Today, over on her Tumblr, Veronica Roth answered a question about an error that was made in early prints of Insurgent, and took the opportunity to offer some good advice to writers. The original post was made to her blogspot back in May, and is just as relevant as ever:
Pieces of advice for other writers working with multiple drafts, or with a series:
1. Make sure you read your first book right before you edit your second. One of my errors popped up because I forgot a small detail in book one. If I had read Divergent again right before editing book two, it wouldn’t have happened.
2. Do a read-through specifically for draft overlap errors. Do not try to look for or fix anything else. And if you don’t think you’re far enough away from the manuscript, ask someone else to read through specifically for confusing or inconsistent details.
3. If you find an error after it’s too late, don’t beat yourself up about it. Mistakes happen and most readers are very forgiving. Just tell someone at the publisher (if you’re a published author), or fix it before you send it out again (if you’re not published yet).