The Bible – or “How to keep everything straight”
If you are writing one off stories or anything stand alone consistency isn’t too big of a deal. No reason to worry too much about remembering the details like character description or how you described a place. This completely changes as soon as you decide to play more in the same world you’ve constructed.
Readers are a fickle bunch and will notice things you might not. That, to me, is funny as it’s your world and you are it’s master. How do you make sure that a character from book one who is blonde with brown eyes doesn’t turn into a brown haired greened eyed wonder? Character profiles and a bible.
I have done this for years without really knowing it. As a GM I create a wide array of NPC’s for my games. For those that survive encounters with the players I want to make sure that each time they are encountered they are not radically different. Usually I go with some basics – height, build, hair color, eye color, distinguishing features, and a brief background.
As I delve deeper into the world of writing I have found that most writers do the same, but also on a much wider scale. Beyond the physical characteristics things like education, family, job history, and motivations are added to that list. I’ve cobbled together my own character profile that I’ve started to use when I’m developing characters. This way when Vince West encounters Detective Decker that Decker isn’t a tall, lean blonde as opposed to a man with a wrestlers build. Putting the extra details about a character also helps breath life into them, taking them from some cardboard cutout into a real person, who has goals, aspirations, fears.
The character profiles are just one thing to keep up with. You also have location profiles, a time line, descriptions of items. Put all of these things together and you have a world bible.
Like I said I’ve been doing something like this for a long time, usually for each world and each campaign I put together. This is good as it’s not a foreign concept. I have started putting everything into an Excel spreadsheet, with each character getting their own sheet. Each subject gets it’s own Tab, locations, characters, gear, equipment. This way I can open up the file and click on characters to look up someone, or click on Locations and find out how I’ve described the Dusk and Dawn. Pictures are also handy for visual reference.
A friend of mine also suggested setting up a Wiki. You can do this for free and even save it locally. I want to look into this – especially for the Space Opera world my wife and I are putting together. I just want to try and keep everything straight and if you and someone else are writing in the same world it’s a good thing for everyone to be on the same page.
How do y’all keep your ideas and thoughts organized especially if you are writing series? Comment and share below!
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