The Book Bible: The Setting

THE THIRD POST

Welcome back! So far we’ve discussed setting up your Book Bible in a notebook, the Character section, the Notes section, the Plot section, and any other sections you might like to add yourself. Let’s jump right back in to discuss the Setting section in the Book Bible notebook.

Setting

Now this area, at least for me, requires a lot of attention. While I’m a character driven writer, the setting section of my Book Bible has tons of information in it. There are two different worksheets I use in this section. One for general information about each country/kingdom you create or mention in your books and one for more detailed information about each city and location. The first worksheet I fill out before I begin writing while the second I fill out before and during the writing phase.

Again, the original idea for using setting sketches like this at all came from Karen S. Wieser and her book, First Draft in Thirty Days. And like before, I have edited and tweaked them to work the way I wanted them to.

The Country Sketch

KINGDOM/COUNTRY NAME:

• Race:
• Language:
• Technology: (What type of technology exists in the country? Be as detailed or as general as you like here. “Modern times”, “Medieval Times”, or “Electricity and indoor plumbing but still use horse and cart”)

LOCATION:

• Located: (Mention where it is in relation to other countries and landmarks – borders, oceans, rivers, etc.)
• Cities: (List all cities and towns. This list will be used for the second type of setting sketch.)
• Other Locations: (This is for a random location say in the woods that doesn’t necessarily belong to a town. You can also mention important lakes and rivers here that show up in your story.)

COMMERCE:

• Currency: (What type of currency do they use and how much is it worth? Coins, paper money?)
• Class: (Classes of people. Commoners and nobles? Middle and upper classes?)

MILITARY:

• Type: (Army, Navy, etc or one you made up!)
• Ranks:
• Awards:
• Weapons:

(Repeat this section for each type of military you have in that kingdom/country.)

WEAPONRY:

• Commoners:
• Nobles:

(Repeat this section for each type of class your country has.)

RELIGION:

• Gods:
• Goddesses:
• Beliefs/Superstitions:
• Myths/Legends:

TRADITIONS:

• Birth:
• Death:
• Graduation:
• Marriage:
• Military Promotion:
• Names:

STYLES:

(What people where. Repeat for each class or special government/military rank the country has Be specific for women, men, and children..)

• Commoners:
• Nobility:
• Military:

The Location Sketch

Now this sketch, holds the more detail about the country’s cities and locations your characters will visit. Like a tavern or some other building.

KINGDOM/COUNTRY NAME:

City or Town:

Description: (Describe the town itself in general terms. Large city or small? What other land marks is it near? What happens during the day (open market in the square?) and a night (clubs, bars, etc)?)

Locations:

(Name and describe each location in full detail – look, smell, sounds, etc. Even if you don’t use all the details in your book, having them all listed here will greatly help you when you go to write and/or edit the book. Locations include Taverns, inns, shops, government buildings, houses, etc. Any place your character go to, should be listed here.)

I know the example for this sketch is small, but you just repeat the areas for each city or town you need to. With my books, my characters travel around a lot and so I have five or six towns listed with 2 to 3 locations each. Your book might only have one town but 9 or 10 locations. It all depends on your book!

Maps

Yes, maps. I love to make them and they’re relatively easy to make. I use a program called AutoREALM (http://autorealm.sourceforge.net/) to make them along with Paint.NET for tweaking. Both are free programs to download.

Here is an example for you, the map I made for The Kinir Elite Chronicles Series.

And there it is! Your Book/Series Bible. Remember that you can edit any of the sections and the sketches to fit your needs. Each writer, genre, and book has their own needs. Even though all my books are fantasy, none of the sketches look a like.

Again, if you have questions about something I didn’t explain well enough, please don’t hesitate to ask in a comment here. I was trying to keep these posts from getting too long.

Thank you again Sharon for having me here. You are welcome to visit me some more at my website http://avpergakis.com and my blog http://labotomyofawriter.com.

The Book Bible: The Character Tab

Today is Part II of a three part series on Book Bibles. You'll want to bookmark this series to refer to later on. Sometimes I get information that I know I'll use later. Enjoy! (Sharon H.)

THE SECOND POST

Welcome back! Yesterday we talked about setting up your Book Bible in a notebook with dividers for certain sections. And we discussed what goes into the Notes, Plot, and any other tabs you put into your Book Bible. Today, we are talking about the Character tab.

Characters

Here is where I keep all the character sketches, notes, etc for every major character in my book. The hero, heroine, the villain, and any side characters that are important. Like in my series, The Kinir Elite Chronicles, the Kinir Elite are a team of six warrior elves. While Derac is really the main character of the story, I have sketches made up for the entire team as they are very important to the plot. It is up to you and how you write on how many of these you actually make. I know many authors who only make sketches for the hero, heroine, and villain.

