I just put away the novel that I've been working on for over a year. I had to do it. I'm going to have to restart it from the beginning to fix some issues that were making the ending unwieldy. So, while that novel is "resting", I'm going to start a brand new novel.
This time, I'm going to keep my story bible current.
You know what a story bible is, right? It's a collection of relevant info that you need easy access to. For example, there should be a list of character names, especially minor characters, so you're not calling the best friend's husband Bob in chapter two and then Henry in chapter fifteen.
Story bibles are vital for multi-book stories and speculative fiction. These are the keepers of timelines as well as rules of the land. I keep world maps and alternative calendars, too.
My problem is I only think of my story bible when I need the information. So, that info is rarely in the bible. I have to hunt it down in the text, and only then do I add it to the bible. Let's just say that can be a bit time consuming.
So, this time I'm going to keep a file on the world, and I'm going to add things like place descriptions as they come up. Of course I say I'm going to do this every time, so perhaps I need some sort of plan. Like one day a week I spend just updating the story bible. Yeah, that sounds like a plan.
Do you keep a story bible for all your works? How do you update it?
