know.

CookbookBooks and writingNo. 5

A television series biblethe pitch document a producer reads first

Recipe No. 5Books and writing

For
A screenwriter developing a limited series to pitch
You bring
A pilot script or a detailed outline, a logline you have said out loud to people, and a list of producers who have agreed to read
You get
A series bible as one document (logline and world, tone, characters, season arc and episode summaries), private working notes beside it, and one link with a password and an expiry per round of reading
Time
An evening for your assistant to lay out the material, two or three evenings to write the bible, then an evening per round of notes
Works in
know.sh on the web · your AI assistant, through MCP
Keep it
Private while you work; share one document by a read-only link when it is ready.

A producer who likes your pilot asks for the bible, and asks for it this week. It has to answer the questions a pilot cannot: where the story goes over six hours, who these people become, what it looks and sounds like, and why now. Most writers have all of that, spread across a pilot draft, a notes app and a dozen conversations.

This recipe gathers it fast and leaves the writing to you. Give your assistant, Claude, ChatGPT or whichever you use, the pilot, the outline and your notes, and it lays out the bible as one document, because a producer reads one link: the overview for the logline and the world, then a section each for tone, the main characters, the season arc and every episode, each holding the raw material from your own pages. You write every section in the editor. Research, backstory and producers’ notes sit in other documents on the same shelf, never shared.

Between drafts, revisions keep every earlier version. When notes come back and the bible changes, you replace the link, and the old draft stops working. The scripts themselves stay in your screenwriting software.

What you will use

Shelf
One shelf per project, Low Water, holding the bible and the working documents around it.
Research document
The bible as one document; beside it, private documents for research, backstory and producers’ notes.
Finding
A finding each for tone, every main character, the season arc and every episode, in reading order.
Your AI assistant
Lays out the bible’s sections from your pilot and outline, files research and producers’ notes, and checks the episodes against the characters.
The editor
Where you write every section of the bible in your own words, drag them into reading order and set their types.
Revisions
Every draft of every section, dated and marked as yours or an assistant’s, so draft 2 can be compared with draft 1 and anything restored.
Public link
One read-only link per round of reading, with a password, an expiry and the read count, replaced between rounds.

Method

  1. 1

    Give your assistant the pages, and have it lay out the shelf

    Give your assistant the pilot script, the outline and your notes, as files in a Claude or ChatGPT project or on disk for a local client. Ask it to make a shelf named after the project, Low Water, and four documents: the bible, Research, What the bible does not say and Notes from producers. Only the bible is ever shared.

    A single document for the bible keeps the logline, the characters and the episodes in one place and one order, because a producer opens one link.

  2. 2

    Have it file the raw material, section by section

    Ask the assistant to give the bible a finding per section, Tone, Ruth Calder and the other main characters, Season arc, then one per episode, and to fill each with the raw material from your pages: the lines where a character is introduced, the beats your outline gives each episode, what your notes say about the look. Quoted and sourced, not written up.

    The secrets go elsewhere: the truth about the father, the actor you picture for Ruth, the second season you may never write all belong in What the bible does not say.

  3. 3

    Write the bible yourself in the editor

    The bible is your pitch, so every word a producer reads should be yours. Open it, press Edit, and replace each section’s raw material with your own page per main character and paragraph per episode. The overview comes first on a shared link, so it carries the logline in one sentence, two short paragraphs of world, the format, “Six hour-long episodes; a closed story”, and a line on why now.

    A shared link shows each finding’s type and importance, so choose them as a producer will read them: Observation reads neutrally, and Key shows as “high importance”. Drag sections into order.

  4. 4

    Research the world, and keep it out of the bible

    For texture, ask your assistant to research on the web how reservoirs are drawn down in a drought, what falling water uncovers and who decides the releases, and file it as findings with sources in Research. That needs an assistant with web search; Claude and ChatGPT have it, many local set-ups do not.

    Open the sources; research is for your ear, not for quoting. Then ask the assistant to check the bible against itself: which characters vanish for three episodes, who knows something before they could.

  5. 5

    Share with a password and an expiry

    Press Share on the bible. Set a password, and an expiry two weeks after the meeting. Copy the link as it appears; know.sh shows it only once. Send the link by email and the password by text or phone, not in the same message.

    Notes and highlights on the bible never appear on the link, and you can leave out any section you are not ready to show from its own page. The panel tells you how many times the link has been read, which answers “did anyone open it?” before the meeting.

  6. 6

    File the notes, revise, and replace the link

    After each call, paste your notes to the assistant and have it file each point in Notes from producers as a Suggestion, their words quoted, naming the section it is about. Then revise the bible in the editor. Revisions keeps every earlier version of each section, dated and marked as yours or an assistant’s; Restore brings one back when a note turns out to be wrong.

    When draft 2 is ready, change the overview’s last line to “Draft 2, 19 September” and Replace the link, which stops the draft 1 link working. Replacing resets the expiry and exclusions, so set them again.

