What a Story Bible Is, and How to Stop It Eating the Book
A story bible is the reference file for your book: who everyone is, when things happen, what the rules are and who knows what. Its job is to let you check a fact in ten seconds rather than reread 300 pages. Used well, it’s a dull, short, slightly grubby document. Used badly, it’s the reason there’s no novel.
Where the Word Comes From, and What It’s For
The term comes from television, where a series bible tells a changing room of writers what’s already been established, so that nobody gives the sheriff a sister in season four. A novelist usually has a staff of one, but that one is a different person on each of the three hundred mornings it takes to write the book, and the person who decided in spring that Gwen is left-handed may not be available in November.
The word has spread. Sudowrite has a feature called Story Bible, and Novelcrafter calls its version the Codex. In those tools the bible is also what gets handed to the AI. The craft question stays the same with or without one: what do you need to write down?
The range is wide. Zola left more than 10,000 sheets of notes for the twenty Rougon-Macquart novels, with lists of characters and successive plans. Simenon, by his own account, used the outside of an envelope for names, ages and families, plus a phone book for names and a town map for where things happen. That’s a bible too, and for a book written in a couple of weeks it was the right size.
What Goes In
Put in what appears on the page, and what limits what can appear. Note the chapter where each fact was established, because that’s what lets you check it. An entry might look like this.
| Gwen Tarrant | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 1951, so 34 when the book opens in spring 1985 |
| Body | Left-handed (ch. 4). Burn scar on right forearm from a chip-pan fire (ch. 9) |
| Speech | Ends sentences with “mind”. Never says “aye”; her mother did |
| Calls | Her brother “Bun”, and nobody else does (ch. 2) |
| Car | Renault 4, won’t start in the wet (ch. 1, ch. 17) |
| Knows | Nothing about the letter until ch. 22 |
Beyond the cast, a working bible usually holds:
- A timeline. Dates and ages for everything, including what happens offstage and before page one. This entry will save you more embarrassment than the others put together.
- Who knows what, and since when. A secret is only a secret relative to a person and a chapter. The continuity guide has a grid for this.
- Places, as used. Which way the street runs, how long the walk takes, what can be seen from the kitchen. A sketch is fine, and it needs no compass rose.
- Rules and what they cost. If magic drains the user, or the ship’s comms have a four-hour lag, write it down with the limit. In a contemporary novel, this is the visiting hours at the prison.
- A style sheet. The copy editor’s old tool: spellings, hyphens, capital letters. Is it “Tarrant’s Yard” or “the yard”? Does anyone say “sofa”?
- Promises. Anything you’ve planted and owe the reader, with the chapter it went in. Crossed out when it’s paid.
If you write a series, add one more thing: facts change. Gwen’s age, her job and whether she’s speaking to Bun all depend on when you ask, so note the book and chapter from which something holds.
What Stays Out
Character questionnaires are the classic waste of an afternoon. Knowing your villain’s favourite ice cream doesn’t tell you what he does when he’s frightened, and that’s what you’ll need. If a fact wouldn’t change a single sentence, leave it out.
Also leave out:
- History no scene touches. Three dynasties of a kingdom your characters never think about.
- Maps of countries nobody visits. They’re pleasant to draw, which is the danger.
- Good sentences. If it’s prose, it belongs in the book or in a file of offcuts. A bible full of lovely writing means the lovely writing has found somewhere safe to stay.
- Plot plans. They go in the outline, because plans change and the bible has to stay true.
The test is to imagine deleting an entry. Would any page of the book get worse? If not, you’ve been enjoying yourself, which is allowed, but it’s worth knowing.
How to Keep It From Replacing the Book
M. John Harrison called worldbuilding “the great clomping foot of nerdism”, and people are still arguing about it. You needn’t go that far to see the trap. A bible gives you the feeling of working on your novel without any of the risk of writing it. It grows, it’s tidy, it can’t be bad. It doesn’t yet contain a single scene.
Four rules keep it in its place.
Let the draft go first. Make an entry when a fact appears on the page, not in case it does. If you need something you don’t have, write TK and keep going.
Wait for the second mention. A waiter who appears once needs nothing. The moment he comes back, he gets a line: name, what he looks like, the chapter.
Cap it by the clock. Ten minutes at the end of a session, to record what you just established. If you want an hour with it, take that hour after you’ve done the day’s words.
Don’t reread it for pleasure. Look things up and close it again. If you find yourself improving the formatting, go and write the scene you’re avoiding.
There’s an honourable exception. Tolkien spent decades building Middle-earth and it’s why we’ve heard of him. If the world is what you love, build it, and enjoy it. Just keep two lists in your head, one for the invented world and one for the novel, and check now and then that the second is getting longer.
What to Keep It In
A single document with headings works, and so does a spreadsheet for the timeline. Keep it where you can search it with one hand while the draft is open. Card-index people should stay card-index people. In Shiro, this lives in the World lens, with entries linked to the scenes that mention them and facts that can change by book and chapter. That’s a convenience, though. The envelope produced an awful lot of novels.
The Questions People Ask
What is a story bible?
A reference document for a work of fiction, holding its characters, timeline, places, rules and running details. The term and the habit come from television, where a series bible keeps a changing staff of writers consistent.
When should I start one?
When you have pages. Start with the names, ages and dates you’ve already used, then add an entry the second time a fact comes up. Building a big one before you write is the usual way to avoid writing.
How long should a story bible be?
As long as the book forces it to be. A one-volume contemporary novel might need a few pages. A fantasy series can need far more, because it has more to contradict.
What’s the difference between a story bible and an outline?
An outline says what is going to happen. A bible records what is true. An outline can be abandoned, but the bible has to stay accurate for as long as the book exists.
Last revised November 2026.