What are Book Bibles?
A book bible (also known as a story bible, show bible, series bible, or pitch bible) is a reference document used by novelists, screenwriters for information on a television series' characters, settings, and other elements. Basically it's a handbook of information that allows the writer to create a consistent universe over a number of events or even years/centuries of events.Why a Book Bible?
The primary goal is to make finding what was said or described in other books in the series, in order to achieve consistency among the books in the series and to save time researching past work. To that end, it is useful to separate the written words of the books produced (content) from the supporting material.So if Jane was wearing a purple dress in chapter 1, the description will be the same in chapter 2, 5, 8, etc. if it comes up again.
Things That Might be Included in a Book Bible
I, myself use mine for character, place and item descriptions. I use Aeon Timeline to track dates of events that happen from day to day and century to century. Lately I have been trying out Scapple to see if it'll work for me in my book bibles.
To learn more check out Hallow Land's, A Writer's Blog by Karen Myers It's a blog I follow and learned how to use Scrivener & Aeon Timeline together.
Here are things that are sometimes included in a book bible...
- The overall concept
- Ongoing characters - main, supporting, villains
- The setting
- The rules of the world you're creating
- Gadgets and gizmos [if any] and how they work
- What CAN'T happen in future storylines
- Format
- Series tone
- Series theme
- An opening story
- Story suggestions
Here are some timeline programs I found besides Aeon.
Word Processing Programs
Microsoft Word
Scrivener
Google Docs
WordPerdect
Pages
All writers have their preference when writing and they will have a preference for timelines and mapping programs as well. Only the writer herself/himself will know what works for them.
In short, a book bible is a great thing to keep track of everything. Whether it's for a single novel, screenplay or a novel series, it'll help (in my opinion).
I am not paid for my opinions or referrals to programs and/or websites. All my suggestions are my opinions alone.
