Why we need editors

In my current work in progress, I established early on that the main character doesn’t drink coffee. She mentions it to just about the first person she encounters, and so you would think I could remember this fact about my own character.

But the other characters keep offering her coffee, and my poor main character has to keep refusing it. She must say, “No, thank you, I don’t drink coffee” at least fifteen times. If you think perhaps there should be less coffee drinking throughout, no matter who is doing the drinking, you are correct.

And yet I noticed the other day as I was working on the manuscript that my main character seems to have given up. I found her drinking a cup of coffee because I gave it to her (or at least one of the other characters did), and this is why we need editors.