Chapter Stories VS Universe Series

[RejectReality]

Universe is a useful term. I have a core "present day" storyline. Then I have a plethora of stories centered on various characters who appear in that story, giving their history. These stories aren't important to the core storyline, they just give a more in depth look at the character. Everything you need to know about those characters to serve that story is there in the core. Then I have side stories. Maybe something is mentioned in passing that's not important to the story it's in, but I want to write about it. Then there are stories that are simply world-building and have little to no connection to the core story. Universe is a good way to describe them.

Comic crossovers are a whole different animal than "If you're interested in knowing more..." In the 80s & 90s, ( Fuck you Crisis on Infinite Earths! ) all of them started doing these massive crossovers that didn't simply try to interest you in the characters who were guest starring in hopes that you might pick up an issue or two of the guest star's book. They were literally chapters in the story. If you read Captain America and Avengers but didn't read Iron Man, you would miss an entire chapter of the story unless you picked up Iron Man that month for the epic crossover event. Oh, and of course you had to add the limited series as well.

Way more diabolical than what most people are doing here, or even the MCU.

 

[Voboy]

I have to say, I find the way in which a lot of people have started to talk about their fiction in terms of 'universes' interesting. I'm guessing that a lot of this is to do with the Marvel Cinemtic Universe...

No, I based mine on Irvine Welsh. Independent stories, but with well-known characters flitting in and out of the background of any other story. His is a fictional world overlaying the real one, for his Edinburgh and Leith are very much characters in his stories.

 

[JGittes]

I have to say, I find the way in which a lot of people have started to talk about their fiction in terms of 'universes' interesting. I'm guessing that a lot of this is to do with the Marvel Cinemtic Universe, although the concept existed before that - for example, Isaac Asimov had all his Laws-of-Robot short stories involving different characters, but the same basic concepts playing out in different ways before finally also tying those stories in with his Foundation series. It certainly makes sense for Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror where the same other-worldly concepts and settings can form the basis for a whole range of different stories. But it's initially slightly strange to me how people have also started to use it their every-day setting fiction and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I suppose there are plenty of possible, if not 'other-worldly' then at least 'out-of-the-ordinary' concepts that could be involved in erotica - the invitation-only swingers club for beautiful people, that make a shared universe make sense. But increasingly people seem to use it for when characters wander in and out each other's stories, and I feel that this is something that's done way more recently than it used to be, or possibly just way more possible in this medium. A common complaint about modern comics is that you need read (and presumably buy) all of them to keep up with the stories of the various superheroes who keep coming in and out of different runs. I guess with a free erotica site, there's less harm in saying 'hey, if you're interested in knowing more about this character, his story is right over there.'

Hemmingway wrote short stories with Nick Adams as the main character. These were originally published everywhere as he wrote them when he needed money and sold them to whoever would pay the most. They somewhat form a 'universe' and have been collected in a single volume, 'The Nick Adams Stories.' Since Nick is a thinly veiled, autobiographical character, one may tie him in with other autobiographical male characters, such as Jake Barnes in 'The Sun Also Rises.'

As you mention, Asimov did this with his Robot and Foundation stories.

I think of Star Trek as the classic universe story. TOS ran for three years, 66-69, the animated series 72-73, films, more series than I can now count, and hundreds of books, comics, and theme park rides. Star Wars was next in 77. The MCU was rather late to the game.

For whatever reason, I've read several hundred romance novels over the past few years. The most popular and prolific authors create a 'universe' where individual books in a series each focus on a different couple in a community. The couples featured in previous books provide continuity and background characters in the newer books. Then somebody has a major conflict and runs away to another community to start another series. They're not original and are very formulaic, but they provide endless hours of mindless entertainment when done well. From an authorial point of view, because they are so formulaic, they are instructive in story construction, character development, character point of view issues, and many of the things we discuss here.

 

[TheRedChamber]

No, I based mine on Irvine Welsh. Independent stories, but with well-known characters flitting in and out of the background of any other story. His is a fictional world overlaying the real one, for his Edinburgh and Leith are very much characters in his stories.

I guess what I'm trying to say (probably badly) is that people probably didn't refer to this as the 'Welshiverse' (or whatever) at the time, but they do now, even if it's can come across as a bit grandiose for those kind of stories. The way people are talking about this kind of thing is changing.

Hemmingway wrote short stories with Nick Adams as the main character. These were originally published everywhere as he wrote them when he needed money and sold them to whoever would pay the most. They somewhat form a 'universe' and have been collected in a single volume, 'The Nick Adams Stories.' Since Nick is a thinly veiled, autobiographical character, one may tie him in with other autobiographical male characters, such as Jake Barnes in 'The Sun Also Rises.'

I'm not familiar with these stories, but I'd argue that a set of stories that are focused around a singular character aren't really a universe - in fact they'd count as practically the opposite.

As you mention, Asimov did this with his Robot and Foundation stories.

I think of Star Trek as the classic universe story. TOS ran for three years, 66-69, the animated series 72-73, films, more series than I can now count, and hundreds of books, comics, and theme park rides. Star Wars was next in 77. The MCU was rather late to the game.

