Book Bibles... Yay or Nay?

Over the years I have found that many authors use book bibles. At first I thought it was just for novel series, I know better now. So, this post is going to explore BOOK BIBLES.

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. 

Timelines

Plotlist

Capzules

Preceden

Tiki-Toki

TimeGlider

Timeline 3D

Time Toast

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.

Time For Prepping for NaNoWriMo

One month from today we start a 30 day writing frenzy. Are you ready? Have you tried any new apps or programs for your writing? Well I'll start off with ones I know about. If you know more post links in the comments section.

Scrivener by Literature and Latte

Literature & Latte ©

Scrivener is an all in one program for writers. Available for iOS, Mac & Windows. Keep notes organized, outline, write & edit.  Export your finished document to a wide variety of file formats, including Microsoft Word, RTF, PDF and HTML—making it easy to share your work with others. Or self-publish by exporting to ePub or Kindle* formats to share your work via iBooks or Amazon, or for reading on any e-reader.
Another feature I love is the word count option/tracking.

Photo from Literature & Latte ©

I auto-save to Dropbox which means I can open my file from any computer that has Scrivener installed and it'll save the new version. I know others sync with cloud services.
Tutorials:
Windows
Mac
iOS
Check them out and see if you might like to use Scrivener. BTW- Scrivener usually offers an extended trial version for NaNoWriMo, normal trial period is 30 days of use...NOT 30 days on your computer. NaNoWriMo version usually ends Dec. 7th of so.

Scapple © by Literature and Latte 

Many think of it as mind-mapping. It isn’t exactly mind-mapping software—it’s more like a free-form text editor that allows you to make notes anywhere on the page and to connect them using straight dotted lines or arrows. You can nest them, so if you move one you move all that are connected. I haven't used Scapple much but I am not a planner.
Since it was created by the same people that created Scrivener you can drag your Scapple notes right into Scrivener. Here is a short tutorial on Scapple. 30 day trial... 30 days of use not 30 days on your computer.

Aeon Timeline

You can model not only the events of your story & the backstory of each of your characters. Keep track of relationships between events and your characters, locations, and story arcs. Visually group events by character, location, or arc (some events may appear in multiple groups), and change this selection at any time. Automatically calculate character ages for every event, allowing you to see how key moments would have affected and shaped your character (this is the one thing I love the most).
Find plot-holes or inconsistencies in your story. Create a custom fantasy calendar if your story takes place off-world, have more than 12 months, 7 days a week, etc. Nested events are there so you can zoom in for a detailed view of individual scenes, or zoom out for a contextual overview of your entire story — or further still for a contextual view of your entire world history. Add your images, external links, notes and research to your events. Filter events by almost anything. Add bookmarks within your story and backstory so that you can easily jump between key moments in time.

Another great feature is...  You can drag documents from your Scrivener project into your timeline, or events from your timeline into Scrivener, and keep the two in sync so that your timeline is always up-to-date with your writing.

Check out the videos to see if you might like this. Click HERE for videos.

Evernote

This is one I'm not familiar with. Evernote is a cross-platform app designed for note taking, organizing, and archiving. Though here is a link to learn more about it. Evernote.

Prepping Food for NaNoWriMo

Here are a few things I do to make meals quit and easy during November... Well I do it almost every month but November is a must. Plan meals ahead of time. I do it for a month but most people I know usually plan for a week at a time. Do it when it works for you.

On the 28th or 29th of October

• Cook up meat for spaghetti & goulash & freeze it
• Make up a meatloaf or 2 & freeze it
• Cook up taco meat for 2 or 3 meals & freeze it
• Make up freezer meals for my crock pot (slow cooker) Usually I do Sweet-n-Sour Chicken, Beef stew, chicken fajitas, beef fajitas, BBQ chicken, Mongolian beef, Applesauce BBQ chicken, flank steak, and Pre-packaged roast & veggies. Freeze all meals in gallon size freezer bags. Most of your favorite crock pot (slow cooker) meals can be made into freezer meals. If you have questions Tweet me @GetWordies 
• Make cookie dough balls and freeze them for fast cookies

Cleaning-October

•  Make sure all rooms are at least picked up to vacuum
• Clean out refrigerator
•  Vacuum
• Dust everything so you won't look at it and get distracted
• Clean the bathroom thoroughly
• Wash bedding, curtains and anything you normally don't. 

A clean place leaves you feeling good and you can write more, usually. I do a total Spring/Fall cleaning every year so October is my Fall month.

On Fridays in November

• Make up snacks: brownies, cookies, dips, cut veggies, spinach/artichoke dip
• Make sure kitchen is clean so it won't distract me
• Get kids organized and plans for the weekend
• Plan you writing times for the week
• If you have kids, make up snack cups/lunch box style snacks and lunch ahead of time (each day)

You can get a sink full of dishes done in 10 minutes, I use 10 minute writing breaks for that. I also fold laundry, skim social media and check in with kiddo-2. You'll find you can get tons of household things done in 10 minutes. It gives you that break from writing and you get stuff done.

Evernote, Literature & Latte, and Aeon Timeline are all .

Have You Heard?

