I was working on Jacob Wonderbar #2 the other day and it came time to reintroduce a teacher that plays an important role in the first book. I summoned my mental image of the teacher… which was completely blank.
What did she look like again? What color hair and eyes did she have? Total blank.
I mean, I’m not great with faces in real life, let alone with fictional characters. I think have a mild form of that face blindness thing, so by the way if I meet you again in real life and I have a blank look on my face it’s not personal I think you’re great just give me some context!!!
Anyway, after that moment I knew I had to work on my Series Bible.
What’s a Series Bible?
Series Bibles take many different forms. Sometimes when writers are coming into an already-existing series or, say, a line of books with certain rules (such as in romance) the Series Bible will give them the characters, world, plotlines, and rules that the writer has to follow.
But you can also create your own – if you’re writing a series, or even if you’re just crafting a single novel set in a unique world with its own rules, I highly recommend creating your own Series Bible. Whenever you reintroduce a character the Series Bible will remind you what they look like. If you have different worlds/planets/lands/classrooms/lairs you won’t have to go hunting through your manuscript to try and remember which one is which.
The Series Bible is a lifesaver when your brain has reached capacity.
What to include in a Series Bible
What to include:
- Characters: What they look like (just copy and paste straight from the book), how many brothers and sisters they have, important events in their past, personality traits, etc. Also, any unique schedules they have, hobbies, etc. I’d include all characters, major and minor. You never know who’s going to reappear.
- Worlds/Planets/Lands/Classrooms/etc.: What they look like, their backstory, any important details, etc.
- Rules of Law: Any important/unique laws or conventions, styles, etc.
- Any backstory that happens off the page: Make sure you know and keep track of all the key details.
- Inventions/Special Powers: This is important, especially for science fiction and fantasy. When you invent something, even when it’s just barely mentioned, it can create huge repercussions for the rest of the story. For instance, if you introduce a personal hyperwarp drive, whenever a character is in trouble your reader will be like, “Duh, use the personal hyperwarp drive, USE THE PERSONAL HYPERWARP DRIVE!!” Keep track of our inventions and powers, and make sure their rules of use are clearly delineated.
- Anything else you need to remember for later
Your Series Bible will save you when you paper over a plot hole only to open up a big ole gaping chasm somewhere else in the book.
Now I just need one for my real life.
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This is excellent and timely advice. Thanks for thinking of it. BTW, have a stellar day!
Hmph. I needed one for my standalone novel just to keep the details consistent!
I've been thinking of writing down my own series bible. So far, I've been committing it all to memory and haven't had any problem. But I still think it would come in handy, just in case.
And I am great with faces, but awful with names. If I see someone I haven't seen in years, I can remember tiny little details like your wife, but I will NEVER know the name. It can get quite embarrassing when you're five minutes into a conversation and you still don't know who it is you're talking to.
Awesome post! I need to do this bigtime so I can remember who was plotting what against who and backstabbed this other guy….
Thanks!!
Microsoft OneNote (which comes with some Microsoft Office Suites) is excellent for this. And to keep from losing the electronic file, try saving it to Dropbox: https://tinyurl.com/y6hbfbz
You can get 2gb of online file space for free, which means lots and lots of Word document storage.
Nathan, any software that you'd recommend for this?
I've traditionally used the "Messy stack of randomly ordered papers" tactic…
Liquid Story Binder is an excellent program to help with making a series bible. Handy note taking functions, and all that. And no, I don't work for the company. :p
I love series bibles, I use them all the time.
I do spreadsheets of my main characters, with wonderful questions like "Favorite alcoholic drink" "Coffee preferences" "Car details" and "favorite karaoke song." It always adds a wonderful layer when writing to know how your characters take their coffee. 🙂
Great advice, Nathan. Useful for editing, as well. I can say that I've had to go digging a number of times to refresh myself on some of the more arcane character details.
I call it "face myopia" and I swear I have it too. (I can recognize faces, but only with effort.) As another commenter said, though, names and spellings may also need to be recorded.
But to the point of the article… Series Bibles can be fun, and therefore are a wonderful time sink. Beware of losing yourself in them.
Jim Butcher has a wonderful post on his Livejournal wherein, among other things, he talks about having key visual phrases for characters in a series. This way, whenever a character is re-introduced, it helps differentiate them from other characters and also immediately draws up a mental image for the reader.
And yes, every writer of series' needs their series bible.
I drew a map of the summer camp my MG novel is set in before I started writing. It has been a huge help in visualizing what the place looks like as my characters move through it.
That's right and your editor will need a copy too. 😉 Otherwise readers will think Janie likes to visit the hair salon day by day with the rate she changes hair color and styles!
I'm working on mine now, supposedly Liquid Story Binder is good for this but I haven't figured it out yet, sigh.
