The Hard Way – Keeping a Series Bible...Or Not

Do you keep a “bible” for your series characters and stories? If so, what does it look like? What does it contain? Do you use a specific program or just Word or Excel files? What do you put in it, how detailed are you?

by Paul D. Marks

I wish!

If I did it would make life so much easier. But why would I want anything to be easier? Why do anything the easy way when you can with even more ease do it the hard way?

I have good intentions to do bibles for all my work. But just like New Year’s resolutions, which start out bright and shiny and perky on January 1st, by the end of January—or sooner, much sooner—they’ve mostly fallen by the wayside.

I’ve tried keeping bibles for various things, such as my Howard Hamm series of short stories that’s been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. I have a couple of different Word files with various categories, everything from what furniture is in his house, and the layout of the house, to what gun he carries. I also started an Excel file. I made a chart in Word, distinct from the above-mentioned Word files. The problem is I don’t keep them up—any of them. I put a few things down then abandon the file, every time. So when it comes to the next story I have to go back to the earlier ones to see if X did or where Y lives, etc. And some readers remember those things a lot better than I do…

The problem is if you try doing a bible while you’re working on a project it slows or even stops the forward momentum. And you can’t stop writing, especially if you’re on a streak, to put X in the X bible category and Y in the Y category. If you do you might break your streak or forget where you were going, etc. So is it worth it to stop along the way?

And then, at the end of the writing day, when you could go fill in those blanks, well, who wants to do that? I’d rather be walking Buster.

That said, I’m working on the third in the series of Duke Rogers novels (White Heat, Broken Windows) and finding it frustrating to have to go back and look things up in the earlier books. You think you’ll remember everything but it’s really hard, especially when you’re working on multiple things at one time or have multiple series going.

I haven't read this book, but it looks like it might be good resource

It can be hard to remember what kind of gun X uses, what car Y drives, color, year—and that can change within a story, as where someone’s car gets blown up like Duke’s beloved Firebird in White Heat. So what’s he driving now? What cigs does Bobby in The Blues Don’t Care smoke? Viceroys. And Booker smokes Lucky Strikes. But I have to remember not to mix them up—which I did in the first draft of this post until I went and looked in the novel to verify. And Bobby drinks Bubble Up. What music does this character like as opposed to that one? Where does so and so live? If I describe his house/apartment this way have I messed up cause before it was that way? You can get mixed up.
Then there’s character arcs and relationships among characters—relationships that change. So am I picking up where I left off with that relationship? Timelines—same thing. And backstory. Habits, mannerisms, likes, dislikes. Physical details. Oh, how I wish I had a bible for these things.

When I started out I created forms (which if I can find any, since they’re from the old typewriter days, I’ll post here), some for characters and their backgrounds and descriptions. What they eat, music they like, etc. Some forms for rooms and how they looked. But I don’t do that anymore. I’m in too much of a rush. Too many things to work on—though that’s sort of penny-wise and pound foolish ’cause it would ultimately be easier to just look on a form or computer file. Now I mostly keep it in my head and often have to go back to previous stories in the series to get the details.

A sample character development worksheet

I write a lot my first drafts in screenplay format. And the script program generates lists of characters, locations, etc., that I sometimes transfer to Word when I begin working in it. That can be helpful, but becomes incomplete as I add or change characters in the Word version. And it’s also basically for a single story and doesn’t really act as a bible across several stories with the same character/s.

I believe Scrivener has a bible function. And I have a copy of Scrivener that I bought years ago. But the learning curve was so steep I gave up on it.

I keep thinking I should hire someone to do this, to make bibles for my various series. Easy job, you can work from home in your spare time—you know like those old ads at the back of magazines: Make Money Growing Mushrooms in Your Basement in Your Spare Time. Perfect for lockdown. Lousy pay. But if anyone’s interested…

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

The Blues Don't Care released on June 1st. I had my first virtual book launch party on Facebook and despite not really knowing what I was doing, it turned out pretty good. I want to thank everyone who came and everyone who bought the book. As usual, Buster seemed to get the most likes.

The Blues Don't Care was reviewed on DiscoveringDiamonds.com and is short listed for their "Book of the Month."

"This story was a breath of fresh air, set in a familiar period, thanks to Sunday afternoon TV movies. Which means the author had to get his world-building right. The good news is - he did, and did it very well indeed."

I was also interviewed by Nancie Clare on her Speaking of Mysteries Podcast. You can check it out here.

And I did a Guest Blog on Stacey Alesi's BookBitch.com where I talk about how important conflict is in creating characters. I hope you'll check it out here.

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com

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