A story bible is the single document that holds every fact about your fictional world — character names, dates, magic rules, place spellings, family trees, technology limits — so any future editor, co-author, or your future self can verify continuity in one place. It is updated continuously as you draft and is the first file an editor asks for.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Continuity errors are the most-cited fan complaint on Goodreads and the most-flagged copy-editor concern. A story bible eliminates roughly eighty percent of them by giving every "wait, did I say his eyes were blue or green in chapter two?" question a definitive answer. Series writers cannot work without one.
Chapter ii·What to include
- Character sheets: name, age, role, physical description, backstory beats, voice notes.
- Place index: spellings, descriptions, maps, distance between locations.
- Timeline: in-story dates, character ages at each scene, real-world events that pin the calendar.
- Rules of the world: magic systems, technology limits, social structures, religion.
- A glossary of made-up words with pronunciation and definition.
- A "voice anchor" excerpt: a paragraph that represents the book’s tone.
Chapter iii·Example
A fantasy author drafting book two of a series keeps her story bible in one document with seven sections. Before any scene that mentions a character from book one, she searches the bible: hair color, accent, last known location, key relationships. The five-minute search prevents a sixty-page rewrite when a reader catches that a character was described as left-handed in book one and right-handed in book two.
WriteLoom builds the story bible automatically: characters, places, and a queryable index live in the same project as the manuscript.
See the Plan studio