How to create a story bible you’ll actually use.

A simple story-bible template

Copy this into a document or your story notes. Repeat the character section for each important person; leave questions open when you haven’t decided the answer.

STORY
Working title:
Premise in one sentence:
Viewpoint and tense:

CHARACTER
Name and role:
What they want:
What they are afraid to lose:
What they know at this point:

WORLD
Place and period:
Rules and limits:
The cost of breaking a rule:

CONTINUITY
Fact:
Where it is established:
When it changes:

OPEN QUESTIONS
Undecided ideas:
Decisions needed before the next scene:

Make each detail earn its place.

Here’s a worked example from The Last Memory Shop, AI-assisted demo fiction created for Plotchi. Its opening asks what happens when a woman who sells memories is offered money for one she hasn’t made yet.

• Character: Mara needs money for rent. She sells small memories, but protects the ones involving her late brother, Tomas.
• World rule: Selling a memory removes the seller’s experience of it. The consequences of an event remain, even when its remembered details are gone.
• Complication: A buyer can reserve a future memory. The price depends on what it might mean to the seller.
• Open question: What makes an ordinary afternoon worth more than a year of rent?

These details affect Mara’s choices. Her favourite colour can wait until it matters. Notice that the unanswered question is a possibility to explore, rather than a fact the story has already established.

Separate facts, plans and character knowledge.

A fact has appeared in the manuscript. A plan is something you intend to write. An idea is an option you might discard. Marking the difference prevents an abandoned idea from quietly returning as established history.

Add a chapter reference to important facts. If Mara learns the price of a future memory in the second scene, her first-scene decisions must reflect what she knew before that conversation. What the author knows and what a character knows are separate notes.

When you revise a rule, search for scenes that depend on it. A note saying “future memories cannot be returned” may affect the ending, an earlier bargain and the buyer’s motivation. Updating the note alone won’t update those scenes.

Finish a writing session with three questions.

• What new fact did this chapter establish?
• What changed for a character, place or relationship?
• Which decision is still open for the next scene?

Keep the answers brief. If maintaining the reference takes longer than writing, reduce it to the details you keep looking up. For a series, also note which book establishes a fact and whether it changes later.

Keep the reference beside your manuscript.

In Plotchi, use Codex for characters, world details and established facts. Use notes and plans for unfinished ideas. You can ask Ghost to help review continuity, then check its suggestions against the writing yourself. Writing is free; Ghost uses Credits.