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.