Find the contradictions in your novel before a reader does
Last checked against the product October 1, 2026
By chapter twenty, nobody remembers what chapter three promised. An eye color drifts, a character knows a secret she was never told, a journey of three days takes one. Continuity check is a mode of Minty, the editor built into the Novelmint Studio. It reads your whole book and your story bible, then gives you a list of what contradicts what, with each item pinned to the scenes that disagree. It reports and changes nothing; what to fix stays your call.
Key takeaways
- Continuity check is a read-only mode of Minty, the AI editor in the Novelmint Studio. It looks for contradictions and nothing else.
- It checks five things: character facts, world rules, objects and props, chronology, and plot logic such as a payoff with no setup.
- Every finding names the chapters and beats that conflict and says what contradicts what. A beat is one story moment, such as a scene or an exchange, and a chapter is usually four to ten of them.
- It cannot change your book. To act on a finding you switch Minty to Build mode, where the findings are already saved for her to read.
- It runs on one book, or across every book in a series from the series page.
What it does
What it checks
Character facts
Appearance, age, relationships, and the one that is hardest to track by hand: what each character knows, and when they learned it.
World rules
A magic system with a cost, a law of the setting, a limit you wrote into your bible. The check looks for the scene where the rule quietly stops applying.
Objects and props
The letter burned in one chapter and read aloud in another. The sword left behind that is somehow back in hand.
Chronology
The order of events and the clock: days that do not add up, a season that turns too soon, an effect that lands before its cause.
Plot logic
A payoff nobody set up, and a setup that never pays off. Loose threads count as continuity too.
Clean areas, said plainly
When part of the book holds together, the report says so in a line. It does not invent problems to fill the page.
How to use it
From first sweep to fixed
Open your book’s Timeline
The Timeline is the plan of your book: its chapters, and the beats inside them. Open Minty with the button at the top right.
Switch the mode to Continuity check
The mode menu sits in Minty’s chat panel. The mode stays on until you change it.
Ask for a full sweep or one area
Check the whole book, or name what worries you: one character, the timeline, a single plot thread.
Read the findings
Each one cites the chapters and beats in conflict and states the contradiction, so you can go straight to the place.
Fix what you agree with
Switch to Build mode and tell Minty which findings to fix. She can read what the check saved, so you do not have to repeat it. Or edit the beats yourself.
Example
What a finding looks like
You ask
Check the timeline for Mara. Dates and travel especially.
You get back
- Chapter 4, beat 2 has Mara leaving Vell at first frost. Chapter 6, beat 1 has her arriving in Orrin "three days later", at midsummer. One of the two seasons is wrong.
- Chapter 9, beat 4: Mara tells Joss the vault code. Chapter 12, beat 3: Joss is surprised the vault has a code at all. He already knows it.
- The debt to the ferryman is set up in chapter 2, beat 5 and never comes due. Pay it off or cut the setup.
- Her age, her family ties, and the scar on her left hand are consistent throughout.
An illustration with an invented story, to show the shape of a report. Your findings come from your own book.
Questions
Frequently asked
- What is a continuity error in a novel?
- A continuity error is a detail that contradicts something the book already established: a changed eye color, a character who knows what they were never told, a timeline that does not add up, a world rule that stops applying. Readers notice because it breaks the sense that the story is one consistent place.
- How does Novelmint check a novel for continuity errors?
- Continuity check is a mode of Minty, the AI editor in the Novelmint Studio. It reads the book’s timeline - its chapters and beats - along with the characters, places, and rules in your story bible, and reports the contradictions it finds. Each finding cites the chapters and beats that conflict.
- Does it fix the errors it finds?
- No. The mode is read-only by design and cannot change your book. To act on a finding, switch Minty to Build mode and ask for the fix, or edit the beats yourself. Build mode can read the findings the check saved.
- Can it check across a whole series?
- Yes. From the series page, the same mode looks for contradictions between books: a fact that changes from book one to book three, the timeline between books, a setup in an early book that a later one never pays off.
- Do I need to know what a beat is to use it?
- No. A beat is one story moment - a scene, an exchange, a turning point - and a chapter is a handful of them. Novelmint plans books in beats, which is why a finding can point at the exact moment and not just the chapter.What is a story beat?
- Does a continuity check cost credits?
- It writes no prose, so it never starts a chapter build. It is a conversation with Minty and is counted as Minty chat. Current allowances are on the pricing page.Pricing
- Can I run it from Claude?
- Yes. Novelmint’s MCP server includes a "Check continuity" prompt that runs the same hunt from Claude or another MCP client.Use Novelmint from Claude
What this page does not claim
- It does not promise to catch every error. Treat it as a careful second reader; the final read is still yours.
- It does not change your book. It flags, and you decide what to fix.
- It works from your timeline and your story bible, the structure of the book. It is not a proofread of spelling or sentences.
- It judges consistency and not quality. A consistent story can still need work on pacing or character, which is what Review mode is for.
- The sample findings on this page use an invented story. They are not output from a real book.
Keep reading
Why a check like this is possible
A contradiction can only be pinned to a scene if the book is planned scene by scene. Novelmint plans a story in beats and keeps the cast and the world in a bible, and the check reads both.
İlgili
Plan a book with Minty
Talk the story through and watch it become chapters and scenes on your Timeline.
Chapter builds
Turn a chapter’s beats into prose, written from your plan, your bible, and your voice.
Revise and polish
Fix the one scene that missed without rebuilding the chapter around it.
Import a manuscript
Bring in a book you already wrote. Your words stay; the structure is worked out from them.
Keep every chapter true to the ones before it.
No card. Your first chapter is free.