: Re: How do I find logical errors in my novel? I have completed writing a novel and have revised it many times. I am very worried that I may have made some logical mistakes, like not revealing

@Jamie945

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Many people have a list of the most important things, like the overall story-arc and when to reveal which part of the plot so that it's easy to see and check these things. It's also a good idea to have a list for your characters with little notes about their characteristics from a physical and mental point of view.

You don't have to do these things, but it can help to have something like this to be consistent.

The problem with finding little mistakes is that you are often too close to your own work - it's hard to see the mistakes because your mind replaces what you are reading with what you wanted to read or simply see in your mind. For example when writing a long chapter and re-reading it multiple times because you are re-writing stuff you will likely overlook a typo or two if your spellchecker doesn't mark them, simply because you are not reading every word carefully. You know what it says after all.

The easiest way to find plotholes is to find a few trusted beta readers and give them the draft so that they can look over it. This will also help you to find out whether you for example have used some words over and over again, or whether you have given the impression that some small element will be important later, but you never mentioned it again. User expectations can be weird, no matter whether your users are users, readers, players or something else - they will find something and your taks will then be to evaluate the feedback and find out what's important to fix and what would interfere with your idea of what the final piece of work should look like.

Making a list of all facts would likely be too much - because you would basically have to note down the entire book in the form of notes. Just a few key points and the important things about your characters, like the most important backstory points, physical appearance and stuff that could be easily verified by a reader by reading a passage second time, such as years or numbers for height/weight/...

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