Tips for a Series Bible

by Jemi Fraser

I'm in the process of working on two different contemporary romance series and thanks to some brilliant blogger about a year ago, I've created 2 bibles for each series to help me save my sanity. I wish I could remember which blogger posted about this - if it's you, give yourself a shoutout in the comments!

If you're writing a series, you know how hard it is to keep track of the little things. Here are a few of the things I've had to ask myself:

• what's the name of the sheriff's wife?
• does the gossip maven wear glasses?
• what's the name of the hardware store?
• who's the crazy guy who believes in aliens?
• what's the meaning of the horse's name?
• what's the name of the bay off the northwest of the lake?
• what's his favourite fudge flavour?

I use spreadsheets to keep track of the information (I love my spreadsheets!!). If you don't use spreadsheets much, you might want to try it for this. I use Excel (comes with Word), although I've used Calc (Open Office) & Quattro Pro (Corel) in the past - they all work well.

One of the advantages of a spreadsheet is the ability to have different sheets within the same file. Currently I have 4 sheets for each series. Within each sheet I use the columns to create categories to help me quickly find the info. Here are my current choices:

• novels (title, main characters, season, major settings)
• main characters (name, nickname, love interest, height, hair/eye colour, body type, personality basics, job, quirks, food (faves, hates, allergies...), vehicle, important stuff)
• minor characters (books they show up in, job, connection to main characters, significant other, physical description, personality basics, important stuff)
• locations (building name, type of business, owners, moose (you'll have to read the series to find out about that one!), location in town, exterior description, interior description)

I may add more sheets and/or categories in the future, but for now this works to keep it all straight. Of course, if you want to try it, the categories may need a little tweaking depending on your genre and writing style.

It does take a bit of time to set it up - and it's SO much easier if you remember to add information to it as you're drafting! - but I think it's well worth the time you invest. Searching through your ms or multiple mss for the info you need is a big time waster - even with the Find feature. Much easier to open your spreadsheet!

If you write series, do you use a bible? Do you have any tips to add?

Jemi Fraser is an aspiring author of contemporary romance. She blogs and tweets while searching for those HEAs.