Once I wrote this scene involving a girl and her grandmother. I was just about finished when I realized that the grandmother had DIED earlier in the plot–and I wasn’t writing a ghost story.

So tonight, I’m working on these scenes–two characters in two different places blissfully unaware what the other on is doing. Only when I finish do I remember that the two locations are across the street from each other. You see, the characters may not know what the other is up to, but they do know WHERE the person is supposed to be–and it makes no sense that they could be in those two houses and this fact not come up. How could I forget that these people are neighbors?! Where is my brain? (I realized my mistake when I was about to have a character say something like, “Hey, that’s the street so-and-so lives on.” Oh, wait–WE’RE ON THAT STREET!)

All these books that go on and on with plot…appreciate the brilliance. Whatever you think of the Harry Potter books, the fact that JK Rowling could keep all those plot lines, locations, descriptions straight makes her an effing genious. Hell, I can’t remember my character’s hair color or how to spell their last names half the time. Oh, yes, I take notes, but the other half the time I either don’t remember where the note is or that I even have to look at it.

Forgive your writers and directors their continuity sins–they know not what they do.