Published March 28, 2021
Universal Encyclopedia
A case for keeping a shared reference guide for series fiction so timelines, technology, rules, and setting details stay consistent.
When writing a series, or especially a series of series, you really want to take some time to ensure that you work out details of the universe you’re writing in. Now, I’m not talking about every little event or detailing every single piece of technology; but it is a good idea to keep some data together.
Let’s look at some examples from the Whisper Universe. First, I have a loose timeline that includes the major events, such as the first, second, and third space races, creation of the morphs, and other related data. The second is technology. Now, I don’t really get into detail about how the technology works per se, but I do have overviews. For example, faster-than-light communications work through quantum entanglement, but I don’t detail exactly how that works. Additionally, there are two forms of faster-than-light travel: A slower form which is used primarily within star systems or around major gravitational anomalies, and a faster form that can only be used outside a certain distance from the star. The intrasystem FTL drive works by moving the space around a ship and avoiding relative physics; while the faster system utilizes hyperspace. Further examples of my encyclopedia include weapons designs.
Now, I keep this in a piece of software called Campfire Pro with the World Building Pack, which is officially deprecated at the time of this writing (it was replaced by Campfire Blaze, which has similar features). This allows me to keep this data organized but it can be tempting to overload it. That said, I tend to keep ideas in there as I come up with them, so that my universe stays consistent.
Additional things to include in this encyclopedia are your universe’s rules, such as how long it takes to travel a certain distance in faster-than-light, what kinds of things can break FTL communications, etc. Anything that could become a major plot point in the future should be in the encyclopedia. (Consider suddenly losing FTL communications in an operation when the protagonist’s tactics rely on them! That can be some real fun to write!)