without seeing him, by a detail the reader already knows, and the scene became better: slower, more closed in, resting on something planted ten chapters earlier. The old version handed over the information; the new one makes it earned.
I also kept a line for chapter 15: the next morning, the rosemary pot has been moved. The key was on the sheet too.
What I take from it
A location error is almost never just a location error. It hides a scene written from memory, where the author sees what he wants to see. Which side a door is on decides who can watch whom. If your geography is bigger than a house, the same logic applies to a valley or a climate, as shown in novel geography: maps and climate. And when the inconsistency is not in the setting but in the plot, the method for closing it is in how to fix plot holes.
The location sheet cost five lines at chapter 3. It gave back a scene. Corbin's sheet, filled in the same way, gave back the solution: the template that makes this kind of return possible is in the character profile template that actually talks back.
Frequently asked questions
How do you check continuity in a novel? By noting every fact the text fixes in a sheet, with the source chapter, and by rereading every finished chapter with those sheets in view, yourself or with a reader that flags the gaps.
Is a setting error a serious continuity error? On its own, rarely. But it often signals a scene written from memory, which is where the real errors (who sees what, who knows what) hide.
Do you need a sheet for every location? For every location where more than one scene happens, yes: five lines are enough. Places passed through once do not need one.
If you want your location sheets reread at every finished chapter, without anyone rewriting a line for you, Sagoræ offers a free trial, no card required.
✒️ Read next: How to Keep Track of Characters, Places and Timelines Without a Spreadsheet · How to Write a Book Series: Keeping a Series Bible Across Three Volumes
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