Lesson · Continuity
Names and continuity
Readers keep track of your people and places by their names. When a name drifts, they stop to work out whether someone new has arrived. A story bible is only as good as its last update: when you rename someone in revision, change the entry first, then check each chapter again.
01
One name, one spelling
A misspelt name is a small slip with a real cost. A reader who meets “Katrin” after twenty pages of “Katrine” has to decide whether it is a typo or a second person. Either way, they have stepped out of the scene to think about it.
Names drift most when you invented them, and most in long drafts written over months. Spell-checkers miss it, because they do not know your names.
When to keep it
Two spellings are fine when the difference means something and the reader is told: a name changed on arrival in a new country, a misspelling by a character who never learned it. Record both in the story bible.
Ask yourself. If a reader met this spelling with no memory of the others, would they know who it is?
Before
Katrine set the lamp down. Later, Katrin would say she never saw the letter.
After
Katrine set the lamp down. Later, Katrine would say she never saw the letter.
This one works
Her passport said Katrine. Everyone in the village had called her Katrin since she was six.
02
Nicknames are a choice
Characters call each other by different names, and that can carry meaning: a short form from a friend, a title from a stranger. Keep that variation deliberate.
Record each form in your story bible as another name for the same entry. The check then knows it, and the highlights show it as the same person.
This one works
To the board she was Dr Okafor. To her sister she was Bisi. Only her father, once, had called her Oluwabisi.
03
Names that look alike
Marek and Mirek, Ana and Anna: names one letter apart blur together on the page even when each is spelled the same way every time. If both characters matter, consider changing one so they differ at a glance, by first letter or by length.
When you keep both on purpose, add both to your story bible and the check will leave them alone.
Before
Marek handed the keys to Mirek.
After
Marek handed the keys to Tobiasz.
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