I also keep any other notes about the character in this section. I like to “talk” to my characters as if they were real people (and yes, they talk back!) So I have snippets of conversations saved or interview questions and things like that here as well that have added personality traits for my characters.

Now, for the side characters that appear but are not all that important like shop keepers, people they might run into once or twice only, and other characters like that, I use a notebook paper and write down their name, if they have one, and any little notes I put into the story as I write. For example, I’ll have “Maleena: Derac’s first wife; died in a fire; long blonde hair;” But that’s it. I don’t need a full sketch on her because she’s dead and only exists in Derac’s memory. She’s important enough that I need to remember that she has blonde hair, but doesn’t warrant a full sketch of her own.

The Character Sketch

Here is a black character sketch, with explanations for you to use. I originally started using sketch sheets like this one after reading “First Draft in Thirty Days” by Karen S. Wiesnder. I’ve edited the one I actually use to fit my needs – as should any writer.

CHARACTER: (Full Name)

• Character Role: (Hero/Villian/Etc)
• Nickname:
• Birth Date/Place:

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTIONS:

• Age:
• Race:
• Eye Color:
• Hair Color/Style:
• Build (height/weight):
• Skin Tone:
• Tattoos/Scars/Markings:
• Skin Tone:
• Style of Dress:
• Weapons:
• Magical Powers:
• Characteristics/Mannerisms: (This where you can add those little twitches and quirks about your character – like they pop their knuckles when nervous for an example.)

PERSONALITY TRAITS:

(List/Describe your characters personality. I do this in a bulleted list but you can write it out as a paragraph if you like. Mention things like – Quick temper, Battle hardened warrior, Devoted to family, etc.)

BACKGROUND:

(List/Describe your characters background, their upbringing. Again, I do this in a bulleted list but you can write it out as a paragraph if you like. Mention things like – where they were raise, what type of family do they have (parents/siblings), anything that’s important that happened to them in the past basically.)

OCCUPATION/EDUCATION:

(List/Describe your characters job and what type of education they have. Put as much detail as you like here about it. Did they go to college? What special skills do they have? What does their job actually entail?)

INTERNAL CONFLICTS:

(List/Describe the internal conflicts your character deals with during the book. Now I have this section a few times on a character’s sheet – once for each book. This is where you can talk about your character struggling with say, the loss of a spouse/child or some fear they have that may prevent them from reach their goal in the story.)

EXTERNAL CONFLICTS:

(List/Describe the external conflicts your character faces in the book. This is things like the villain, or even the weather. Stuff that is outside the character and his/her control. Again, I repeat this for each book in a series.)

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:

(Use this section for anything else you want to add.)

Type it up, print it out, and put it in your notebook. Repeat for each character!

If you have pictures or drawings of your characters, don’t forget to add those here! I was able to hire an artist to draw sketches of my characters for me. You can see them at the website for the Kinir Elite, http://kinirelite.com.

Now, as you write the book(s) you will no doubt have things to add to this sketch. I simply write them down by hand on the paper or on a sticky note. Yes, I have quite a few hand written notes all over the place. I update when the page gets too hard for me to read without getting lost and print out a new copy. I do like having the notebook, but I don’t want to print a new page for one line of new information. So, I wait until I run out of space or it’s too jumbled for me to find what I want before I update it.

And we are done for the day. Come back again tomorrow and I’ll explain the rest of the Settings in the Book Bible.

If you have any questions about something I didn’t explain well enough, please leave a comment here. I’ll be sure to visit all day to answer your questions.

Anastasia V. Pergakis lives with her husband and two year old son in Columbus, Georgia. She is a high fantasy writer, enchanting adults to remember their imagination is not gone just because they grew up. Her series, The Kinir Elite Chronicles, follows the Kinir Elite, a team of warrior elves protecting Kinir and her people. Cleanse Fire, the first book, is being submitted at the moment.

Anastasia is also the owner of Anastasia Creatives, a web design company helping the "starving artists" and small business owner have a solid web presence through quality websites. You can learn more about this at http://anastasiacreatives.com.

And if all that wasn't enough, Anastasia recently started a new venture called Beyond Worlds. It is a place to highlight fantasy and sci-fi authors and their works. It is a division of HighlightedAuthor.com, originally started by Charlene A. Wilson (http://charleneawilson.com), author of Cornerstone Deep. You can visit Beyond Worlds athttp://habeyondworlds.com.

