---
title: "Keep the Story Bible Beside Your Manuscript, Not in Another App"
description: "A story bible only works if you keep it updated, and a bible in a separate app is a bible you forget. Galley's lives next to the prose, one keystroke away."
source: https://usegalley.com/blog/story-bible-beside-your-manuscript
---
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# Keep the Story Bible Beside Your Manuscript, Not in Another App

May 17, 2026 [Galley](https://usegalley.com/blog/tag/galley)

![A manuscript with a character reference panel open alongside it](https://usegalley.com/images/blog/story-bible-beside-your-manuscript.png) TL;DR Continuity errors happen because your reference notes live somewhere you don't look while writing. Galley puts the story bible (characters, places, timeline) right beside the manuscript: type @ to drop in a character or # for a place, and names stay spelled the way you defined them. The bible updates because it's never more than a keystroke away, so book three still agrees with book one.

Every writer knows they should keep a [story bible](https://usegalley.com/glossary#story-bible). Far fewer actually keep one
current, and the reason isn’t discipline. It’s location. The bible lives in a
second app, or a Google Doc, or a notebook, and the moment the writing heats up
you stop opening it. Then chapter 20 renames a character and nobody catches it
until a reader does.

The notes aren’t the problem. Where they live is. Fix the location and the bible
maintains itself.

## Beside the prose, not in another tab

In Galley the [story bible](https://usegalley.com/features/story-bible) sits right next to the
manuscript, not behind a window-switch. Characters, places, and timeline are
there while you write, which is the only time they’re any use.

The interaction is the point. Type `@` to drop in a character, `#` for a place,
and Galley inserts the entity you already defined instead of you retyping the
name. Do that as you go and it quietly builds your references and glossaries out
of the writing itself, rather than as a separate chore you keep meaning to get
to.

## Names stay spelled right

Because you’re inserting a defined entity, not typing letters, you can’t misspell
a character in chapter 20. The spelling is locked to the definition. And for the
odd time something does slip through (a name typed by hand early on, say), the
[name-consistency check](https://usegalley.com/features/revise) flags the one odd spelling sitting among the correct ones,
so it’s a backstop behind a system that mostly prevents the error in the first
place.

## Why this matters for a series

Continuity is where [series](https://usegalley.com/docs/series-and-translations) either feel solid or
feel sloppy. Book three has to agree with book one, and you wrote book one a
couple of years and a lot of plot ago. A broken timeline or a character who changed height between books is exactly
the kind of thing your most devoted readers, the ones who bought all three, will
notice first and forgive least.

A bible you can reach without leaving the sentence is a bible you’ll actually
keep. Galley puts it where your eyes already are instead of one app away. If you’re still deciding whether you need one at
all, start with [what a story bible is](https://usegalley.com/blog/what-is-a-story-bible).

## More on galley

- [Galley for Self-Publishing](https://usegalley.com/blog/galley-for-self-publishing)What self-publishing a novel in Galley involves: a print-ready interior PDF, a valid EPUB, a tuned file per store, and two checks that run before you upload to KDP.
- [Galley for Traditional Publishing](https://usegalley.com/blog/galley-for-traditional-publishing)Querying agents or working with an editor: standard manuscript format, the submission package, watermarked beta drafts, and getting an editor's Word comments back where they belong.
- [Is Your Writing Being Used to Train AI?](https://usegalley.com/blog/is-your-writing-used-to-train-ai)How to find out what your writing app is allowed to do with your manuscript: the licence grant, the improve-our-services clause, the sub-processor list, and what no hosted tool can honestly promise.

[Every galley post](https://usegalley.com/blog/tag/galley)

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Galley is the tool that does the part this post is about — the finished, printable book.

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