Every writer knows they should keep a story bible. Far fewer keep one up to date, and I don’t think it’s about discipline. It’s about where it lives. The bible is in a second app, or a Google Doc (it’s always a Google Doc), or a notebook, and once the writing gets going you stop opening it. Then chapter 20 renames a character and nobody notices until a reader does.

So the notes are fine. Where they’re kept is the problem, and if you fix that, the bible mostly keeps itself.

Next to the prose

In Galley the story bible is a set of tabs along the top of the book, next to Editor: characters, locations, timeline, world-building, a style sheet and research. You don’t leave the book to check a fact, and none of it appears in the finished book.

The part that makes it stick is typing. Type @ and the start of a name, and a list of your characters appears and narrows as you go. Pick one and the name goes into the sentence. Type # for a place. If the name isn’t in the bible yet, you can create the character from there, so the bible fills in as you write instead of being a separate job you keep meaning to do. The step-by-step version is in the docs.

Names stay spelled right

Because you’re picking a name rather than typing it letter by letter, you can’t misspell a character you tagged. And for the names you typed by hand before you started tagging, the name consistency check finds the one odd spelling among the right ones. There’s more on that in keeping character names consistent.

Each character’s page also lists the chapters they appear in and how often, counted from the tags and the names in the text. That’s how you notice that someone important has gone missing for ten chapters.

Renaming someone

If you change a character’s name on their page, every tagged mention changes with it, in the chapters and in your notes. Mentions you didn’t tag are counted and shown to you, not changed, because Galley can’t be sure the word means this character. You can keep the old name as an alias so the checks still recognise it. And Galley takes a snapshot of each chapter first, in case you change your mind.

Why it matters more for a series

Book three has to agree with book one, and you wrote book one a couple of years ago. The readers who bought all three are the ones who’ll notice a character who changed height between books. When you start the next book with Next in series, it begins with the last book’s bible, so you’re not rebuilding it. There’s more in a series bible for book two and beyond, and if you’re still deciding whether you need a bible at all, start with what a story bible is.