One of the biggest issues that author-teams struggle with is the series bible. In the past, I’ve seen them in various folders, in Word, one LONG Word document, Excel, and I even saw one in some database. There’s even one on a website that I’ve seen.
However, while helping a client with his series bible for a series he’s in the process of writing, I was introduced to OneNote.
I thought OneNote was nothing more than Notepad, honestly, so I never paid any attention to it. But when he showed me some of the things he’d done with it, I was impressed. I was able to organize his notes, and the notes I was taking from his book, into something coherent and something he could share with other authors, if he so chose to open his universe to other author teams.
I then turned what I learned to the Whiskey-verse. We have three authors writing in this universe, and while it’s nice that we get to share the same office three days a week, it would be super helpful if the other two could write without having to ask me a ton of questions. It’s just as frustrating for them as it is for me.
The series bible is stored in my OneDrive, and linked to our shared Team Dropbox folder. All three of us can be in the bible at the same time making changes…at the same time. We haven’t broken the bible yet. I am pushing our limits to try and break it. I want to see what our guidelines and rules are, but so far, we’re good. We all work on it on-line.
We are using Microsoft Edge. It seems to be a step up from Internet Explorer, which is nice. I’m a huge Google Chrome champion, but it’s been locking up a lot lately and it’s having cache issues that’s pissing me off and making projects (like website management) take longer.
I did found out that this is a lot like Scrivener, except that it’s easier to share on multiple computers and you can share it with multiple people without having to buy a license for each computer/device/person.
So, there you go, folks! The ONLY tricky spot (besides setting it up initially) is keeping it up to date. We found that it helps when you update as you write. It’s like washing your clothes, folding them, and then putting them away.
I…still don’t do that. I am working on it, though. Bible first. Socks second.
