Do you really need a series bible?

If you write a series — and most authors do now — you need a series bible. And sadly, the best time to start creating one is while you’re writing the first book.

Naturally, I only realized this while I was writing my third series.

I immediately began keeping track — haphazardly — of the characters I was putting into my books. I did so in an excel spreadsheet, which is how a good number of authors keep their series bibles. It’s simple to use for the purpose and most people have the software, anyway.

I began with something basic — a column for first name, last name, and title (because I write historical romance with lots of Viscounts, Countesses, Dukes, etc). I then have a column for their description and any important information (heroine’s brother, hero’s childhood friend, etc).

It looks like this:

I have one tab or page for each book in the series.

The problem with this is what to do with recurring characters? I opted to copy their information on to every page where they appear.

I have to say I’ve gotten better at noting when I introduce new characters — even just a random name dropped in passing. If I’m writing in Microsoft Word, I quickly create a comment highlighting the name, if I’m in Scrivener, I keep the Notes column open and drop it in there. This way, I don’t have to interrupt my flow to switch over to another program and put in the information. I can simply go back and find my notes or…