I’m working on a story bible for my Ocooch series.
If you’re not familiar with the idea, a story bible is a file, document, or set of documents that store all the useful information you need for a series so you don’t contradict yourself.
What color are the best friend’s eyes in book one? It should match in book three.
I started collecting this data, and it quickly became a headache. I had no good way to sort it to make it easily findable in the future.
So I started looking at the worksheets, character sheets, setting sheets and such that other authors have made on Amazon, on Etsy, and on author’s sites as free or paid resources.
None of them were quite right.
But really, what did I expect? What every author needs in one is a little different.
So I bought some from Etsy, author’s sites, and two books from Amazon, and now I am compiling my OWN set of sheets that will hold what I need.
I went through all the sheets and highlighted what I wanted to carry over to mine, and now I just have to compile it and type it up.
This will let me keep details straight while revising book two.
Book one was long for the genre – 114,000 words or so. In traditional publishing, 75,000 to 90,000 is the norm, but there’s more flexibility when I’m self publishing, especially since they’re ebooks and aren’t limited by printing costs.
Book two is looking to be much longer. The first draft alone is 114,000 words, and I add at least a quarter while revising.
That’s a LOT of words.
And a lot of pages to have to hunt for information through.
Hence, story bible.
Do you have any suggested resources for making one?
