The Book Bible

I found the book bible for my first novel last week, and it reminded me of how handy one is to have.

A book bible is a paper or digital file that contains all the information collected before, during, and after the book is written.  

Most mentions of a book bible come from authors writing a series, but one is great for a standalone novel.

In POWER’s book bible, I had drawings of the layout of the hero’s house complete with all the secret hallways, trapdoors, etc.  The compass points were used so I wouldn’t have someone in a bedroom watching the setting sun when the bedroom faced east.  The outside of the house and grounds had their own map.

The horses two characters ride at the beginning have their descriptions and names listed.

Because the main character has a cousin and a brother involved in the plot, I did a family tree.  

Research sources were listed with Dewey decimal numbers and the library or the personal bookshelf where they were.  (This was pre-Internet.)  For later books, I created a file in my browser's bookmarks specific to the book.

I did drawings and descriptions of some of the magical memorabilia in the house, and I listed magical tricks I could use in various scenes.  

One page was nothing but names I could use for random characters.  Each name was dissimilar from the main characters so readers wouldn’t be confused by a similar sounding or spelled name.  I also picked names that were common in the area where the novel was set.  

Every character had their description, etc., with other details.  If I “cast” the character as an actor I’m familiar with, I’d write that down, too, so I’d be able to hear the correct voice in my head when I wrote dialogue for a character who had been elsewhere for a lot of pages.  

I started the novel with most of my info in the bible on the major characters, but I added info for them and others as I created it.  When I found research articles, I’d clip them including where I’d got them, and insert that into my folder.

I usually added information to the bible after I finished writing for the day, or I’d go back over it before I started writing so I wouldn’t lose my writing rhythm.  

Another handy page or two to have, particularly if your book is a fantasy, is a word bible aka a stylesheet.  Each character’s name, made-up words with a brief definition, place names, and unusual capitalizations are listed.  When your book is edited, this list will keep the copy editor from hassling you about words that may appear to be misspelled.   

Some pages were there for thinking through various plot points, considering possible scenes later in the novel, and general mental doodling.  

I also had clippings of people’s faces to remind me of specific characters.

All this may appear to be a lot of extra work, but it will be worth it for rewrites, etc., and, maybe, that standalone may turn into a series, and the bible will be worth its weight in gold for the time saved.  

Avoid the Bubble Scene

Fiction narrative is a river of cause and effect which sweeps the reader and the characters through the novel.  What happens in each scene affects what happens through the rest of the novel, and main characters should change as these events affect them.  

If the sweet heroine has to kill someone to save her lover’s life, that death should change her, and that person’s death should affect the events of the novel.  

If that death scene has no effect on either the heroine or the plot, it is a bubble scene.  The reader may also decide that she’s not so sweet and may be a psychopath.

If she nearly makes love to another man and doesn’t think about her true love and that event does nothing to change her or the plot, that’s a bubble scene.  You’ve also changed the reader’s view on your heroine’s worthiness for a happily ever after.

Bubble scenes are emotional failures because the reader loses their connection to the story you want to tell. These scenes also change the reader’s perception of your character.

If a scene has nothing to do with the rest of the novel, you should ask yourself if it should be included.  When the answer is no, that bubble scene should be popped. 

The Chaos Character

 A character type I’ve noticed a lot in recent reading is what I call the chaos character.  Not only does the character create chaos around him by his actions, he fills many pages as he flounders about the main character or characters as they try to move forward toward their plot goal for the book.

Last night, the novel I read was peppered with the antics of a chaos character— an elderly uncle who kept appearing where he shouldn’t be so the other characters would have to stop what they were doing to keep him safe, or he would bring in new characters who might be involved in the mystery so he was making things more complicated and tainting the investigation.  

Did his almost constant presence improve the novel?  No. The plot turned into chaos to the point that no one was moving forward, and the plot had to solve itself by having the killer just announce his guilt.  A slight dose of this character could have been used for humor.  Instead, he proved to be nothing more than page filler which destroyed the mystery.  

Can a secondary chaos character work? In a small dose, yes.  In my TIME AFTER TIME about reincarnation, my hero and heroine are visiting a powerful psychic who is trying to help the hero convince the heroine that reincarnation is a real thing.  Everything is going positively until a medium friend of the psychic wanders in and blurts out information about the heroine’s mother that emotionally destroys the heroine. 

