hey guys this is Brittany Wang an aspiring author of a YA fantasy novel
and today I'm gonna be showing you my Series Bible which a lot of you on
Instagram have been waiting for this so I'm so excited to open this baby up and
show you what's inside if you don't already know what a series Bible is or a
story Bible, novel Bible whatever you want to call it basically it is a
collection of reference documents that have everything about your characters in
your setting and your plot screenwriters have definitely used series Bibles for a
long time but I've seen a lot of novelists use them successfully as well
whether they have a really complex world because they're maybe writing fantasy or
sci-fi whether they have a lot of characters they're trying to keep track
of or they're writing more than one book and when they're on book two or three
they don't want to have to go back to read all the way through book 1 in order
to make sure they're staying consistent for me I have a lot going on in my story
I have a lot of characters I have a pretty big world I have a lot of plot
twists if foreshadowing I want to make sure I do right and so I've started
putting my series Bible together even before I started drafting now I didn't
want to spoil anything in my book but I also wanted to make this really
applicable so what I've done is I've taken pretty much all the notes out of
this binder but replaced them with the blank templates that I originally
created for myself what I've also done is I've made those templates available
for you as a free download in the description just in case you get really
inspired by this video and you didn't want to go through all the trouble of
making those templates yourself so let's get into the tutorial and if you find
that this is really helpful I would love if you would give this video a thumbs up
and if by the end you still have more questions about the series Bible or
about world-building or anything about writing I would love to discuss those
with you in the comments okay guys so this is the binder that I've chosen for
my series Bible and obviously you can choose whatever kind of binder you want
but I got this one from Staples I just I wanted something inspiring so I really
liked how this one looked and I'll link this in the description in case you
would like to get the same one but I tried a couple different places and I
felt like staples had a lot of variety so I would go check there if you are
looking I also picked up the these dividers here which I thought were
really cute and have these pockets in them as well and also I haven't tried it
yet but they do claim that you can write directly on these dividers and then
erase what you've written if you want to change it so I thought that was pretty
cool as well now I'm just going to use this series Bible index that I've
created and again is in the templates below to sort of be a reference point as
we go through everything again not everything in here is in this Bible but
it does have everything listed in the index so you can add whatever is missing
okay so the first section I have is all about your writing goals for your
project and this part of the template again is not in the templates that I'm
providing below because this particular sheet which is really awesome is by
heart breathing's she is on YouTube and in her video that I will link below she
offers this sheet along with showing you how to meet your writing goals and it
was pretty awesome so I put that in my series Bible it has a title word count
goal start date plotting completed by rough draft deadline and it's completed
by it has all of these deadlines and just I thought that that was just really
helpful to have right at the start the other thing she talked about having was
just having a visual calendar and sort of marking deadlines and being able to
cross things off within a calendar so I just printed this off of my Google
Calendar and I just got rid of all my events so it was nice and blank so that
is something that you can do as well you'll also notice that basically I've
put everything in these plastic sleeves and that might just be overkill but I
like to take my binder with me if I go anywhere to write like at the library or
other places and I never want to just hole punch these pieces of paper and
then something happens and it just gets ripped out and I lose it so these are
just plastic sleeves and you can get them at Staples as well and I'll link
them in the description to our second section in
oh yeah is more of a plotting section and so I have this plotting worksheet
template thing that has a place where you can work on your log line or pitch
your book blurb your synopsis and sort of build on those things then on the
back of it we have a place to sort of Chronicle your themes that you want to
weave into your plot important icons and symbols subplots or other elements to
work in and any questions you feel like you need to be answering as you're
honing your plot in this area you can also put in a section where you have
your typed out or written out outline and that can be for one book or the
whole series that you're writing but all of that would sort of go right here I
would also include any sections where you're printing out research or
different tidbits that are helping you figure out different parts of your plot
or characters that you needed to do some digging about and then finally I just
like including like a blank brainstorming page whether it's writing
or doodling or whatever you need to do this is where you do that now depending
on your preference you might want to type these things out first and then
print them out and put them in the plastic sleeves in your series Bible for
me while I'm sort of working on my plot and working on my first draft I've
actually really enjoyed keeping these blank in here and then pulling the piece
of paper out and writing by hand just different notes and things in the
margins and just making it really messy and you know the creative mind um but
then when I get further on down the line and I have things really solidified
maybe in the second or third draft my plan is to go back and type what is
finalized out and then have it as more of a reference for future books in the
series I just really feel like this process keeps everything really fluid
and again when I'm at the library or I'm out and about and I get an idea and I
happen to have this with me I can just pull this out and write what I need to
and I'm not like freaking out because oh no I have everything typed and it's so
beautiful and now I'm messing it up let's mess it up first let's make it
crazy and messy and creative first and then
then I'll finalize it and that's just sort of how my brain works but I would
love to know as you guys create your own series Bibles if you have any other
processes that make it easier for you I am NOT the ultimate expert this is just
my experience and so I would love to hear tips from you guys as well so on to
section number three which is all about our characters so what I do is I have a
certain template that works sort of fluidly four main heroes and villains
and then I have a very simplified page for minor characters that if they need
to get more fleshed out I will then create maybe something more like this
for them but just basic ones that I don't want to forget little tidbits
about those things go in here but for the main heroes and the main villains I
obviously have a name age gender my world is full of fairies so I have like
their kind or their race that they're a part of I have physical descriptions so
I have listed here hair eyes skin distinguishing marks height clothing and
