Creating a Cohesive World (For all your stories)

[Thecorrupted]

Hey All,

I have been reading Erotica for years. I have loved many authors such as TheTalkMan, Vargas111, SeducedHylas, and more. After reading how TheTalkMan got into it because he wanted to create the stories he liked, I wanted to do the same.

So..for now.. I am in the Erotica writing business as a fun fancy.

I have written my first storyw hich I feel has went well and cna be found here: https://www.literotica.com/s/in-the-beginning-27

My thoughts are to create several short stories with in this world that has an alternate take on the bible. Angels, Demons, Humans.. All of them in it with their own goals and noone being truly a hero or savior. I may even, after getting a bit of a following if that happens, try to write a 6 chapter story where the humans play a major role as protagonist.

So I guess my question here is:

What are your thoughts on stories that all happen with in the same 'world'. Is it better to expand to different things or can you do better by creating your own atmosphere where all of your characters exist?


It is very possible I am also thinking about this to hard.

 

[sr71plt]

This would be better asked in the Authors' Hangout, I think.

 

[Thecorrupted]

This would be better asked in the Authors' Hangout, I think.

Yea, I am still learning these threads. Can I move it or do I need to ping a mod?

 

[sr71plt]

Yea, I am still learning these threads. Can I move it or do I need to ping a mod?

Neither. Just copy and paste it to the other forum. If you want feedback on the story you referenced, you could rewrite your post. This area is for direct feedback on stories post to Literotica, not really for larger discussions.

 

[Sammael Bard]

Yea, I am still learning these threads. Can I move it or do I need to ping a mod?

You can contact a Mod through private message and request him/her to move or delete a thread. The job will be done, provided the Mod is still active.

 

[Sammael Bard]

So I guess my question here is:

What are your thoughts on stories that all happen with in the same 'world'. Is it better to expand to different things or can you do better by creating your own atmosphere where all of your characters exist?


It is very possible I am also thinking about this to hard.

It is possible.

And yes, it's hard. For me, at least.

My current project involves bringing several major characters into a single, cohesive universe. The stuff is a headache, but the end result, I think, will be worth all the pain. Creating a single universe in which all your characters co-exist and correlate can result in something grander.

I think it all boils down how the author wants it to be. Is he or she satisfied with one off, single stories within a specific world? Or after they willing to put a bit more effort and create a single world for their characters?

IMO, unless you're planning something huge like bringing several characters from different stories together, there's very little to gain from the hard work.

I've read stories where both ways work, so I can't say that one is better than the other.

(I hope I'm on the topic with this one)

 

[RejectReality]

Just write what's striking you. I have several different worlds going on across all of my pen names, with the largest under my Darkniciad banner.

If you lock yourself into making every idea fit into a single cohesive world, you'll stifle your creativity. When a piece with edges too jagged to fit shows up, don't try to jam it in there. It probably belongs to a different puzzle.

 

[Ewobbit]

As a writer, my ambitions aren't that big. I'm still working on keeping a world solid across twenty-six lit screens, much less a multi-dimensional trilogy or larger.

As a reader... I think what you are talking about is something like what Steve Perry did with his Matador series. If it is, I loved it. Perhaps more than the individual stories were actually worth. A character that was met as a supporting character in one novel would then have their own novel and characters that they supported in the first may (or may not!) show up to support them.

 

[Thecorrupted]

It is possible.

IMO, unless you're planning something huge like bringing several characters from different stories together, there's very little to gain from the hard work.

I actually think this is an awesome idea. They have one offs as well, but I like authors like KingMaker711 that have several stories that happen with in the same time and world. It's a bit more work to, I agree.

 

[oggbashan]

I have created stories in different worlds. My Tripletit and Shelacta series are examples.

Alice's Wonderland is one of my short stories set on a different planet. Most things are normal but Alice certainly isn't:

https://www.literotica.com/s/alices-wonderland-2

What I did wrong was give readers too much of an information dump about each world. I told them too much, too soon. I should have remembered Heinlein's Glory Road - the hero makes mistakes as he (and the reader) learn about the new world he is on. Each mistake illustrates another aspect of the created universe.

You, as the author, have to have a comprehensive idea of what world you have created so that in a second or subsequent story you don't contradict a feature you mentioned in the first story.

But the readers don't need to know everything at the beginning.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

... My thoughts are to create several short stories with in this world that has an alternate take on the bible. Angels, Demons, Humans.. All of them in it with their own goals and noone being truly a hero or savior.

Golden Compass, Babylon 5, and dozens of others I haven't bothered with.

