In chapter 3 you wrote that Mara has green eyes. You wrote it on a Tuesday in March, in a hurry, and never thought about it again. In chapter 17, Alex finally looks at her up close and sees a pair of lovely brown eyes. Great scene. Shame about the eyes.
That’s what a story bible is for.
What a story bible is
The name comes from TV: every show has a document with everything you need to know about its world, so the writer who joins in season three doesn’t marry off a character who got divorced in season one. In a novel it’s the same thing on a smaller scale: your external memory. Who’s who, what each place is like, which things matter and which rules never break.
It isn’t the novel. It isn’t a place for pretty writing. It’s a reference notebook, and the faster you can find what you’re looking for, the better it works.
What to write down
The most useful rule of thumb: write down what you’ve already decided and might come up again.
- Things readers see more than once. Mara’s eyes, someone’s scar, Julia’s gravelly voice. Anything that someone will notice if it quietly changes.
- How people talk. Bruno calls everyone “kiddo”, the dragon included. Quirks like that bring a character to life, and they’re very easy to forget.
- What drives each character. What they want, what they need, what lie they believe. That’s not decoration. It’s what tells you how they’ll react in a scene you haven’t written yet.
- Relationships. Who’s whose sister, who owes whom money, who hasn’t spoken to whom since the festival ten years ago.
- The rules of the world. In Wanted: One Dragon, Sunday Plot’s sample novel, the dragon only eats bread from Bruno’s oven. That one rule is what makes the whole third act work. Forget it halfway through and let the dragon snack on salami, and there goes your ending.
- Objects that matter. The egg, the glass case, the cracked shell, the arrest warrant Alex keeps quiet about. Things that change hands, or that someone is looking for.
What not to write down
This takes a bit of nerve, because writing things down is very pleasant and feels a lot like working.
- Things that will never come up. Julia’s favorite food, the name of the hairdresser’s grandfather, the complete history of Valdrago since the Middle Ages. If it’s fun, go for it. Just don’t let it steal your writing afternoon.
- Things you haven’t decided yet. The bible holds decisions. Doubts go in the idea inbox, or under “I don’t know yet”.
- Paragraphs of prose. “Her eyes were the green of meadows after rain” is a line from the novel. In the bible, “green eyes” will do.
Fantasy writers know this condition well: spending two years building the world and never writing a page. A story bible can pass it on to you if you’re not careful. A good cure is to fill it in as you go, when a scene asks you for a detail, and not before.
How to organize it
Roughly in four drawers:
- Characters. One card per person (or per dragon).
- Places. One inside another: Valdrago, the square, the glass case. There’s a whole article on this.
- Objects, groups and rules. Whatever isn’t a person or a place. The twins who run the bar act almost like a single character, so they can be a group.
- Relationships. The lines between all of them.
And one thing you don’t need to write down, because it can be worked out: which scenes each character appears in. That’s already in your scenes. Copying it by hand is the surest way to make it wrong one day.
Tips
- Write it down on the spot. When you decide something while writing, put it in the bible before you move on to the next paragraph. Ten seconds now saves half an hour of digging through chapter 3.
- Keep it short. A card you can read at a glance gets used. A three-page one doesn’t.
- Look over the bible when you finish a chapter. Not to fill it in, just to see whether anything has changed.
For today
Open your protagonist’s card and write down three things people can see or hear: a physical trait, a habit and something about the way they talk. Then one rule of your world that can’t be broken (every world has one, even if it’s “nobody in this town locks their door”).
In Sunday Plot, the Story bible holds your characters (what they’re like, what they want and need, their wound, what they believe and their arc beat by beat), your places, and the objects, groups and rules of your world. You add relationships from each card (“Alex — wants to arrest — Mara”) and see them all together on the Relationships map. And “Where they appear” fills itself in: each character knows which scenes they narrate, are in or get mentioned in, without you copying a thing. Mara’s eyes, though, are up to you.