A novel series bibleevery name, date and eye colour, checked before the next book

Method

1. 1

   Give your assistant the books, and have it build the bible

   Connect your assistant to know.sh, then give it the manuscript of book one: as files in a Claude or ChatGPT project, or on disk for a local client that can read them. Ask it to make a shelf, The Harrow Bay books, and four documents: Characters, Places, Timeline, and Rules of the series. The last holds what a reader never sees stated but you must never break: Mara never carries a gun; the county has one coroner; the ferry does not run on Sundays.

   Then have it work through the book chapter by chapter, filing every fact about a character, place or date in the right finding, each ending with its book and chapter. Repeat for books two and three.

2. 2

   Check each finding against the page

   An assistant reading a novel can mistake a character’s lie for a fact, or a dream for an event. With the paperback beside you, open each character’s finding and press Edit. Correct what is wrong, delete what is not a fact, and mark the series regulars as Key. A fact you have decided but not yet written, such as who Tom’s father really was, goes in its own Decision finding, which you write yourself.

   Check that each character’s finding is titled with the name readers know, “Mara Linden” or “Tom Aske, the harbourmaster”, so the index becomes your cast list. Dated events belong in a table on the Timeline (ask your assistant to add rows, or paste the table again):

   Year	Event	Source
   1998	Tom Aske becomes harbourmaster	B1, ch. 6
   2016	Ellen Aske dies	B1, ch. 11

3. 3

   Keep chapter notes on the new book as you draft

   At the end of each writing session, give your assistant the chapter you worked on and ask it to add a finding for it to “Book 4 — chapter notes”: who appears, what they learn, and every new fact, such as “Mara’s sister Jen is two years younger; first mention.”

   Skim what it filed and fix it in the editor. These notes are what the continuity check reads, so ten minutes after each session matters more than the evenings spent on the old books.

4. 4

   Ask before you write the scene

   Before a scene that leans on the past, ask your assistant: “Using know.sh, what colour are Mara’s eyes, and where did I say so?” It answers from your findings and cites them; if two books disagree, it says so. For a quick name, Look up (⌘K) is faster: type “Aske” and every finding that mentions him is there.

   The assistant answers from the bible, not from memory of your books. If it says there is no record, check whether that chapter ever reached it.

5. 5

   Let the assistant flag contradictions as proposed notes

   Every few chapters, ask your assistant to read “Book 4 — chapter notes” against Characters, Places and Timeline. Where a new fact disagrees with an old one, it leaves a proposed note in the margin, set apart with a dashed rule, quoting both lines. Accept keeps it as an ordinary note until you have fixed the manuscript; Dismiss is for a contradiction you meant, such as a character lying.

   A proposal never changes your text. Deciding which book is right is yours: usually the one already in print wins.

6. 6

   Publish a spoiler-safe reader’s guide

   Readers of a long series like a who’s who. Ask your assistant to draft a separate document, “Harrow Bay: a reader’s guide to Books 1–3”, with a finding per character drawn only from books one to three and nothing about the killer in book two. Then rewrite each entry in the editor in your own voice. Never share the bible itself; it is full of spoilers.

   Press Share and copy the link. When book four’s new characters are added, leave their findings out of the link from each finding’s own page, and turn them back on the week the book comes out.