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Ask Slashdot: Maintaining Continuity In Your Creative Works?
imac.usr writes: I recently rewatched the Stonecutters episode of The Simpsons and laughed as always at the scene where Homer pulls into his parking space — right next to his house. It's such a great little comic moment. This time, though, it occurred to me that someone probably wrote in to complain that the power plant was normally in a completely different part of town, no doubt adding "I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder." And that got me to wondering: how do creators of serial media — books, web comics, TV shows, even movie serials — record their various continuities? Is there a story bible with the information, or a database of people/places/things, or even something scribbled on a 3x5 card. I know Slashdot is full of artists who must deal with this issue on a regular basis, so I'd be interested in hearing any perspectives on how (or even if) you manage it.
Stephen King found himself in such a pickle to explain several continuity errors in his Dark Tower series that he wrote himself in as a character. Not the first time he wrote about an author being confronted by one of his own characters.
Keep notes of everything you in your work that you'll have to remember later. Have a big board with everything pinned on it and labeled pieces of yarn for their various relationships to each other. Like a detective.
Continuity can usually be retconned (happily or otherwise). Write according to the list of existing rules, and choose to break them strategically.
Example: There was just an episode where Springfield moved the whole town just because.
I vaguely remember seeing a behind-the-scenes thing many moons ago about a UK soap - might have been EastEnders - and it was all notebooks and card indexes.
Oh, and the Homer thing might have been a joke. Some companies give the closest parking spaces as an incentive to the best employees. Homer was lucky he didn't have to drive away from the plant.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
my dad and i used to watch movies Specifically for Continuity Errors. mom refused to be a part. perfect. this even makes a rom-com tolerable. so, Please Don't Do Anything....and no 'managing it', either.
It seems to me most writers do not have (or perhaps simply do not use) any references or knowledge base. If you look at just about any large franchise there are regular contradictions and plot holes. Doctor Who is probably one of the more obvious, but there are several YouTube videos dedicated to pointing out just errors in Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy and any other long-running series. Heck, Cinema Sins points out several in just about every stand alone movie, so imagine how hard it is to keep things straight through a whole series!
One of the few series I can think of that stays true to itself all the way is the Eviscerated Panda series and it's all written by one person, so it's probably easier for the author to keep it straight.
I've heard some movie franchises have someone on staff what has the job of keeping important plot points straight. I'm guessing that person often gets overruled for the sake of time/money/drama.
In film, there's a person who's entire job is making sure that there is continuity from scene to scene (and from titles to credits). Sometimes they're called "continuity supervisor" but that's becoming less common. Usually, they're known as "script supervisor".
So if a character is wearing a hoodie zipped with the hood up in the closeup, the script supervisor makes sure that in the long shot of the character walking away he still has his hoodie zipped with the hood up. Since almost all movies are shot out of sequence, this becomes very important, and the script supervisor has to note all props, so if there's a glass filled 3/4 on a table where two characters are dining, the glass is still 3/4 full in the reaction shot, even though the reaction shot might be shot weeks or months later. Along with the lighting director, they match shadows and along with the costume director, match clothing.
If you ever want to see what a movie looks like when there is no script supervisor (or the script supervisor is stoned), watch Plan 9 From Outer Space by the great Ed Wood. Errors in continuity cause a very disorienting experience for the viewer. It's a fun movie, especially when you see a car pull up in a graveyard in broad daylight and then there's a cut to people exiting the car and it's the middle of the night. You probably have already heard the stories. Bela Lugosi died during filming, so they shot some scenes with someone who was several inches taller and years younger, except he held his cape in front of his face, Dracula style.
Some film makers have used continuity breaks to great effect. For example, the 1940s art film "Meshes of the Afternoon" by Maya Deren is hallucinogenic in its continuity breaks. This film has influenced generations of filmmakers, including current guys like Darren Aronofsky, David Lynch and even more mainstream filmmakers. Also, a generation of Japanese horror directors pay tribute to Maya Deren and her shocking breaks from continuity.
Here, go watch Meshes of the Afternoon right now and see what I mean. It's only like 10 minutes long, so relax a bit and watch the whole thing. It's very trippy. The music is also very very good.
https://youtu.be/YSY0TA-ttMA
You are welcome on my lawn.
Movies have a Script Supervisor whose job is to keep track of things like that. Since most movies are not shot in chronological order, in many locations and over the course of several weeks or months or sometimes even years, this is a bigger challenge than it appears at first glance.
The invention of the digital still camera was a godsend for these folks; they used to go through ungodly quantities of Polaroid film. Now they can keep it all on their computer.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
My day job is a web comic. All of my story notes live largely in Evernote. I mostly try to avoid doing lengthy sagas that need to really worry about continuity.
