Writing problems
A character knows something they haven't learned yet
A character acts on a detail before the manuscript appears to give them access to it. The explanation may exist in your planning notes, but their scene does not yet support it.
How PlotDirector can help
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Character knowledge timeline
Follow the character’s knowledge events back to the relevant scenes.
Choose a character and follow their recorded learning, suspicion and misunderstanding through linked scenes.
Look for The first use of the information, the first opportunity to learn it and any missing link between them.
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Why this happens
The author knows the whole story; a character has a smaller, changing set of information. Reordering scenes can accidentally move a use ahead of its source.
A character can arrive at the correct answer for an unreliable reason. Decide whether the scene presents that as a guess or as knowledge that the character has actually acquired.
What to look for
- Find the first action that depends on the information
- Identify the earliest plausible learning opportunity
- Separate knowledge from suspicion, inference and bluff