Joseph Nassise

I was involved in a message board discussion the other day about how I set up a series bible. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a series bible is a summary of all the information you need to write multiple books (or television shows or films or what-have-you) in the same setting/story world. Since I do the same thing for my stand alone novels as I do for series work, I thought I’d share that process with you all.

The first thing I do is assemble all of my organizational materials into a three ring binder. I use tabbed dividers so that I can find things easily once the project has begun. I usually use the same set of tags on every project – Characters, Setting, Plot, Timeline, Research, Unanswered Questions, and Reminders.

– The Characters section contains all of my character summaries, my back-story notes, and a physical description sheet that allows me to easily reference things like eye color, height, weight, etc. I also make a habit of cutting pictures out of magazines or off the web to remind me of what certain characters might look like and I keep these with my notes for visual cues when it comes time to develop descriptive passages.

– The Setting section contains all of my setting sketches (one page summaries of everything I know about a particular place or setting) as well as any miscellaneous notes I might have lying around discussing how those setting relate to each other. As with my characters, if I have any images that I’ve saved, I put these in the binder as well.

– The Plot section contains my one paragraph, my four paragraph, and my four page plot summaries, as well as my individual scene breakdowns. I think I’ll talk more about these in my next essay.

– The Timeline section contains my spreadsheet mapping out exactly when things happen in the storyline. If I need to keep track of more detailed events (such as the exact timing of some of the events during the murders in my forthcoming novel THE WITCHES’ HAMMER,) I’ll also draw up one page sheets that outline these as well.

– The Research section contains not only my original list of research topics, but also the research itself. When writing my Templar Chronicles trilogy, I wanted my modern extrapolation of the Templar order to be as close to the original as possible, so this section actually grew so large as to necessitate its own binder. Do whatever feels right to you but remember, you shouldn’t be spending so much time researching that you never get around to actually writing!

– The Unanswered Questions is, appropriately enough, full of unanswered questions. These can be specific research issues (also filed in the Research section) or they can be character and/or plot issues that I haven’t yet worked out. Putting them in their own section and making a point to review it every few days keeps me from forgetting to answer them in the manuscript.

– The Reminders section is particularly important. The last thing I want to do is stifle my creativity and forward momentum by constantly going back and fixing things in my first draft. Instead, I keep notes of anything I need to fix, add, delete or otherwise adjust on a legal pad while I write each day and then transfer those pages into my binder when I’m finished each session. That way I know I won’t forget to come back and do them, which in turn allows my creative side to just get on with finishing the rough draft.

Once I’ve got my binder in order, I’m ready to get to work.

Since I write my chapters entirely out of order, this level of detail ahead of time is necessary for me to achieve my goals. I map out each and every book this way, taking one or two months to get it all squared away. The benefit, however, is that the actual writing time is greatly reduced as I’m not trying to figure out where I’m going while in the process of getting there.

So, how do you organize your books?

I’m sitting here at my desk in the study, a well-stoked fire roaring in the fireplace beside me. Outside, the wind is blowing steadily and the sun, while bright, doesn’t seem all that warm. It is 9:15 in the morning and the thermometer on the wall near the sliding glass doors to the deck says its 28 degrees outside.

 

Did I mention I live in Phoenix, Arizona?

 

As our brother Mort might say, “What the Fzck?”

 

But I digress.

 

I’m on deadline. I’ve got 15 more days to finish the third book in the Templar Chronicles series, A TEAR IN THE SKY. Fifteen days and about 35,000 words to go. Which means I’m sorry to say that I don’t have a deep, philosophical essay for you this month. Instead I’ve got some practical writing advice for those of you who are thinking about writing a series.

It’s pretty simple really.

 

Take notes.

 

Take GOOD notes.

 

And put them in your bible.

 

Some of you are nodding your heads, completely in tune with what I’m saying. You’ve been there before. You know how important it is. The rest of you are looking at the NIV or the New King James you’ve got over there on the shelf (if you even have one) and are going huh? So let me explain.

 

I hit a scene yesterday where I needed to know the eye color of a character that had appeared way back in the short story that had first introduced Cade Williams and his notorious Echo Team. It was a minor character, to boot, one that had wandered on stage for a few scenes and then had disappeared back into the woodwork, until the midst of the third book in the trilogy. I hadn’t really intended for him to ever come back, to tell you the truth, but when the plot morphed into its present form, he suddenly became a major player rather than a minor one.

 

So I needed to know his eye color. Trouble was, I’d forgotten it long ago, if I’d ever decided on it at all.

 

I checked my bible, looked up his eye color, and went back to work. Took me all of fifteen seconds, if that.

