Story Bibles... Are They a Bit Overkill?

Since it's Nano season, there's a lot of folks sharing tips, tricks, and tools to help organize their stories and get them down on the page; one thing that I've seen a lot of folks talk about is the use of a story bible. What I would say is that, for a lot of novelists out there, this may be like loading up a fully-automatic, laser-guided nail gun when you just need to drive a handful of hardware... it's going to actually cost you far more time, energy, and effort to put together the story bible than it will to write the damn book in the first place.

We've got every facet of personality, full history, and preferred brand of underwear...

As always, folks who want to stay on top of all my latest should sign up for my weekly newsletter! And if you want to help grease the gears so the machine keeps turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron so I can keep doing what I do.

What The Hell is a Story Bible?

If this is the first time you're hearing this term, that's probably not a big surprise. As Jane Friedman points out, the idea is much more common for television writers, though it also shows up among comic book writers and roleplaying game creators as well. In short, the story bible is the repository of details that writers need to remember for future installments. Whether it's the make and model of car a character's sister drives, or the story behind a scar on their cheek, or the details of the long-running antagonists a hero will have to deal with, the story bible is a tool that ensures continuity from one story to the next.

It's all connected!

While there are a lot of writers who feel that story bibles are useful documents to create (particularly those who are writing a series with a lot of details), they definitely aren't for everyone. The main reason is because these bibles are meant to keep entire teams of writers on the same page going forward, making sure that even if a staff rotates out there's a reference document that can easily be checked for continuity without someone having to read every script or watch every episode until they find the answers they need.

Most of us don't need that.

Make Sure The Tool is Actually Helping

The only similarity between writers as a community is that we all have our own methods of doing things. Some of us can keep an entire 10-book series in our heads with perfect recollection. Some of us need to write out a literal bible with all the details we know we aren't going to remember from one day to the next. Myself, I took about a half a page of notes when I wrote Marked Territory. I increased that to a full page of notes for Painted Cats, because I was including more cat breeds in it and I couldn't remember all of them off the cuff.

Sequels are supposed to expand, right?

If I were going to convert the Hard-Boiled Cat into a TV series, or even just animated movies, then I would definitely put together a story bible to make sure the writers, animators, etc. were all on the same page. And if I were going to bring more people in to work on the book series with me, I'd likely do the same. As long as it's just me writing these stories, though, I probably won't need to go that extreme. Especially if I have the previous files on my computer, and I can just run a search to find what I need in the previous stories.

However, there are going to be some writers who find this a helpful tool. If that's the case for you, then you should definitely use it! With that said, I have one caution about this method you should take to heart; do not use it as an excuse to do something other than actually write.

I say this with as much sympathy as I can, but a lot of us will take absolutely any excuse not to actually write our books. And the most insidious excuses out there are the ones we can convince ourselves are actually helping when they aren't. Sort of like how we can convince ourselves that because a pizza has a gluten free crust we can eat the whole thing without worrying about our diet, even though deep down we know the effect it's going to have. So if this is a tool you haven't tried before, consider giving it a whirl (and doubly so if you're part of a group project, or you think it will expand beyond you at some point). But if you find yourself just tinkering with your story bible, and constantly coming up with one more aspect of the world, your cast, etc. to expand on instead of getting the job done then it might be a bigger hindrance to you writing your book than it is a help.

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!