"In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies"
About this Quote
De Camp’s advice has the blunt practicality of someone who spent a lifetime watching imaginary worlds collapse under the weight of their own forgetfulness. The line isn’t romantic about “inspiration”; it’s managerial. Plan the series. Know your endpoints. Keep receipts. At first glance, it reads like craft-shop common sense, but the subtext is a warning about reader trust: serial fiction is a long con you perform in public, and continuity errors are how the audience catches you cheating.
The specific intent is defensive. De Camp wrote in an era when genre writers often produced work quickly, across pulps and paperbacks, sometimes under editorial pressure and shifting markets. In that environment, contradictions aren’t just little oopses; they become structural fractures. A character’s backstory changes, the rules of magic wobble, the political geography doesn’t add up, and suddenly the author isn’t an omniscient guide but a distracted landlord.
What makes the quote work is its quiet insistence that consistency is not pedantry, it’s ethics. “Same characters” implies an ongoing relationship: readers invest in personalities the way they invest in friends or rivals. If those people behave differently because the writer didn’t keep track, it doesn’t feel like development; it feels like betrayal. De Camp is also taking a swipe at the myth that a series can be endlessly extended without cost. Planning “the whole series” is a demand for artistic consequence: if you’re going to keep someone in your world for years, you owe them coherence, not improvisation disguised as destiny.
The specific intent is defensive. De Camp wrote in an era when genre writers often produced work quickly, across pulps and paperbacks, sometimes under editorial pressure and shifting markets. In that environment, contradictions aren’t just little oopses; they become structural fractures. A character’s backstory changes, the rules of magic wobble, the political geography doesn’t add up, and suddenly the author isn’t an omniscient guide but a distracted landlord.
What makes the quote work is its quiet insistence that consistency is not pedantry, it’s ethics. “Same characters” implies an ongoing relationship: readers invest in personalities the way they invest in friends or rivals. If those people behave differently because the writer didn’t keep track, it doesn’t feel like development; it feels like betrayal. De Camp is also taking a swipe at the myth that a series can be endlessly extended without cost. Planning “the whole series” is a demand for artistic consequence: if you’re going to keep someone in your world for years, you owe them coherence, not improvisation disguised as destiny.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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