The Book Bible

Welcome to talented author Ana Pergakis. I asked her to do a series of posts on The Book Bible. No one has ever successfully explained to me how to set one up, and how to use it when writing a stand alone book or series. Because I looked hard and wide for someone who actually used one, when I learned about Ana's plan, I was thrilled she agreed to share it with all of us. Please join us for

the next three days as she shows us how to do it.

THE FIRST POST

Thank you so much Sharon for letting me be here! I’m truly honored. I want to start this post with a little disclaimer if you will. When it comes to Book Bibles, there is no right or wrong way to organize them. I will tell you how I set up mine and you can change it to what works for you.

Now let’s get into the thick of things shall we? For the purpose of this post, I’ll use my Book Bible that I made for my fantasy adventure series, The Kinir Elite Chronicles.

What you need:

A three ring binder (one for each book or series)

Tab dividers (make sure you have plenty!)

Printer (including paper and ink of course)

A three hole punch (or a single one will work too)

Your imagination

Labels (big and small) (optional)

Setting it up:

Now for a series, I keep all the information for the entire series in one notebook. Since characters and settings often repeat themselves, I find it’s easier to keep up with all the details this way. However, the set it up is the same for a single book as well, just less tabs. For the rest of this explanation, I’ll talk about setting it up for a series, just change what you need to for a single book.

First thing I do is take a big label (ya know the ones about the same size as those name tags you stick on your shirt) and write the title of the series on it then stick it on the front of the binder. Then I use the smaller labels – narrow ones, and write the name again with the letters on top of each other for the spine. (This way you can still see the title when it’s on the shelf.) Now you don’t have to use labels. You can use paper and simply tape or glue them on. Whatever works for you.

With the tab dividers label them as so: Characters, Setting, and Notes. You can add more if you like of course. For example, I have a tab for Languages because my characters have their own language that I need to remember through out the entire series. If your book centers around politics or religion in some way, you can have a tab for that also.

I’ll talk about each of these tabs in more detail later on. Now, the rest of the tabs are for the Plot. Since I don’t always know the titles of the books in my series, I just label the tabs “Book 1 Plot,” “Book 2 Plot,” etc.

Now that your binder is ready to be filled with fabulous information, it’s time to get your imagination in gear!

I’m going skip the Character and Setting tabs for today, as both are very detailed and make for long posts.

Notes (and other tabs)

For a brief explanation, of my Languages tab that I use for my books. Since my characters are usually elves, dragons, faeries, etc, I always give them their own languages. Now, there are those that make up an entire language like J.R.R. Tolkien did with his elves in “Lord of the Rings.” I would keep such a thing in this section too. But, I don’t go that far. Usually I just have a few words for the languages – Mother, Father, Yes, No, Greetings, Currency, etc.

I set up a spreadsheet in Excel for this. I have it divided like this: Word/Phrase | Pronunciation | Direct Translation | Meaning.

The first two columns are pretty self explanatory. The made up word and how you pronounce it. The last two I’ll explain with an example.

In my series the Kinir Elite Chronicles, the team has a saying (my elves here speak Latin by the way) Vivo Liber. Morior Bonum. The direct translation of the phrase is “Live Slow. Die Fast.” (At least as I want it to mean, I’m sure my Latin isn’t perfect!). But under the Meaning column, I explain further that really the meaning behind the words is to wish someone a long, joyous life and to not suffer in death. Of course, not all words or phrases will need the extra explanation.

My Notes tab I use to keep random bits of information. One of the characters in my Kinir Elite series is a very religious person and is often praying to one God or Goddess. So I have the few deities that I made up so I remember them later. I also include any symbols I made to represent them.

Basically, the Notes tabs hold any information that you have to remember, but doesn’t need a full section in the notebook on its own. Like a few deities or government ranks, etc. My rule of thumb is if I have more than a page of notes, then it warrants having its own section in the notebook.

The Plot Tabs

This section I hold copies of my query letter, synopsis, blurb, etc.

I also make my own cover art to use on my website and blog, so I also print a copy of that here. I would keep a printed copy of the official cover art in this section also.

When the book is completely finished – as in about to be released and I literally have all the edits done, I print a copy of the manuscript and put it in this section also. This is so that when I go to write the next book, I can refer to the notebook, instead of juggling two open word docs on my computer.

Now, to keep these posts from being too long, I’ll stop here. Please tune in tomorrow! I’ll explain the Character tab in detail tomorrow.

If you have any questions about something I didn’t explain well enough, please leave a comment here. I’ll be sure to visit all day to answer your questions.