Story inconsistencies and the benefits of beta readers

Ah, beta readers, I love and appreciate them, yet their input can be quite disheartening at times. After I finish a part and send it to my beta readers, I’d feel elated. After all, the plot is clever and interesting, the descriptions are pretty good and the characters feel authentic. I am totally ready to write the next part and make it even better. Then I see their feedback and I feel like I just took a beating.

They point out all of the typos, wrong words and subpar word choices, which are found in such quantities that it makes me wonder if I can write at all (and this is after I went through the text myself and ran it through grammarly). Even worse is the knowledge that even my beta readers will miss some of the errors. I was just looking up a certain event in my story, and after skimming through several parts I found four errors. I won’t even bring up my punctuation, I am sure it’s a total mess.

Of course, disheartening and annoying as such simple errors are, they are something any writer will have to get used to. No matter how good one becomes, these things will still happen. There is a reason why even the best writers have editors and proofreaders.

The more infuriating, yet most beneficial for me as a writer, are story inconsistencies. There are two distinct types these come in: character inconsistencies and narrative inconsistency. The first one is where characters behave in a way that is inconsistent with how one expects them to behave, while the latter happens when the story skips something or just doesn’t explain it well, leaving readers wondering about certain details.

I’ll use Vol15. Chapter 5, part 7 as an example. The part opens with Ainz being surrounded by six insectoid monsters, as part of his training. As he breaks outof the encirclement, Ainz stabs two of the monsters. However, the original part makes no mention as to what happens to the stabbed monsters. This is a narrative inconsistency. It may not feel like that big of a deal, but it can lead to more issues.

Ainz continues to train, and when Albedo enters the scene, some half an hour later, Ainz is once again surrounded. How did this happen? Is it simply inevitable when fighting 1v6? The story doesn’t explain this, leaving the readers to wonder once again.

Finally, when one of the insectoids lands a hit on Ainz, it, along with the other five, display a very strong reaction. But why? If Ainz and the monsters are just playing wack-a-mole, where they are trying to hit each other, not taking any damage, then shouldn’t they be landing hits on Ainz all the time? Why such a strong reaction this time?

See, that seemingly negligible narrative inconsistency at the start had amplified and finally resulted in a scene that makes little sense. The reason is not due to the scene being bad, but rather the lack of a proper set up due to reader missing pertinent information.

The updated part addresses all of these issues. It first explains what happens to the monsters that got stabbed. It then further explains that Ainz is specifically training on how to break out of an encirclement, where each round starts with him being surrounded. Finally, it is implied that although Ainz had been hit before, it doesn’t happen that frequently (which makes sense the reader now knows that the monsters that get hit are tagged out, so it’s not just the six monsters trying to whack Ainz for half an hour.)

The (toned down) reaction of the monsters after they land an attack on Ainz now makes perfect sense and is completely in character for all involved.

Character inconsistency are a bit more nuanced. After all, how any given character should behave is a matter of opinion. Still, there are often cases where the out of character behavior is more obvious.

In the same chapter 5, part 7, we follow Leinas as she seeks an audience with Ainz to ask him to cure her curse. Why does she think she can just waltz in and get a meeting with Ainz? As someone who served Jircniv for some years, she should be well aware of the proper way of seeking an audience with a monarch.

There are several other instances where she is portrayed as being rather naive, instead of the shrewd, mercenary-like minded person. Like when she wonders if Enri is stronger than a Death Knight (yes, the goblins all propped up Enri’s power, but is that enough?) As well as the way her request to see Ainz was worded in the original.

While these issues may appear unimportant, such inconsistent writing can result in characters having ambiguous behavior. Which leads to larger problem, namely that people have no idea what to expect from said character, and thus can’t form an attachment to it (obviously more important for original characters/works, where there is no foundation provided by the original work to the fanfictions.)

Stomping out such story inconsistencies is key to writing enjoyable stories that make sense. And unlike the unavoidable typos, this is actually something I can master, though the inconsistencies can be difficult to spot.

Speaking of which, if you are good at seeing such inconsistencies and want to help me make the story better (and help me improve as a writer), then please become a beta reader for my story. (email me at jaconue5 at gmail if you are interested)