I believe Marvel and DC employ archivists; part of their job is to be a resource on continuity. Part of the job of a comic's editor is also to catch continuity glitches.
egypt urnash minimal art.
For some series and serials, if you want to write in that "universe" you have to abide by the "Bible."
Back in the day these were printed manuals saying what you could and could not put in your story. I assume they are available in non-dead-tree form these days.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This might be useful for the OP as well - in my own life, I run a few social media accounts, and have a long list of prepared Tweets (as an example) for quick reference/posting. It's all in one big Google Doc, but would LOVE to have 'tabs' for several different categories, and be able to flip through those, rather than scroll down several pages in the Doc. Anyone know of anything like this? (Or work on Google Docs and consider adding this as a feature? ;)
For the purpose of ensuring consistency, the author (whose concentration within the story is typically on what is coming and where characters and the story arc are going to be) is usually not the best person to ensure that current or recent story updates are consistent with existing material they have already written for that universe. For that task, third party human fact-checkers are best (readers of the existing works who have the attention to detail and the fanatical sense of ownership of the author's creation to have built up a body of lore based on the existing material - effectively, people whose concentration within the story is on where the characters and story have already been.
It makes things harder for the author if they are up against a publisher's deadline, and their fact checker points out that the character who is central to a plot twist in Chapter 13 of book 4 had their head chopped off in chapter 9 of book 2, but it is better for the problem to be raised before going to print.
Get a pen and paper and write notes and organize them. Seriously. Why is this a question?
I've found creating various files with all of the lore (helpfully named as Lore - .txt) has helped me immensely with just creating a basic RPG campaign in a personalized world. There is a LOT of writing involved, and sometimes I'll find that what I want to add doesn't match what I've already put in, so my choice is either to scrap re-write the lore or fit the encounter to match the current lore.
The good part about it is simply that I have the lore written down so that I can reference it at any time. The bad part is that the lore might get divided into multiple categories, so, for example, explaining how an advanced computer system works in relation to combat vs research vs everyday use might need to be cross-referenced and changed in multiple places to keep it all consistent. Still, it's working exceptionally well compared to my previous strategy of "wing it and try to link it all together if it ever matters".
This time, though, it occurred to me that someone probably wrote in to complain that the power plant was normally in a completely different part of town, no doubt adding "I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder."
Nobody has actually complained* about that because... wait for it... that episode was really good. In fact there is a special reason why they got away with that particular gag: If they had shown you an accurate portrayal of Homer's drive to work it would have taken much longer than the window of time available to make that joke funny. In other words, they didn't show you that Homer lives next door to the power plant, they just showed you that his time was wasted in a visual way.
I'm not saying you don't need to pay attention to continuity. In fact, I can tell you a simple way to avoid a good deal of continuity issues: Avoid declaring anything about a character that isn't important to the plot. Dave Lister, for example, has had his appendix out twice. They used it early on as a gag because they needed a life event that can only happen once. The second time it was to show off that a new character had benevolent intentions towards them. Did it make sense to use it the first time? Yes. The second time... Um, no, they ended up locking him into a detail for just a throwaway gag. They did, however, establish he was an orphan and that was so important that it rang several times through the entire run of the series. You won't find any lines about him knowing his biological parents** for exactly that reason. Don't say your character has a brother or sister if you never intend to meet them or at least write them in again. We hear about Rimmer's brothers all the time, for example, but have no idea if Kochanski or the Cat are only-childs. Etc. We know about Rimmer's brothers because their treatment of him as a kid has had consequences on his character. It's built in to his character that his brothers tormented him, were smarter and more successful than him, and that they were more loved by his parents than he was. Because of this nobody is going to write a Red Dwarf script where Rimmer is an only child.
That said, don't worry so much about continuity. Make your story work. If you start hearing nitpicks about your character being left-handed instead of right-handed in one episode, it's not because continuity is such an ugly sin, it's because your story isn't entertaining and the nitpicks start becoming a lot more observable.
Oh... that and assholes like me look for problems like that just so we can point them out in order to look smarter. Don't worry about us, though, we paid for the DVD's and/or books because we wanted to go overboard researching it. ;)
* Not one person saw that and said "I won't watch that show anymore."
** Yes, I know there's a problem with that statement, no I don't want to go into it.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't "continuity in creative works" consistency and elegant evolution between software versions?
That's what George Martin does: http://www.businessinsider.com...
Perl Programmer for hire
There are some software solutions out there that in addition to actually store your writing, have functions that help to store your research, character bios, locations etc... Some are gear more towards writing novels and others can cover a wide gamut.
