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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/4220
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> **Possible Duplicate:**  
> [Organizing your Universe?](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/327/organizing-your-universe)

I have some issues on the organization of my fantasy story.

For instance there are many factions that come into play during the story and I being a very thorough person am very well aware of the discomfort caused by story **inconsistencies**. I want my story to be perfect (understandable) but have some issues finding a way to achieve this in a easy manner (of course a story can't be perfect but I want to get as close as I can). I like to think of myself as organized but in reality I am half-organized sometimes chaotic sometimes organized and it has turned out it is an issue to my writing.

I get confused on which character had this and that **characteristics** and his **setting** because he wasn't that important at given moment of the story and he is now mentioned in a given paragraph and I myself do **not remember** him! This not only happens with characters but also with **settings** and **descriptions of environment**. I already drew maps that have helped me greatly at **spatial organization** , but as the story lengthens and new characters appear it becomes more complicated. What suggestions do you have to solve such an issue?

You will likely say that the problem is inherent to the **complexity** of the story and that one can do a epic story being simple at the same time (I am rather skeptical about that) because I feel that a rich epic story has a complex and richly described setting. Being consistent is part of its richness.

I already made a **guide document** but wanted to know if there is a **standard process** to do this, while reading the Dark Tower Epic story of Steven King he says that he needed such a guide but he doesn't explain how did he achieve it.

Many thanks and sorry about the length of the question as I try to be as specific as possible to prevent unrelated answers.

Question: How to organize content of long story to avoid inconsistencies?

Original score: 3