How to Create a Fact Manual for a Book Series {Peek into My Next Story}

    I started my current story, Ideal Lies, last year, and this time, I decided to make it a trilogy. This story is a mix between dystopian and utopian.

Living in the idealistic northern Ideal States of America, two teenagers are caught believing in an imperfect religion and go on the run as criminals to rescue their stolen family.  

  How I managed to keep this to myself until now, I'm not sure : )

    Writing a series of any kind was something I'd never done before. I quickly found out that I needed a way to keep track of all the facts.

I tried memory. My memory failed. 
I tried little notes. I lost them.
I tried computer files. It took me too long to find what I needed.

So, with nothing else to do ... I created a fact manual.

I spent hours gleaning the information from my memory, notes, and files. I created new documents and organized facts so I could put it all together in one cohesive notebook. I documented everything that had happened so far in my book and things I new were going to happen later.

Unfortunately, holes were uncovered. Back to research and brainstorming to fill in the places of my society I had neglected.

After weeks of piecing together facts and ideas, I had created my manual. (No I had not anticipated it taking that long, but it was very worth the time.)

Here is the finished manual:

I also added maps for easy reference.

 I kept a list of characters and the places they lived because of their significance in the story. Obviously, the sticky notes were added later. If you plan to make one. Keep blank pages or sticky notes to add more facts later. More information will come.

Word makes creating graphs easy, and I could tell it to print the size paper I wanted because I used a smaller binder. 

I intentionally left space to write in information I was undecided about. (I am completely aware that I spelled Archetypes wrong on this page ... twice. Please ignore : ) 

Make sure you write down everything, even the things you think you can remember. Here, I wrote down everything about how the government worked even though it's a fairly simple part of the story. 

So, that's how I made my fact manual for writing my trilogy. And by paying close attention, you can also learn more about my story.

Have you ever done something similar to keep track of facts as you write?