Legends of Windemere

Forgotten Realms Novel Set (Yahoo Image Search)

The collection above is not of a single series.  Those are multiple series that take place in the same world, which is also part of the Dungeons & Dragons games.  Each series can stand alone, but connects through a world that grows with every installment.  Some show the Forgotten Realms to its core while others are more local.  So, how easy is it to do something of this scale?

First of all, I’ll say it’s much easier to do this with movies/comics (Marvel) and TV shows (Star Trek, Law & Order).  Novels on the other hand are a more challenging medium, especially if it’s one author going alone.  You have multiple authors in the collection above, which means each one works off the same world notes and adds their own touch.  This can still be risky because you could undo another author’s work or step on the feet of a story that has yet to be released.  Communication must be key to something like this if you have tons of cooks in the kitchen.  Perhaps it’s easier to do it as a solo act.

Think again and I’m saying this from experience.  Here are some things I’ve learned as a person who is creating a multi-series epic:

1. Most people won’t recognize what you’re doing.  This comes in many forms.  One is that readers treat all of your stories as isolated pieces, which causes confusion during parts where they cross over.  Others think it’s all the same characters, but with a different series title.  For example, I mention Windemere vampires as a future series and I get responses that include complaints about me turning Nyx into a vampire and questions about which part of the USA it’ll take place in.  Finally, there are those who simply won’t let an author step out of the first series.  Yes, I’ve been told that I can’t retire the Legends cast and have to stick with them until my dying day.
2. An author who takes on this challenge needs to be patient and focused.  Continuity gets harder to maintain with every book in a series, so imagine what it’s like when you have a ton of tales in the pot.  Sometimes you have to think about what will happen in the future and even put some foreshadowing to help things along.  It’s a mental trick to remember the past, focus on the present, and consider the future all within the same storyline.  That brings me to #3.
3. TAKE NOTES!  Never be afraid to jot something down in a notebook if you think it could come up later.  This is World Building 101 in a way.  It’s a pain to scan through older books to see if you already created or named a certain location.  Many times you may forget especially when years become decades.  For example, I nearly forgot that I created a Tree of Knowledge in Legends of Windemere.  This is a thing that comes up in other series, but I put this in one location and made it the only one.  I have to make a note of this in order to avoid having multiple Trees of Knowledge and each one deems itself the only one.  There’s a story in there, but it’d mostly be how the gods aren’t paying attention to what they’re doing.
4. Do not get frustrated when people fail to understand what you’re doing.  This type of project is of a scale that can cause confusion.  The moment you say ‘Yes, but in this other series’, you flawlessly jump to another track while your audience kind of trips over the third rail.  Doesn’t happen a lot, but I’ve find that it’s rare when somebody understands what I’m talking about when I go into the full Windemere explanation.  I take it as an occupational hazard at this point.  Especially if you try to share online without revealing too much.
5. Sometimes it pays to stop a current series for a bit to tinker with another.  This is where foreshadowing and useful overlaps can appear.  For example, I took a break from Legends to work on Darwin’s outlines.  This led to me coming up with a way to do a vague hint of his inevitable appearance.  Just a few lines in a dialogue that a person might not think about as anything more than a casual conversation.  These parts are fun to do and make the web of tales tighter.

Kenshin Himura (How I feel)

The above is how you will feel when taking on this challenge.  A lot goes on your shoulders and you may find yourself feeling isolated.  How do you get feedback for one idea without suggestions damaging another?  How could that person recommend that plot twist when it undoes the ending of this other series that would take more time to explain?  You do become trapped in your own world that is always growing and evolving.  Every book, every outline, every character, every monster, every location, every series, every thought adds up to forge a world that you want to be seen as alive.  A goal here is to make it so that the readers know that the world doesn’t revolve around a solitary event or small group of characters.  One adventure might, but like reality, there are many adventures going on within the same lands.

Is the confusion, isolation, mental gymnastics, and all other challenges worth it?  I can only speak for myself and say, “Yes.  Yes they are.”