items mannerisms all that kind of stuff would go here personality I just listed
some examples you could include their myers-briggs their strengths and
weaknesses and flaws beliefs and spirituality it's definitely section I
wanted to include skills and abilities or powers based on what kind of world
you're creating their living situation their family situation their occupation
or job life experiences we have history education all the things and events that
sort of make them who they are today they're key relationships so the
different people that make the most impact on them or the different people
they meet with in the book and how that impacts their character or their arc
inspiration so if certain characters in other books or movies or stories have
inspired that character and you just want to keep sort of a record of that
and finally have a short section just for a synopsis of their character arc
and how they sort of changed throughout the book now you'll also see that I have
this section at the back here called goals motivations and stakes and this is
definitely inspired from Kim chance she had sort of a breakdown of this in one
of her videos and so I'm not this in my templates for you guys
because I want you to be able to go check out her templates that she created
but this was part of her character profile and I just thought that that was
really helpful to break down just at the beginning in the middle and at the end
of the book what are their goals motivations and stakes and how that
progresses throughout the story so you can see here that some of the stuff that
I have in my series Bible I've created and other things have totally inspired
me and so I put other people's resources in here another thing I'll probably
include in the plot section is Blake Snyder's beech sheet which has been
really helpful for me as well so yeah it's just really fluid and I also really
love that because it is a binder and not a notebook you can obviously take out
the sheets from the binder and reorder them however you want or a while I was
keeping everything in a notebook but it was just so hard to sort of like keep
flipping back and forth like where did I write that note but this just allows me
to again be fluid in my process but also be able to move things around and
organize them where I need them alright and the fourth section I have
here is all about world building now some of you that are more in like a
contemporary world might not need as much detail as I have here
but for fantasy and sci-fi especially I feel like this section could get very
big and so the first thing that I include here is the world sketch or map
and I just left mine here it's just sort of a very simple childlike doodle of
what I picture my world to be so you can enjoy that and hopefully that gets you
excited that someday you'll be able to read about this world I'm so excited the
next thing I did is I sort of separated this into two sections the first being
about the overall world and then what I have are like five different provinces
within that world and so what I chose to do is to make profiles for both the
overall world and the individuals or key places in my world so this first
template has the name of the world the location if that
the setting description generally what it looks like and maybe the weather
creatures and plants and stuff like that the society and culture that that world
has so people groups hierarchy and laws education system common jobs religion
currency and you can add whatever else you feel is pertinent magic system again
this is definitely pertinent if you are doing a fantasy story at the back of
this I also have a section for the world's history and the current state of
the world as it stands at the beginning of the book for the key places or for my
provinces in my story again we have location name the location within the
world each of my provinces they hold a specific value in their culture and so I
wanted to include that and they're sort of people group or kinda race that
inhabits there and then I got even more specific with each province so again we
have setting a description but each province has a slightly different
wildlife and weather system and different things like that so I had that
be different key places and unique features within that province about the
people group or kinda race physical identifiers general temperament skills
and powers common jobs clothing weapons those are just different things to
remind me to maybe include in here hierarchy and laws magic system again
because each province might have a different hierarchy law system or magic
system their own particular background in history because that was important to
my story as well they're internal and external conflicts and the larger role
of this province in the story now you might not need all of this and so
actually when you download these templates I've left it as a Word
document so that you can actually go in and edit whatever you want each section
to say you can make them bigger or smaller or whatever and yeah I just
really wanted it to be as helpful to you guys as possible what I do ask is that
you can totally change whatever you want within the template for the purposes of
your own series Bible I just ask that you don't you know share it with anybody
else or alter it and share it as your own unless you want to share the link
that I'm giving you so that they can download it from me I would just really
appreciate that obviously because I've put a lot of work and time into this and
I just want to help you guys and finally the fifth and last section is just a
simple glossary section again depending on your world you might have a lot of
terms that you just have to end up defining and I was talking I think with
my friend Rachel who I'm gonna tell you about in a little bit and she was saying
how she was using this glossary and how it was just really helpful and again
especially with like fantasy or sci-fi you'll just have this sort of document
that you can reference while you're writing or if you forget what a certain
term is called or what the rules are about it again what I would do is I'm
gonna take notes as things come up and then at the end I want to sort of
finalized things I would then go back and type this up maybe an alphabetical
order in a document reprint it and put it in here well guys I hope that was
really helpful and again if you're looking for any of the materials I've
used or the free templates that I've created they are in the description
below also if any of you are watching this video soon after its released I
want to let you know that this Saturday July 7th I'm gonna be going live on
Instagram with my friend Rachel and we're gonna be talking about world
building I'm gonna share a little bit more about my series Bible she's gonna
share about this history book that she's writing for her novel we're gonna be
answering questions and then we're gonna do a word sprint as well so if you have
any further questions definitely leave those questions in the comments and we
will be sure to answer them also on Instagram by the way that livestream is
part of a bigger writing retreat that is happening all the way through this
weekend from Friday to Sunday called the pondering writing retreat tons of word
sprints tons of live streams so if you need to get words in especially for camp
you know going on right now you're definitely gonna want to check it out
well guys that's all I have for you today but if you enjoyed this video
again please give it a thumbs up and I hope you consider subscribing so you
don't miss anything and until next week happy writing