# A novel series bible — every name, date and eye colour, checked before the next book

Recipe No. 2, Books and writing. From The know.sh Cookbook: https://know.sh/cookbook/series-bible

- For: a novelist on book four of a mystery series
- You bring: three published books, your drafting notes for the fourth, and the uneasy feeling that someone’s eyes changed colour in book two
- You get: a private series bible of characters, places, a timeline and the rules of the series, every fact marked with the book and chapter that established it, plus a spoiler-safe reader’s guide on a public link
- Time: an evening per published book to check what your assistant filed, then ten minutes after each writing session
- Keep it: private while you work; share one document by a read-only link

By book four, a mystery series has more facts than any author can hold. The harbourmaster moved to town at nineteen in book two, but in book three he has lived there all his life. Readers notice. They write to tell you, kindly, and then again in their reviews.

This recipe builds the bible you should have started with book one, and lets your assistant do the reading. Give Claude, ChatGPT or whichever assistant you use your own manuscripts, and it files four documents (Characters, Places, Timeline and the Rules of the series), a finding per character, and each fact with where it sits on the page: *(B2, ch. 14)*. You check it against the books in the editor. From then on the assistant is the continuity clerk. Ask it what colour Mara's eyes are, and where you said so, and it answers from the bible with the book and chapter. Give it each new chapter, and it leaves a proposed note wherever the new book disagrees with the old ones.

The novel itself stays in your writing app, and the assistant does not write a word of it. It reads, files and points; the sentences are yours.

## What you will use

- **Shelf**: One shelf for the series, *The Harrow Bay books*, with a line naming the books so far.
- **Research document**: Four reference documents (Characters, Places, Timeline, Rules of the series) and one for each book’s chapter notes.
- **Finding**: A finding per character, place or rule; *Observation* for what is on the page, *Decision* for what you have settled but not yet written, *Question* for what you have not.
- **Your AI assistant**: The continuity clerk: extracts every fact from your own manuscripts at scale, answers “where did I say so?” with citations, and reads each new chapter against the bible.
- **The editor**: Where you check what the assistant filed against the printed page, correct it, and mark the series regulars as **Key**.
- **Proposed notes**: Where the assistant finds two facts that disagree, it leaves a proposed note quoting both, with **Accept** and **Dismiss**.
- **The A–Z index**: The cast list and gazetteer at once: every recurring name, with the numbers of the findings that mention it.
- **Public link**: A reader’s guide to the published books on a public link, with findings about the unpublished one left out.

## Method

### 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

## Prompts to try

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

> Using know.sh, read the manuscript of Book 2 I have given you, chapter by chapter. For every fact it establishes about a character, place or date, add a bullet to the matching finding in the Characters, Places or Timeline documents on my Harrow Bay books shelf, ending with the book and chapter, for example “(B2, ch. 14)”. Create a finding for anyone who has none. Record only what the text states, not what a character claims.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

> Using know.sh, what colour are Mara’s eyes, and where did I say so? Quote every line on my Harrow Bay books shelf that mentions them, with its book and chapter, and tell me if any two disagree.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

> Using know.sh, read “Book 4 — chapter notes” on my Harrow Bay books shelf against the Characters, Places, Timeline and Rules of the series documents. Wherever a chapter note disagrees with an established fact, leave a proposed note on the chapter note quoting both lines and their books and chapters. Do not change any text.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

> Using know.sh, write a quiz on the Characters document on my Harrow Bay books shelf: ten questions on the facts I am most likely to get wrong, each citing its finding.

## Variations

- Before you start book five, take the quiz from the last prompt in know.sh or the iOS app (in TestFlight beta). A score under 60 per cent brings it back under *Revisit* in three days, which is a fair measure of whether you are ready to write.
- Writing a standalone? Keep only Characters and a chapter-notes document; the same continuity check works inside one book.
- Recording an audiobook? Have your assistant build a *Pronunciations* document from the bible, correct it, and share it with the narrator on a link with a password.
- If the series is set in an invented world, the [world encyclopedia](/cookbook/world-encyclopedia) holds the lore, and this bible keeps to what is on the page.

## Where it falls short

- know.sh never sees your manuscript; your assistant reads the files you give it. A chapter it never read is one it cannot check.
- There is no import from Scrivener, Word or any writing app into know.sh. Give the files to your assistant, or paste chapters into it.
- Assistants miss contradictions and invent them. Smaller local models call tools less reliably, so check what any of them writes; Revisions shows every change.
- The reader’s guide is one document on one link. A guide per book means a link per book.

## A note on who writes the book

In this recipe the assistant is a clerk. It reads your books, files facts, looks up, lists and points out; it does not draft scenes, suggest plots or write dialogue, and the bible works best when you keep it that way. Everything it files is a first draft to check against the page.

If any text an AI generated does end up in a published book, disclose it where your publisher or retailer asks. Amazon KDP requires you to say when a book contains AI-generated text, even if you edited it afterwards; using AI to check and correct your own writing does not need disclosing. Your own words stay yours; text an AI writes on its own may not be protected by copyright.

Give your assistant only your own books. Other authors' novels are not yours to feed to it, even for reference.

Indexed under: Series bibles, Continuity, Character facts, Timelines, Spoilers, Reader guides, KDP disclosure.