I used this chaos character, not only to mess up the hero’s plan, but, more importantly, to allow the hero to finally discover why the heroine is so reluctant to accept reincarnation.  After her mother’s sudden death, she was preyed on and badly hurt by a fake medium so that anything remotely resembling spiritual explanations or events freaks her out.  The main characters must move past this to find their happy ending.

A chaos character can be used as an important character, mostly as a villain.  The Joker from BATMAN is a chaos character as well as a psychotic killer. Loki from THE AVENGERS is also chaotic. Thor and the viewer can’t tell what Loki will do or whose side he will take. As a comic character, both Joker and Loki can be over the top in a way that a novel character can’t so care must be taken in how this type of character is used.

A bit of chaos can add humor, danger, or misdirection, but too much creates a mess of a novel.  

Rolling the Monster Dice

 All Julie wants is to be a professional dancer, but, when danger strikes near her several times, her family moves overnight from Atlanta to the small island where her parents came from, and she finds herself in a weird Stepford Wives community of perfection and strange secrets.  What is going on, why is her whole family lying to her, why can she produce electrical energy from her hands in times of danger, and how can she return to dance? 

The author rolls the monster dice and uses the results—the characters are fae/fairies even though they are nothing like any fae ever written.

~*~

Ann is starting medical school, but she’s distracted by the ghost of her father who appears before her several times.  Meanwhile, she’s noticed two men following her.  

The author rolls the monster dice and uses the results—the characters are aliens from another planet.

~*~

Mary is developing weird powers.  She can make light bulbs explode when she’s angry, and she’s starting to read minds.

The author rolls the monster dice and uses the results— Mary is a born vampire.

~*~

These are recent examples of books I tried to read where the author seems to be setting up unusual paranormal creatures and situations, then, out of nowhere, calls them by a common monster name although nothing about them is like any of the folklore of that creature.  

Beyond the sheer annoyance at the out-of-nowhere identification of the characters and the total lack of knowledge at what these traditional creatures are, these books are wasted opportunities at offering something different to readers jaded by too many vampires, fae, and aliens among us.  

When you are world building, make up your mind whether you will follow, at least partially, the tradition of some creature or whether you will make your own creature, and stick with this decision instead of randomly redefining established creatures. 

Character Change and Backstory

QUESTION: My main character used to be a bad guy, but now he’s not.  He’s gone elsewhere and changed his name.  How much of his past should I include?  Do I need to write scenes from his past?  Will readers believe he has changed?

If his past (backstory) is important, and it probably should be, you don’t have to include scenes of that past unless you think the reader wouldn’t understand him or his backstory is really complex.  Usually in a case like this, his past life must impact his present one, and backstory scenes are interlaced with the present day.  

Remember that every time a scene from the past is inserted, the reader stops dead to get his mind into the past then must stop dead again to get back in the present.  This kind of back and forth is not a good thing in popular fiction like fantasy.

Backstory can be inserted easily enough during present time scenes through dialogue, thoughts from the main character, and events.   

He could be in a tavern to meet another character and hear a drunk nearby talking about his former identity's bad-ass behavior and think — “He'd piss his pants if he knew he was sitting a few bar stools away from me."  Then you could have another character say, "But (insert former name here) was decent enough.  He'd never fight around civilians and that time he rescued the child from the burning house instead of taking the money.  You wouldn't see (insert new bad guy's name here) do that." 

Sooner rather than later, you’ll also need to tell the reader why he chose to change.  Again, it need not be a huge info dump.  

As to whether readers will accept a bad guy as a good guy, part of this is determined by genre expectations from its readers.  A truly despicable character would never be accepted as a hero in a romance, but, elsewhere, readers have a lot more forgiveness about this.  In your reading of the genre you are writing, do you recall characters who switched moral sides and did it work and why?  

Two superhero movies I can recall where the bad guy turned into the good guy are MEGAMIND and DESPICABLE ME. The change in their characters was the story. 

And think also of Magneto in the X-Men series.  As a bad guy, he is morally and emotionally complex, and he's helped his former friend Charles Xavier more than once to save the day for everyone's sake. 

Usually, bad characters who change sides have already shown they are capable of good behavior with the bad behavior.  That makes it more believable.  A psychopath who changes to become a hero is totally unbelievable.

The trick is making your character's choices and changes believable.  If you do, the reader will accept them.