 

A few hours later I needed to know what model Jeep my main character habitually drives. I thought I knew that one off the top of my head and simply dropped it into place without hesitation. But later, as I was looking over the day’s work, something about that choice just didn’t sit right with me. Once again I took out my bible, looked it up, and discovered that I was wrong. It wasn’t a Cherokee, it was a Wrangler. And it wasn’t even red, it was black.

 

Without that bible, the continuity of my work would be way off. And for readers who’ve been following along with the tale through each successive book, details that are inconsistent can pull them right out of their suspension of disbelief. As a horror and dark fantasy writer, that’s the last thing I want to happen. I spend too much time lulling them into believing that the fantastical things that I write about are perfectly normal inside my fictional world and I don’t want innocuous details to spoil that effect.

 

What I’m talking about is the three ring binder I put together whenever I start writing a book. The binder has multiple sections; one for characters, one for locations, one for specific technological or mystic items that are important to the story (like the mobile command center that makes an appearance in A SCREAM OF ANGELS), one for my ever-evolving outline, and even one for any notes that occur to me throughout the writing process that don’t fit anywhere else, reminders to check some particular fact or to be sure to resolve a certain issue in a later chapter, that sort of thing. This binder is my story bible (or in this case, my series bible, which major sections devoted to each book in the series, with those then subdivided into the minor sections named above.)

 

I make it a regular habit to update the binder on a daily basis, so it keeps pace with the work itself and remains a useful tool. This allows me to check the facts I need quickly and easily while in the midst of a writing session, without having to search back through earlier manuscripts or published works to find the information I need. It’s not perfect, and I still occasionally make mistakes when I’m too lazy to look something up that I’m positive I recollect correctly, but my bible goes a long way to keeping me on track and productive when I need to be.

 

Like right now.

 

With 14 days, 13 hours and 52 minutes left until my deadline.

A few weeks ago Fortune Magazine ran this really cool series of articles under the heading “How I Work.” They interviewed major business moguls (like Bill Gates) and asked how they handled a variety of common business needs/activities. I found the series rather interesting and as the type of writer who always enjoys comparing notes with others, I thought it might be worthwhile to bring the idea over here and see how other writers approach some of the basic tasks and requirements of our beloved profession.

To make the essay really work, however, it requires some interaction from you, the readers. If you are a writer, please join me in posting how you work in the comments section. Who knows, maybe each of us will find even one new approach that can change the way we approach some aspect of our writing career.

I’m going to cover six major areas relating to how I work – book structure, research, submissions tracking, writing, editing, and communications.

Book Structure

When it comes time to create a new project, I usually start by coming up with a one or two sentence description that summarizes as succinctly as possible what the book is about. In much the same fashion as a Hollywood logline, this summary allows me to describe the book quickly, easily, and with enough snap to generate some interest in anyone who asks. For instance, my Templar Chronicles series is about a secret combat arm of the Church that is charged with defending mankind from the supernatural. RIVERWATCH is about three friends who must save their town from an ancient evil that they unwittingly released. Once I have my short description, I can move onto what is essentially a longer one – the synopsis.

In my view, a synopsis is nothing more than a one to two page summary of the events of the story, told in present tense. If I can’t sit down and easily draw up a synopsis, then I know that I haven’t done nearly enough work in thinking about the structure of my story. And forget trying to write a novel without a synopsis – doing that would be harder for me than to try and navigate from Peking to New York blindfolded and trussed up like a hog. In other words, it’s not really a good idea.

Many writers I’ve met seem to have a hard time condensing their 350 page novel down to one or two pages. That’s because they are working backward instead of forward. If they had developed a solid synopsis before writing the novel, it wouldn’t seem so daunting a task. After all, developing two pages into 350 certainly sounds easier than trying to crunch 350 pages down to two, doesn’t it?

The final act in constructing my novel is to write an outline. You get as many opinions about outlines at a writers’ conference as you do languages spoken at the United Nations. Folks either seem to love them or hate them. For a writer like me, who writes entire novels completely out of sequence, they are a godsend and I wouldn’t go into a project without one. They help me know that I’ve thought through the plot well enough to avoid the giant gaping holes in the road. They allow me to write whatever chapter I am feeling enthused about writing that day, without worrying about continuity issues. They give me the freedom to work on several major projects at once, because I can always refer back to the outline and refresh myself with the project at hand.

So logline, synopsis, and outline, in that order. That’s my method. (For those who have a hard time with any of these, let me recommend Randy Ingermanson’s excellent snowflake method. Follow his process and this will become second nature for you. And you’ll have a better structure underlying your work. You can find Randy at www.randyingermanson.com.)

