Every good counter knows the regular’s order — because it was written down the first time, not remembered afresh each visit. Series drift is the opposite habit: the character re-described from memory at every job, and memory edits as it goes. Write her down once, on a counter card you paste rather than retype.
Five fixed lines, always in order
Age — a number, and at this counter a mature one. Hair — colour, length and one habitual style. Build — two or three words. Face — one or two details that endure every crop. Signature — the clip, the mark, the detail that survives a tight frame. Everything else belongs to the changing line: outfit, seat, hour, light. Changing lines are meant to change. Card lines are not.
State lines plainly and positively; adjectives are reinterpreted at every attempt, concrete descriptions survive. Version the card when she is deliberately changed, with a date, so an old set can be remade exactly as it was.
Working from the card
Pair the card with changing lines that share one setting and one light, generate at the standard 6-credit cost, and keep the best third. Spend on repairs, transfers and upscales only after the cull. A frame that returns off character almost always traces to the card: a contradiction, or a line too vague to hold her.
What a card cannot do
It cannot hold a character who was never decided. Decide her on paper first; the card is where the decision is kept, visit after visit.