With NaNoWriMo just 12 days away... everyone is prepping or stressing.  It would be great to hit 30k by the 10th huh? I have good news. With Twitter and our Twitter friends over at @FriNightWrites, there will be 3 of the wonderful Writathons during November. Yes, I know that seems a lot, getting 10,000 wordies in a day.

Average daily wordie count to hit 50k in 30 days is 1667. Here is daily goals after 10kWritathons
1 10k= 1380 a day
2 10k= 1072 a day
3 10k= 740 a day
That means you getting closer to the 50k in less days. Wouldn't that be great. Within 2 weekends you could be done to 740 wordies a day. Then toss in #writeclub and regular wordsprints and it could be even less. It would be great to hit 30k by the 10th huh?

SO, clear your calendar for Nov. 2nd, Nov. 6th-7th and 15th for Writathons! Actually, since @FriNightWrites their  starts their writathon Aussie time thats 3 days of writing second weekend. With the time zone changes most writathons are around 48 hours when it's all said and done.

Now, there is a bonus with @FriNightWrites writathon for NaNo. The have PRIZES! Yeah, I said prizes.

Okay Wordlings. Here is the final Writathon Schedule

Scrivener: Why I Love It!

Scrivener has made my life much easier as I achieve to be a published author. Before, I was lost. I had note cards scattered throughout the house, notebooks (about 50) laying around the house and always screamed when I couldn't find the one I needed at the moment.
I am a free writer, as in I never do an outline per-say. I get my characters, some idea of what I want them to do and write. Usually my characters never do what I thought they would. Scrivener has changed all that ciaos of tracking my characters mind-changing events. Example: I had planned on two certain characters to get together but in the current WIP the girl is liking a different guy than I intended.

Reasons:

1.) Scrivener allows me to import research, photos,  MS Word docs. This helps with organizing it all in one place. You don't have to have 50 million screens open and bounce between them.

2.) Cork-board mode is my best friend. Here I can have my note cards and move them around. In Scrivener, every document is attached to a virtual index card onto which you can jot a synopsis; moving the cards on Scrivener’s corkboard rearranges their associated text in your draft. Mark common themes or content using labels, or stack cards, grouping related documents together. I have folders for each wolf pack with all their pack members. I can click on the folder and see everyone's photo I have suggested for them. You can also move you chapters and scenes around to re-order them in corkboard mode.  I can just drag the notes cards to re-order them. As mine are in order of rank at the moment. It would be easy and take less than a minute to change that to age. I have the definitions is alphabetical order but had them in order they appeared at first. It took me 3 minutes to move the note cards around.


3.) Ease of moving things around. As I said it's easy to move your notes, research, chapters, scenes and characters in cork-board mode. It is also easy to move them around in the binder. All you have to do is drag what you want moved and move it! It's that simple.

4.) Being able to have photos on your note-cards has me jumping every time I open the screen. Having them to jog my memory as to what someone or some place looks like is easier than opening up my pictures on my computer. They are right there. And the split-screen makes it quick work to look up a fact on a note-card.

5.) I love the fact that I can color code everything in my binders. As you can see below I have changed their look. It makes it easier the click the correct one without reading the names.  You can also code your note cards. The coloring can be all of it or just some of it, like I have. Or it can be just the outside border.

6.) It makes it easier for me to start another novel in my series by dragging the info from one project to a new one. I don't have to retype it all in. Everything is there with a click or 2.

7.) I love that it tracks my word counts for each session and the whole document. It keeps me on track with my daily word counts. Below is my current WIP. As you can see it allows you to set the whole document goal and the session goal. AS you progress the bars turn color. When you get really close to your goal it turns green!

8.) The name generator has been a big help. I can set it for regions of the world and click 'generate' and is comes up with a list of names. Settings can be male/female, first/last names, meanings, and you can import others.  I usually use this for last names rather than first of middle and I change the spelling if it's for a current character.

9.) The full screen makes it easier for me, personally, to edit. It blocks out all the distractions of windows I might have open.

10.) Compiling into e-pub for makes it easy for me to proof-read it anywhere. I have done it while waiting for the kids to get out of school or at the doctor's office. All I do is upload it to my NOOK.

There are many other things that can be done with the program but I haven't learned everything yet. Learning everything I can do may take years but as I go, I learn a little more and the more I love it. Windows version is a little behind Mac but they are working on it. I have been working on Binders but haven't had a need for them yet. Some use it to track all their blogging, not me; at least not yet. 

If you prefer a more traditional planning environment? View and edit the synopses and meta-data of your documents in Scrivener’s powerful outliner. Organize your ideas using as many or few levels as you want and drag and drop to restructure your work. Check word counts, see what’s left to do using the Status column. Scrivener’s outliner is easy on the eyes, too, making it ideal for reading and revising an overview of a section, chapter or even the whole draft.

Others I have talked with say,

' It's a must for me.  Keeps everything all in one place.'

' I adore Scrivener - it allows me to visually order scenes & keep everything open. Plus character & research tabs.'

' I have full versions for both PC & Mac! Still hoping for iOS.'


Get a free 30 day use version of Scrivener at http://www.literatureandlatte.com/index.php
If you're not sure watch the tutorials and get more of an idea of how it can help you with your writing.

*All screenshots are mine. The photos are from Literature&Latte's website.
**This blog is my opinion and mine alone. I am not paid for my views on the product.