Research

This is an area that I’m still struggling a bit with. For my Templar Chronicles series, I did a tremendous amount of reading about the Order, but most of that was offline and so I simply took handwritten notes. These were organized into a three ring binder which eventually became the world bible for my series. Character notes, location notes, scene ideas, plot points – like Ragu, they’re all in there.

For doing research online, I’ve tried two different products to keep me organized. The first is OneNote by Microsoft. This is a wonderful product for taking notes at meetings, generating To-Do lists, organizing follow-up and the like. It also allows you to cut and paste text and images right out of the web, organizing them into the pages of a virtual notebook. I’ve been pretty happy with this, though I’m not as savvy at using it yet as I would like to be. (Information on OneNote can be found at www.microsoft.com. The downside of this product is that the full version is expensive unless you intend to make regular use of it – $99.00.)

The other product I’ve recently been testing is called EverNote. This functions similarly to OneNote, but it is freely available and I’m actually finding it easier to use. The organization system is more to my liking and I can clip information directly into it from the web. For anyone looking for an effective way to store and quickly access collected information or notes, I would highly recommend this. (Evernote can be found at www.evernote.com)

Submissions Tracking

Knowing what you sent to who when is probably one of the most important organizational tools in a writer’s arsenal. My agent handles all of my novel related submissions. I handle everything else, including short fiction, comic work, rpg work, and other assorted projects. (And I still keep track of when and where my agent sends things, as it allows me to be better informed and evaluate how much time he is devoting to my career.)

For the last couple of years I’ve been using a piece of software called Write Again!. It was developed by another writer (who I actually had the pleasure of sharing a table of contents with in the rare Hastur Pussycat Kill Kill volume), Tom Dullemond. The database keeps track of my projects and all of the various elements that make them up. It allows me to create my own market database and allows me to track submissions, including their financial elements, for every project. I can run a wide variety of reports that show me what’s out, what’s been accepted, how often a particular piece has been rejected, and more. Even better it’s easy to use.

The only drawback is that the system hasn’t been updated now in a couple of years, so we’re stuck at the current version. It has a few issues I’d like to see corrected, but I haven’t found anything better and so I’m content. Write Again! comes in both a professional and a lite version – the lite version is free. You can find it at www.write-again.com.

Writing

As I mentioned above, I work on several project at once (keep me from getting burned out or discouraged when I’m struggling with one in particular) and I write complete novels entirely out of sequence. I tend to see things cinematically in my head, like watching movie scenes flashing by, and so I tend to create a bunch of loosely connected scenes that get tied together at a later date with the help of the outline.

I’d be interested to hear how many others write the way I do (or if I’m just the resident writing freak! )

Editing

When I first started writing, I had the habit of correcting each and every sentence as I went along, until I was entirely satisfied with it. As you can image, this slowed my output considerably and kept me rather frustrated with the process at every stage of the game.

A year or so ago, I decided that I would simply get the main storyline out on paper first and worry about fixing everything once the first draft was done. This has been extremely liberating for me, allowing my output on a daily basis to triple, and it has kept my enthusiasm for various projects high throughout the writing process.

After the first draft is done, I print out the entire work and edit it by hand with a red pen. I’ve learned the hard way that I don’t edit as thoroughly or as well when doing it on the screen, so I resort to the old fashioned method, which works just fine for me. When I have the time, I’ll let the project sit for a few weeks, then give it another look. This usually means a second round of editing, but I’ve found the time allows me some perspective and lets me spot the finer issues easier.

Communications/Email

I’ve recently switched most of my business-related email over to Google Mail. This free service allows me tremendous storage capabilities and offers features most other programs do not, such as the ability to tag conversations to make them easier to find and search. Gmail also organizes mail into conversations, grouping all of the replies to an email into a thread. This way I can view the back and forth without hunting for individual emails.

Gmail is also available from wherever I can access the Internet, so I don’t have to worry about not being able to get my mail if I’m traveling or using a group computer. (The down side is that every now and then I do hit a time when Gmail is unavailable, but I’ve never found it to be down for more than an hour or so and its only happened to me twice in the last several months. Considering my cable Internet access seems to come and go at higher frequencies, I’m not too upset.)

Gmail is in Beta, so it’s not yet available to everyone. You need to get an invite to sign up. And as luck would have it, I have fifty invitations to hand out, so if you are a writer and want to give the system a try, drop me an email at jnassise at gmail.com and I’ll see what I can do. First come, first serve.

So, that’s how I work. At least in those six areas. How about you? How do you work?

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