I've used Liquid Story Binder (which doesn't seem to be actively updated any more) and Scrivener. They both have ways to keep your facts straight.
You don't necessarily need to use software that's specifically created for this. I've also used mind mapping tools (Mindjet MindManager, MindGenius, FreeMind (open source)) when I am starting out with some ideas. Other tools that I have used includes MS OneNote (free), Evernote (on-line), AllMyNotes, Right Note, myBase and Ultra Recall.
Interestingly, even with access to these these tools, I still use Notepad++, or vi a lot of the time to store some info in txt files.
Even with any of these tools, you should always double check and use people to verify that you didn't mess up.
If you want to look at a scene that plays with continuity: Find the scene where the cops (Leslie Nielson & co) are in the cruiser. The conversation is entirely blase. The thing to look for is the donuts and the coffee cups - they migrate around, get refilled, change color. It must have driven the continuity people nuts, it was intentionally screwing with the one subject they work very hard at getting right.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
Realistically Simpsons has been going for so long that its crossed the generational gap and so the youngsters watching it now are not the people who watched it back in the 1990s. Who needs to keep the microdetail from epsiodes that are never shown now because they were in the wrong aspect ratio for wide screen and poor quality.
And the voice over stars show that, Edna Krabappel voice, Manjula voice both dead in real life, Marcia Wallace died from breast cancer age 70. Jan Hooks died aged 57! and her voice has been replaced.
So both the need and ability to maintain continuity is decreasing.
Really they should wrap it up, its tired and the deaths of the cast is becoming depressing.
On Stargate SG-1 they did have a bible, just a book of facts about everything they had to stick with and would continually review and update. I heard that pretty early on, about 1999. I figure a written journal style book would become difficult to manage as things go on, so it wouldn't surprise me if people are using something a little more searchable these days.
Its a god-damn-comedy it doesn't have to have perfect continuity, so pull the fucking rod out of your ass.
What is important is sitting back and enjoying it, and never minding that Bart Simpson should be older now than homer was when the series started.
Some authors and show writers have most of the story planned in advance. JMS had the Babylon 5 Universe planned out for at least 1 000 years in the past and 1 000 000 years in the future (and also had a series bible). JKRowling had the 7 years of Harry Potter planned out, and even had the last chapter of book 7 written and locked away for years. I think even for LOST, they had a couple of seasons planned out before season 1 was finished (although I seem to remember that half way through season 1 they really only decided were season 1 itself was going... I might be wrong here, though).
It does seem like most series and books, though, aren't planned, so continuity is much harder to maintain, especially where multiple writers are involved, writing different episodes and not necessarily communicating. And this is why James Cameron got the writers for the next 3 Avatars movies into a room, between them they worked out what was going to happen in the next 3 movies, and only then did he tell the writers which movies they would be writing.
Have you ever looked at older shows? Sitcoms especially? Nobody gave half a shit about continuity until the later 1990s. Take any comedy show from the 50s to the 90s and note how none of them cares about any kind of continuity between episodes. And it's not even just sacrificing continuity for a gag, it was simply a non-issue. Minor characters being played by different actors (or the opposite, the same actor playing completely different minor roles), characters getting and losing relatives as it fits the (current) story, getting and losing jobs and being superior to the main protagonist today and his underling tomorrow.
Continuity is something that only popped up very recently when viewers started to want such a thing. And it's still a rather small (but very vocal) minority that cares about such things, at least in shows where it simply does not matter.
Be honest: Does it matter just where the Simpsons live relative to the power plant? Not for the general plot it doesn't. It certainly matters for some OCDs who want to map out Springfield, something that's a completely insane undertaking anyway considering that (due to plots) Springfield has to be at the same time in an area where it snows heavily, you have insane heat waves, is located right next to an ocean and a towering mountain range. And that's just the geographic problems.
Continuity is a must in shows that have ongoing story arcs that span multiple shows or even seasons. Babylon 5 without continuity would just plainly suck. But the Simpsons? C'mon.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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You don't. The joke, plot, drama always comes first. If you have to alter time, location, continuity for dramatic impact, do it. Only maybe 1% of the population will ever notice and most of those are the kind of people who masturbate to sonic the hedgehog's anatomy.
Just let go. The setting is there to support the plot, not the other way around.
I employ three tactics to maintain continuity in my writing:
When I feel uninspired, I read what I've already written. That way it stays in my mind.
I keep fairly detailed notes with one or two lines per chapter. That way at least I know where to look for a reference.
