Story bible: what it is, what to include and a template to copy
Updated
In chapter 3, the trip from Porto Seco to the capital took two days. In chapter 17, you need it to take an afternoon, and you cannot remember what you wrote. That is what a story bible is for: it is where everything the book has established is written down. This guide explains what it is, what to put in it, how to keep it current, and gives you a template to copy.
What a story bible is
A story bible is a reference document with the facts of your book: who is who, where things are, how the world works and when each thing happened. The idea comes from television, where several writers work on the same show and need a single source of truth. In a novel, the several writers are you in different months.
It is not a draft of the book, nor worldbuilding for its own sake. It is a lookup tool: you open the bible when a question comes up while writing or revising, and find the answer in seconds instead of rereading a hundred pages.
A bible is not an idea notebook
An idea notebook keeps everything, including what you dropped. The bible keeps only what holds in the text right now. Mixing the two is the fastest way to trust neither.
What to include in a story bible
Almost every bible works with six parts. Give each entry the chapter where the detail first appears: that is what lets you check the source when a question comes up.
- Characters: name and nicknames, appearance that does not change, age, voice, relationships and what each one knows. A short sheet per minor character, a full one per main character.
- Places: what it is, what it is like (a smell, a sound, a color), where it sits relative to other places and how long it takes to get there. Distances and travel times are a frequent source of errors.
- World rules: magic, technology, politics, economy, religion. For each rule, what it allows, what it costs and what the exceptions are. Realistic books have rules too: bank opening hours, the company hierarchy, the school calendar.
- Timeline: events in chronological order, which is not always chapter order. Include ages, dates and who was there.
- Glossary: invented terms, names of places and institutions, with the right spelling. Decide once whether it is "Council of Seven" or "council of seven" and write it down.
- Style: narrator and tense, how thoughts appear (italics or not), numbers spelled out or in figures, how characters address each other (first names, titles, formal or informal "you").
Start small
A useful bible grows with the book. Record what is already in the text and what you need to decide for the next scene. Two hundred pages of world nobody checks prevent no errors.
A story bible template to copy
Copy the skeleton below into a document or spreadsheet and fill in one line per item. The final sections, for changes and open questions, save a lot of time in revision.
Story bible (skeleton)
STORY BIBLE: [book title] Premise (two sentences): ____ == CHARACTERS == Name | role | fixed appearance | voice | first appearance: ch. __ == PLACES == Name | what it is | one sensory detail | distance and travel time | ch. __ == WORLD RULES == Rule | what it allows | what it costs | exceptions | ch. __ == TIMELINE == Date or day | event | who is there | who finds out | ch. __ == GLOSSARY == Term | meaning | correct spelling | ch. __ == STYLE == Narrator and tense: ____ | conventions (italics, numbers, forms of address): ____ == INTENTIONAL CHANGES == What changed | from ch. __ | why == OPEN QUESTIONS == Question or loose end | where it appears
How to keep the bible up to date
An out-of-date bible is worse than none, because you trust it. Four habits keep it current without turning it into a second book to write.
- Update it when you finish each chapter: what appeared for the first time? A name, a place, a rule, a date. Note it before you start the next one.
- Keep what is planned apart from what is written: mark as "planned" anything not yet in the text. That way you never mistake an intention for a fact.
- Record intentional changes: when you change something on purpose, write down what changed, from which chapter and why.
- Revise the bible along with the book: after cutting, merging or moving chapters, check the timeline and who knows what.
When the bible and the text disagree
Do not fix either one on reflex. Decide which version serves the story better, adjust the other side and record the decision. Sometimes the error is in the bible; sometimes the text found a better idea.
Story bibles and worldbuilding
In fantasy and science fiction, the bible also does the job of worldbuilding: magic systems, technology, governments, maps, calendars, languages. The risk is spending months building the world instead of writing the book. A practical rule: the bible records what the story uses; the rest can live in a separate file, to check when the plot gets there.
For each world rule, write down its cost and its limit. Magic without limits solves any conflict and kills the tension. If teleportation only takes you to places you have touched with your own hands, that limit already creates plot, and becomes a fact the whole book has to respect.
How Linya helps you keep your story bible
In Linya, the bible lives inside the book itself, on the web and in the app: characters go in Characters; places, factions, items and lore go in the World Builder. That way the bible sits next to your chapters, not in a file you forget to open.
- World Builder (on the web): each element has a name, what it is, a sensory detail ("one thing you'd notice") and connections to other elements. A graph view shows how places, factions and characters link up.
- The bible goes into the writing: when you ask the AI, in the web editor, to continue the text, the characters and world elements that are mentioned or related to the topic go into the context, along with what you noted about each one, including the sensory detail. When you ask it to rewrite a passage, the character sheets saved in the book go along, plus each world element's name, type and description.
- The bible comes along in conversation: when you talk to Linya about the book, on the web or in the app, your character sheets and world elements go with your question as your own notes. For the order of events and how things turn out, Linya is told to rely on manuscript passages.
- A starting point: if you create the book from an AI proposal, it starts with three characters and two world elements already in place, ready for you to edit.
- From manuscript (on the web, Pro and Author plans): Linya syncs your saved chapters in the background, at most once an hour, and shows what the text says about each place, faction or character, with the passage and a link to the chapter. Names that do not have an entry yet show up too, which helps you see what is still missing.
- Continuity (Author plan): the Continuity Engine does not depend on your entries. It extracts facts about places, rules and characters from the text itself and checks every chapter against what earlier chapters have already established.
Planned and written, side by side
Your World Builder entries are your plan; what appears under "From manuscript" is what the text actually says. When the two disagree, you decide which one holds: Linya does not change your entries on its own.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a bible for a short book?
For a short story, one page with names, ages and the timeline is usually enough. For a novel, a series or any book with an invented world, it pays off from the first chapter: the later you start, the more you have to reread to build it.
What is the difference between a story bible and an outline?
The outline is the plan of scenes, in the order they will happen in the book. The bible is the reference for facts: it does not say what comes next, it says what is already true. Many writers use both.
Document, spreadsheet or writing software?
The best format is the one you actually check. Spreadsheets are good for the timeline and the glossary; documents, for characters and rules. What matters is that the bible sits close to where you write and is easy to update.