If you've read the Bible, you'll see that it says little about angels and demons, and what little it says is consistent with the rest of the ideas in the text. So if you're trying to dispense with saviours, good, evil, an all male cast of angels, etc, you'll have to invent a different bible to make it work. (You can take the stance that the bible is all fiction, but then why do you think there are angels at all?) The "different bible" thing is not uncommonly done; Firefly did it in one episode, inventing a bible verse that never existed, to make a point. If you go this route, please don't be tiresome; give a couple quotes from your fictional text so readers with a wider background will know you don't mean the actual Bible.

What are your thoughts on stories that all happen with in the same 'world'. Is it better to expand to different things or can you do better by creating your own atmosphere where all of your characters exist?

I like common settings. I wrote three stories, apparently unrelated, set in widely different points in time; and then wrote another which almost incidentally showed how they all connected. I enjoyed it, but I did it for my own amusement; fans probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't mentioned it in a comment reply.

Most people come here only to poke and stroke. I write for the other 5%. What you're considering will be noticed and appreciated by very few people, and that's assuming you do it well. Your premise is inherently inconsistent, and you'll find that out if you deeply develop the ideas, so what "doing it well" means is going to be subjective. But most people here won't notice philosophical inconsistency, especially if you have demons raping angels. That's always a hit for certain kinds of readers.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Not quite the same, but close: I've had readers point out when I've reused a name.

The closest I came to a crossover happened when I cited the events of one story in another story. More than one astute reader caught the reference.

I've considered doing more cross referencing. I think it's a neat idea. When I think about it, all the stories happen within the world of Bucky, so why not?

 

[8letters]

What are your thoughts on stories that all happen with in the same 'world'. Is it better to expand to different things or can you do better by creating your own atmosphere where all of your characters exist?

It is very possible I am also thinking about this to hard.

I think one problem you would face is are the stories stand alone or not. If they're stand alone, then you're going to be repeating a lot of the same information in each story. That means new readers can jump when you're latest story is published, but old readers will find the repetition boring.

If your stories aren't stand alone, then you'll have the problem of constantly shrinking readership. Say 10,000 people read your first story and 9,000 like it. When you release the second story, only the 9,000 that liked your first story will read it. Except all 9,000 won't read it as some will be taking a break from literotica. Then the potential base of readers is even smaller for your third story. Etc.

I'm not a fantasy writer so I can't say what that audience is like. They may be fine with jumping in when the fifth story set in a common world is published. And you may prefer to build up a dedicated core of readers rather than constantly growing your audience. Or you may not care either way.

Above all, write what you want to write.

 

[Zodia195]

I have a very complex mind so I love the challenge of creating different worlds, but I always make sure to set ground rules on how that universe works. This is why I always create an 'origin story' that explains on how the setting works and why things are the way they are. Like in my Dragons of Fraidel in recent uploads I explain why some dragons look a certain way due to their environment.

 

[PervOtaku]

My thoughts are to create several short stories with in this world that has an alternate take on the bible. Angels, Demons, Humans.. All of them in it with their own goals and noone being truly a hero or savior. I may even, after getting a bit of a following if that happens, try to write a 6 chapter story where the humans play a major role as protagonist.

So I guess my question here is:

What are your thoughts on stories that all happen with in the same 'world'. Is it better to expand to different things or can you do better by creating your own atmosphere where all of your characters exist?


It is very possible I am also thinking about this to hard.

I take a lot of cues from how I've seen television handle things.

One of my story ideas fell short of being a full story using the characters involved, but the core concept that the story was built on was a good one, and I hit upon the idea of an anthology series. Each story is unrelated and uses different characters, but all inhabit a shared world build on the core concept.

How would television handle this? Every episode would have a narration during the "opening theme" sequence that explains the core concept very quickly, so that any new viewer on any episode would not be totally lost. The first episode would be heavier on the exposition to lay the groundwork for the people who are watching every week.

So that's exactly what I did. Each story leads with a paragraph explaining the setting, unified across the entire series. The one I wrote and released first goes deeper into treating it like a new thing that must be explained, but the later stories re-explain things in a shorter fashion if it happens to be important to that particular story.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I use 3 fictive worlds.

Tampa circa 1950 is for my noir writing. Back about 1950 Tampa was setting for all the hard boiled crime fiction not set in Los Angeles. Most of John D. MacDonalds pre Travis McGee wares were set in Tampa. Tampa is nigger shit today but I recall the 50s when it was paradise.

Tallahassee circa 1890 is the setting for my historical fiction.

And Fivay (literally 5 A), which vanished in 1910, is the scene for stories about Florida Cracker cowboys and renegade niggers. Tombstone Arizona had nuthin on Fivay for wild, dangerous life.