I have an editor that catches the continuity errors that slip through the cracks. I perform the same service for his writing, though I wouldn't call it a symmetric relationship considering I've written about ten times the volume he has.
I also have a delay between writing and publishing. Although I am releasing in a serial fashion, I deliberately keep releases about 12,000 words behind my current writing point. I have only had two cases where I have had to retcon already released material, and that has been very minor (such as changing a reference of climbing three flights of stairs, to four, because the ground level on one end of the building is higher than the other and I mentally miscalculated which entrance they would be using).
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
There's really no such thing as continuity in a show where characters spend an eternity in grade school. If there was continuity in the Simpsons, then Bart would be as old as Homer by now, having brats of his own.
The package for selling a series typically consists of a treatment/pitch document, a pilot script and a story bible. The story bible typically contains the layout of the characters and main story lines for the first season and often has synopses of a;; the first season shows.
A series has a master producer called a Show Runner. If that guy or gal is concerned with continuity across episodes and seasons then continuity happens. If they are not then the only continuity you can count upon is adherence to the story bible and in-episode continuity which is handled by the script supervisor/continuity supervisor.
A good show runner keeps the story bible updated as things change and grow.
Every rule has more than one consequence.
This article is good about Star Wars continuity... http://archive.wired.com/enter...
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What would have been a non-idiotic way to protest conflicts of interest among video game reviewers?
Three examples come to mind: Star Trek, lady mystery author, Game of Thrones.
The guy who was the Science Consultant for Star Trek had a two part job. One was to get the "real"science right (or close enough). The other was to make sure the fictional particles and weapons and such were consistent with previous appearances.
Says my wife: a certain prolific/productive/hack writer of series detective fiction hired a family member to record and organize various facts about people and events and such in her detective stories.
There's a guy who has pretty much written an encyclopedia of the Game of Thrones, with genealogies, dragon husbandry tips, geography, etc. (I know nothing about Game of Thrones.) George R. R. Martin uses it -- and maybe has hired the guy to maintain it -- because GRRM had trouble keeping track of it all.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
I've read a number of comments about all the movies that let you know you're in Paris by the fact that you can see the Eiffel Tower through a window. After a while, some viewers start to realize that in the movie's world, the Eiffel Tower is visible from every window in Paris. So is there really a regulation in Paris saying that windows are illegal on the other sides of buildings?
Other readers can probably list a number of other such landmarks that they've spotted. The Golden Gate Bridge is another, so SF apparently has a similar construction regulation.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
If you want continuity of location, build a scale model or keep a current drawing of the town. That being said, the episode of Simpsons you mention is done for the comedic effect. Simpsons is a show set in a generic town of Springfield which can be any of the dozens of Springfields and the comedic value comes before plot continuity. In South Park, Kenny dies in every almost every episode. It's funny. For the most part there is no explanation of how he magically reappears again. No one cares. Simpsons, Family Guy, etc.. are the same way, they take liberties, get the characters into impossible situations, burn down buildings, etc and unless it adds to the storyline, the next episode is back to normal where everything is back to the way it was.
In the past, this was one of the reasons that publishers and writers used editors. They weren't just there to correct spelling mistakes.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I don't make movies or TV or even serial art, but I used to write a lot and would always want to maintain internal consistency between stories set in the same, usually, science-fictional universe. I started using a private wiki to do that with, based on TiddlyWiki, which is self-contained, basically one page, and doesn't need a database behind it. I wrote about it on my blog here:A Personal Wiki.
As an example of what one might put into a wiki like that, I put a bunch of the Traveller RPG "Library Data" from the old rulebooks into a wiki for players. You can find it here: Traveller Library Data Wiki.
Oh, the trials and tribulations of a network geek! Read about them at: http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/
I think continuity is a good thing. I am sure you can look up some examples of "you will not believe the amount of backstory that went into this". Yeah, the Simpsons clearly do not try, and poke fun of themselves all the time. I think as you get more serious shows you should try a little harder. You want to make your world interesting, then you have this design in you mind. Obviously not a substitute for story, nobody is going to care if you name every street you walk down in a boring story. Some shows we just have to give the windows me / vista treatment to. As for the blatant flubs, the bigger the flub the more I hate it, it is already some crazy story, do not exasperate the situation. One I can remember being peeved about was the who knows latest reboot of spiderman. They had someone to make up real formulas on the chalkboard, only used special effects when they had to, and so on. If it is a serious movie then yeah, do not screw your shit up, is this some fake ass action movie, sure you can fire full auto for 40 min. Is this supposed to be real world? Then do not cock your firearm 10 times. Splitting hairs is one thing, cutting off your toe is another.