Great post! Karen
Ha! I was doing this yesterday to straighten out some details in my next WIP. (Gotta write them down when they come or else they'll disappear and never come back.)
(Ditto the praise for Liquid Story Binder)
Excellent post, as I'm starting to gather information together on the novel draft just finished, for future use.
I've had that 'blank' moment already, and I (being of the female gender), have an excellent memory for faces, too. However, it's not the same when the faces are in my mind — somehow it doesn't seem to have the same connection that seeing a live person has in the memory cells.
The Series Bible is a great suggestion and something I've been partially doing in the writing program I use. Thanks for sharing and for giving your wife credit for the idea.
Does the wife write too? Just wondering.
I think making the series bible is one of the most fun parts! I make them now even if I'm writing a standalone.
Of course, it's important to remember to update the series bible as needed. Sometimes backstory and motivation, etc., can change as you progress through the novel. You don't want to consult a series bible that says a character did something because of X when the story has evolved so that they've really done it because of Y!
I use New Novelist 2.0 for my series bible. It asks detailed questions for each character, object, place, and for research and ideas.
Also, I don't have to close down my document to access this info; it's always ready whenever I'm blanking.
But with any specialty software I try to back everything up in a word doc as well.
maybe I missed the post, but when did Jacob become a series?
This is also an excellent marketing tool, especially for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and younger readers. A lot of these readers loooove to dissect and stun you and argue with you over every little detail. I can't count the times my daughter has said, furiously, "I'm writing to J.K. Rowling about this!" Personally, I would create an encyclopedia and have it free for download in some way from my website.
I use spiral bound notebooks for my series bible. I have two of them, one for each series I wrote. For my 'stand alones' I just open a new window in word.
Your wife is very wise!
anon-
Well, my thoughts on series is that it's not a series until the second book is published. I'm superstitious like that.
In my only attempt at fantasy, I had to use one to keep track of the properties of plants, characters, names of villages and other places, etc.
It was useful, ubt it was a pain in the butt. Guess, I'm never writing another fantasy (or a series for that matter).
A cool thing is to have pictures of my characters. I just poked around online for people who fit my image of my characters and saved them. Now I can just look at them and describe 🙂
Josie! I was going to rec the Liquid Story Binder that you rec'd to me … but you beat me to it.
But I lurves it, even though I only use 0.5% of the capabilities of that software. Still awesome, and has saved me from tragic WIP problems.
Thanks!
On behalf of your future copyeditor, a story bible is also one step toward a style sheet, which every book should offer to its copyeditor (both for their sanity and yours). People, places, relevant facts that may get contradicted throughout the course of the writing process. Specific spelling choices. The last thing you want is the copyeditor going through your story where you intentionally spelled Armour with a U and deleting them all if that's not the way it's supposed to be.
A style sheet is good for everybody.
Great Advice! Seriously, I've shouted at books before for not using the "hyperdrive device" or whatever. Too funny!
I love this post! And here I thought I was an organizational nut when I did this.
The spiral ring blank notebooks they sell at Barnes and Nobles are wonderful for this. I count ten pages, label every ten page section with a sharpie (setting, character, plot, etc.) and write down all the ideas.
Not only does this help keep track of what you need to know from a book you're writing/already written, this lets you brainstorm about books that keep haunting you but haven't made it to the page. I have some spiralbound notebooks full to the brim with notes about a book that still needs to make it to MS Word. 🙂
Oh, I am right there with you, Nathan. I think I have that face blindness, too! *laughs* I have a horrible time remembering how I described someone, and I've gone back to previous chapters to see what's going on. The Series Bible is a wonderful idea. I'll have to do that. It'll help remembering minor characters names, too! Terrible, terrible with names. *shakes head*
After completing the first draft of my adventure novel, I went immediately into making notes for an eventual series bible. Not only will it keep things straight, but it will also provide fodder for future entries if the main character's backstory comes into the forefront. That's another good reason to keep one.
I keep everything in One Note. I've got Notebooks set up for each different manuscript or series, and I keep EVERYTHING in it. Characters, back story, editing notes, research. It's handy to have it all at my fingertips, especially since I might work on one project for a while, and then move on to a different one.
Nathan, I have a great program called Write It Now – it has tabs for characters, a diagram linking everyone and their relationship,and tabs for settings, events, ideas, and notes. I love it. Everything in one place. Check it out here:
https://www.ravensheadservices.com/index.php
Ah! You've just given us the advantage, Nathan. Be it on your own head if every writer you meet from now on attempts to invent some elaborate history about how you actually connected with them way back when and how you were fabulously interested in their MS but you just don't remember… Or perhaps they do this anyway?
As to my series bible (aka: MY PREEEECIOUS)? I also keep my timeline of events in there.
My "series bible" is actually a spreadsheet. I started it because I couldn't remember which dragons were the bad ones and which were the good and what they looked like.
