Thoughts on Writing #30: Continuity . . . by Seanan McGuire

[Lester Curtis]

A very solid column from Seanan . . . better than some of the ones posted in the past few months.

I especially liked the section dealing with 'retcon.' Tricky stuff, indeed; I've had a taste.

[doc]

Continuity is so hard!Even Seanan missed one!

"My first published work of novel-length fiction, Rosemary and Rue, will be coming out released in September of 2009."

Okay, in July 2011, what happened?

A. The novel was eaten by a grue.
B. It was trapped in twisty little editors' offices, all alike.
C. The publisher kept promising and promising in one long unbroken string of smoke and mirrors moving from excuse to excuse so that she could not interrupt and ask for her advance. It was really quite hypnotic.

or ...

D. It's out! The greatest work of literature since Shakespeare! Rush out and buy it!!
Or something.

This is an artifact of Seanan recycling her essays. But then, it's a reduce, reuse and remix society, so not everything runs on gas anymore.

Actually, the novel was, indeed, released in 2009. Aphelion ran a review of it. And you should give it a read, because it's a really good book.

These essays are being run here with Seanan's kind permission, but they have appeared elsewhere, and due to the fact that she writes much faster than Aphelion publishes, there's a long lead time on it. If you want to pounce on someone with glee, blame the editor (me), for not checking closer for that sort of thing.

[doc]

Let's chalk that up to a double layer of misunderstanding - one, that I didn't quite get that the essays were all frozen and being "syndicated", but you raise a nice larger point about how continuity affects republished materials. I'll leave it to my betters whether Star Trek, Dr. Who, or Star Wars had the most continuity adventures (though maybe Comics rules them all and in the reboot binds them!).

Given that it was comics who reshuffle their continuity so often and with such abandon that it gave us the wonderful term "retcon" (short for "retroactive continuity"), I say the comics definitely win.