Specimen

  1. You

    Using know.sh, set up my Low Water project from the pilot and outline I gave you. A shelf, the bible as one document with a section per main character, the season arc and each of the six episodes, and three private working documents. Fill the sections with quotes and beats from my pages only; I will write the bible myself.

  2. dossier_createCreated the shelf Low Water
  3. research_createCreated Low Water — a limited series in six hours on Low Water
  4. finding_addAdded “Ruth Calder, the engineer”, 12 lines quoted from the pilot, 2
  5. finding_addAdded “Episode 1: The spire”, beats from outline pages 1–3, 5
  6. research_createCreated Research, What the bible does not say and Notes from producers

  7. ChatGPT

    Done: fourteen sections in the bible, each holding only material from your pilot and outline, with page numbers. The overview is empty for your logline. Episode 4 has no beats in the outline, so its section says so.

The assistant lays out the shelf and the bible’s sections from your own pages. Writing each section is left to you.

Low Watera limited series in six hours

Shared from a library on know. 6 findings.

When a drought drains the reservoir above her hometown, a water-board engineer finds her missing father’s car in the mud of the drowned village.

Callow Reservoir flooded the village of Endsleigh in 1974. Fifty years later the water is at its lowest on record, the church spire is out of the lake, and the town that was built on the hill above it has spent half a century not talking about what went under.

Six hour-long episodes; a closed story. Draft 2, 19 September.

Findings

  1. 1Tone: slow water, fast consequencesObservation, high importance
  2. 2Ruth Calder, the engineerObservation, high importance
  3. 3Dale Calder, her father, missing since 1996Observation, high importance
  4. 4Season arc: what the water gives backObservation, high importance
  5. 5Episode 1: The spireObservation, medium importance
  6. 6Episode 2: Release scheduleObservation, medium importance

Set with know.

The bible as a producer sees it after entering the password: the logline and world first, then the sections in reading order, with no notes or working documents.

Low WaterNo. 21

Low Watera limited series in six hours

14 findings, 6,210 words, about 27 minutes, filed 18 July, revised 19 September, 5 highlights, shared.

When a drought drains the reservoir above her hometown, a water-board engineer finds her missing father’s car in the mud of the drowned village.

Six hour-long episodes; a closed story. Draft 2, 19 September.

Findings

  1. 1Tone: slow water, fast consequencesObservation, keyLong, still shots of the lake; every episode ends with the waterline a foot lower.
  2. 2Ruth Calder, the engineerObservation, key, 2 notesForty-one, precise, back in Callow only because the job is. She measures things so she does not have to feel them.
  3. 3Dale Calder, her father, missing since 1996Observation, keySeen only in the town’s memories, which do not agree.
  4. 4Season arc: what the water gives backObservation, key, 1 noteEach episode, the falling lake gives back something the town buried, and each one points higher up the hill.
  5. 5Episode 1: The spireObservationThe church spire breaks the surface for the first time since 1974; Ruth is sent to assess the dam.

and 9 more findings

The same bible in your library: your highlights and notes stay here, and the facts line records that it is shared.

Prompts to try

  1. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model)

    Using know.sh, read the bible “Low Water — a limited series in six hours” on my Low Water shelf and check the episode sections against the character sections. List every episode where a character knows or does something the character sections say they could not yet, and every main character absent for more than two episodes in a row.

  2. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model)

    Using know.sh, search the web for how drinking-water reservoirs in the western United States are drawn down during a drought, what falling water levels typically uncover, and who decides the release schedule. File what you find in the document Research on my Low Water shelf, one finding per point, each with its sources.

  3. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model)

    Using know.sh, compare the Season arc section of the Low Water bible with its version from before 1 September in its revisions. List what changed in plain sentences, so I can write a short “what is new in this draft” paragraph for the producer.

  4. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model)

    Using know.sh, file the notes I paste below from Tuesday’s call as Suggestion findings in “Notes from producers” on my Low Water shelf, quoting the producer’s words and naming the section of the bible each is about. Do not change the bible.

Variations

  • Pitching a feature instead? Keep the overview and the character findings, and replace the episodes with a sequence-by-sequence outline.
  • Adapting your own novel? Start from its series bible, and let the show bible say what changes on screen and why.
  • Plan the pitch season as a campaign, which Claude Code can build with the plugin’s planning tools: an operation set per draft, and registration of the bible blocking the first link you send.
  • For a fantasy or science-fiction series, the world encyclopedia holds the lore that the bible only sketches.

Where it falls short

  • No images. Mood boards, lookbooks and casting references need another tool; the link carries words only.
  • No PDF. Many producers expect a PDF bible, and know.sh cannot make one; if a company asks for a file, copy the text into your layout tool.
  • Readers see each section’s type and importance beside its title, such as “Observation, high importance”. You choose them; you cannot hide them.
  • A password and an expiry limit who can open the link. They do not stop a reader copying what they read.
  • Assistants misquote and mistake dialogue for fact, and smaller local models call tools less reliably. Check every quote and page number your assistant filed; Revisions shows every change.

A note on protecting unproduced work

Indexed under

Show biblesLoglinesPitchingEpisode summariesScript registrationPassword-protected links

See also