Free story bible template

A story bible is the reference document for a film or series: who the people are, how the world works, what has happened, and what must never be contradicted. A series bible does the same job for a writers' room, and it is often part of a pitch.

Copy the template below into your own document. Each section says what belongs in it. Fill in what you know and leave the rest marked as open.

1. The sentence

One sentence that states what the story is about and what it must not betray. If the room argues, this is what you return to.

2. Format and tone

• Form: feature, pilot, limited series or returning series.
• Running time or episode length, and the number of episodes.
• Tone in three words, and two films or shows it is not like.

3. Characters

• Name, age and what they want.
• What they will not do, and the moment they do it.
• Who they are to each other at the start, and at the end.
• Voice notes: two lines of dialogue only they would say.

4. World and rules

List every rule of the world: the technology, the law, the magic, the economics, the geography. Mark each rule as established (it is on the page) or believed (the room thinks it is true, but no scene has shown it yet). Rules believed are where continuity errors start.

5. Backstory and timeline

• What happened before page one, in date order.
• Which of it the audience learns, and when.
• Which of it stays off screen for good.

6. Locations

• Each place, what happens there, and what it costs to shoot.
• The one location the story cannot lose.

7. Series engine (for series)

• What generates a new episode every week.
• Season one arc in five beats.
• Where seasons two and three could go, marked as hypothesis.

8. Ending record

The ending, written down before the room gets attached to a safer one. Note the final image and the choices that set it up.

9. Open questions

Everything the room has not decided. Keeping this list visible stops guesses from turning into canon by accident.

Start a bible on Cine Novelist

On the desk, Bible mode drafts a bible from your pages and notes, and keeps rules believed apart from rules established. A bible at pitch status stays a hypothesis until you confirm it. Brainstorm talk is never treated as canon: nothing reaches the bible until you send a beat and confirm it. New accounts get 150 free credits.