Now I use the same spreadsheet template for all of my novels just so I have a template of what my characters are. Then if I leave it for awhile, I can go back to the spreadsheet and say 'oh yeah, space monkeys with purple bellies are the bad guys!' without having to read the whole book again.
-Natalie
Word Verification: snati
Oddly enough, this is what my brother's called me when I was a child to irritate me.
I don't write series, but I totally have one of these for my novel and it's a godsend. It keeps my writing tight and my thoughts organized and plus it's a fun thing to do that's novel-related if you really get stuck while writing. It helps a lot with getting through "writer's block" and otherwise lack of motivation.
Dumb Little Man (https://bit.ly/b7JjWI) has this same suggestion on today's post about 9 Habits for Completing Your Novel. It's as if the gods of cyberspace are saying, "Do it. Do it."
Interesting about face recognition. I sympathize with Emily White – for me, the problem is names. I’m really good at remembering both faces and voices (I often recognize an actor in a movie many years later by either face or voice), but I’m horrible at remembering names. Even when I read novels, I tend to forget the characters’ names. I also tend to forget how a novel ends. What’s up with that? I can tell you all kinds of weird stuff about a novel, including psychological ways to analyze the story, symbols, artistry of language, but somehow I need to remind myself to concentrate on the ending to actually get it to go from my short-term memory into my long-term memory.
A Series Bible sounds like an interesting idea. My latest novel includes outer space as well as Earth, time travel and multiple time periods within the future, fictional military and government agencies, and quite a few characters. I even have a couple of characters whose names I created to sound like Chinese names that evolved over time after China became a world superpower. I ended up creating lists of who lived where in which time period, and got really good at searching my manuscript to look up information. 🙂
Useful and timely advice. Like others, wondering what tool you find most effective? I've tried index cards in a box, notebooks and excel – but keep running out of space or needing to change things and redo – going to try a ring binder next, so pages can get added or removed at will. Other ideas?
I have one of these, but it was just a spiral bound notebook with a character name or place at the top of each page. It really was helpful.
That's what I use a personal wiki for. I put tiddlywikiwrite together, specifically for writers, based on the tiddlywiki engine. It's free and open source and will run in any browser. It's meant as an offline, personal tool, rather than a colaborative one.
Feel free to use/modify/etc.
https://www.ljcohen.net/resources-wiki.html
This is such a great thing to do. My series bible is a stack of notes scribbled down on the backs of envelopes, contracts, post-its, and napkins from my glove compartment that only I can understand. I have it down in theory, and it seems to work for me this way. But I need to work on the organization part.
Heh. Oddly enough, considering how bad my memory is in many ways, the time I wrote a series (and lemme tell you, it was LOOONNNGGG, sort of steam-punky thing), I didn't have too much trouble keeping track of it — EXCEPT…I had this imaginary city in which much of the action took place, and by the second book, I had to draw a map of it because I was constantly referring to landmarks in a particular part of the city, and it was a freakin' complicated, detailed city, and there was this chase scene…
I absolutely love this post! I do a Series Bible for all my novels but I never knew that's what it was called. 🙂
~TRA
https://xtheredangelx.blogspot.com
Nathan,
You want a face for your teacher… here, study this one!
First Pic in my gallery at…
https://www.jacketflap.com/profile.asp?member=PYXX
Haste yee back 😉
Yes, when writing a novel, I always have a separate document that I guess you could call a "bible." Also a handwritten notebook to jot down little details that I later add to the bible.
I've often wondered how writers of series' deal with tracking details. It's when you get an avid reader where they'll note details that gets you into problems. (I know that the J.D. Robb "In Death" series ran into a couple of these that had to be corrected later on.)
I've already got documents for character sketches on most of my stories, and when I get to the point of developing them into series, I know I'll have to expand. Good thing they're still flexible at this stage, being unpublished!
Wow, I thought I invented the term, Series Bible, but I guess I didn't. I have one for each of my four series, including the series I didn't sell yet. Writing fantasy, I have lots of things in there like monetary systems, lineage of characters and usually a roughly drawn map of the world.
That sounds like a great idea. Thanks!
Great idea! I sometimes end up going back to the first novel for the minor details or I keep scraps of paper with timelines and birthdates of characters, just can't ever find those scraps. I think I'll get serious about starting my own Series Bible. Thank you, Nathan!
Working in TV it is imperative that you have a Series Bible. With several writers on a show, they need to know the world. For a singular writer, it is a godsend (no pun intended).
It's nice to see a well organized plan for something I've been doing for a long time now. My series Bible is a mess. But if you search on a character or place name, you're likely to find the appropriate description.
Adrianne
I was just thinking last night how I need some kind of notebook with everything I have come up with about my charactors. What a great name to call it.