Science-fiction, by it's nature, tends to come with a 'universe' attached - as soon as you've decided your technology, worlds and alien races, that makes your fiction uniquely tied to those decisions. Nonetheless, I'd argue that the MCU (inspired by the comics) treats its 'universe' a bit differently. While there are an infinite number of stories you can tell in the Star Trek universe, the set of television series focused on the adventures of one crew of one space ship over several series, then on the adventures of another crew of another space ship (with the same name) a hundred years, later and then the adventures of a crew of a space station and then... Characters from the older series occassionally appeared on the newer one (and in some cases stayed for good) and there is some continuity - you never needed to say 'a story set in the Star Trek universe' because it was always just an episode of Star Trek with all the people you knew. Certainly in terms of spin off media, you got a lot of extra books that dealt with other aspects of the universe, but these were always clearly secondary to whoever the main crew was at the time and only read by the uber-fans of the series.

(Enterprise especially broke these rules occassionally with one episode focusing on a bunch of Vulcan's reconnoitring Earth in the 1960's (50s?) and another with a completely different crew discovering a crashed Borg ship hundreds of years before the main series, but point still stands.)

The Marvel media franchise works differently in the sense that you have a series of movies and TV shows that don't necessarily have any firm rhyme and reason for the order they appear in and while characters can and often do turn up in each other stories, but don't have to and, while overall they're 'superhero' movies, the actual genres are often significantly different - they started out as 'World-War Two superhero story', 'Technology-enhanced superhero story', 'God visits Earth minus powers story' and 'Modern Dr Jekyle and Mr Hyde story' and, while some have become predictable, fourteen years in we're starting to get 'superheroes trapped in 50s sitcom' or 'superhero as lawyer-based work comedy'. The point is that it isn't any one thing at a time, everything is more or less as important as everything else and, while it should be a horrible mess narratively and conceptually, somehow it seems to have worked (in financial terms if nothing else). Nearly all the other attempts by other franchises to do the same thing have largely failed, mostly spectacularly.

And as a result of all this, nearly sixty-years into it's life, we've finally got the irreverant animated cartoon of what life is like for Star Trek lower decks officers (which I really must get round to absolutely hating one of these days).

For whatever reason, I've read several hundred romance novels over the past few years. The most popular and prolific authors create a 'universe' where individual books in a series each focus on a different couple in a community. The couples featured in previous books provide continuity and background characters in the newer books. Then somebody has a major conflict and runs away to another community to start another series. They're not original and are very formulaic, but they provide endless hours of mindless entertainment when done well. From an authorial point of view, because they are so formulaic, they are instructive in story construction, character development, character point of view issues, and many of the things we discuss here.

I don't read a lot of romance, but that's interesting. I guess it makes sense. It's hard to come back to the same characters when they fell in love and lived happily ever after at the end of the last book, but having a community gives continuity and maybe lets the reader catch up with the old characters and confirm that the ever after is indeed happy (minus a little bit of B-plot).

 

[PennameWombat]

I'm mildly intrigued by the concept of "multiple universes," @Duleigh

Like, you mention two... any reason why you felt you needed both of those? I'm curious; I spend a good amount of effort making certain all my stories fit into my one universe, which is a lot of what makes it enjoyable for me. Even my SF series (set far in the future) and my stories set in ancient Rome or Anglo-Saxon England are connected to the characters in my contemporary tales. It's fun!

Why multiple? Because my ‘main’ universe (“Mel’s Universe”) has a very definite beginning, middle and end. It essentially tracks Earth reality until about the mid 1960s, then aliens arrived, although hardly anyone really noticed, but there’s a reason for that. From there, its divergence is gaining increasing speed with each decade.

So… I don’t want that for all of my stories. My ‘Mermaids’ stories start in a generally recognizable near-future, but then jumps a thousand years in time and two hundred light years in distance. It’s not a future that meshes with Mel’s future… For one thing, so far this universe doesn’t have intelligent non-human aliens. It has plenty of star systems with habitable planets and native life. Including dinosaur analogues. But nothing (so far) intelligent.

I have another universe budding. That’s another future that‘s not meant to mesh with either of the above two.

I have to say, I find the way in which a lot of people have started to talk about their fiction in terms of 'universes' interesting. I'm guessing that a lot of this is to do with the Marvel Cinemtic Universe, although the concept existed before that - for example, Isaac Asimov had all his Laws-of-Robot short stories involving different characters, but the same basic concepts playing out in different ways before finally also tying those stories in with his Foundation series. It certainly makes sense for Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror where the same other-worldly concepts and settings can form the basis for a whole range of different stories. But it's initially slightly strange to me how people have also started to use it their every-day setting fiction and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

I come from a SF&F background, in terms of what I primarily read and write. So thinking in terms of ‘universes’ is natural. Even in my ’reality based’ stories, I keep in mind whether they share anything other than being on Earth, somewhere, around whatever year I mean for them, with other stories.

But my thinking well predates the MCU, which is something I pay very little attention to. My influences were Tolkien, Asimov (as you mention), and later David Brin’s ‘Uplift’ universe and ‘The Culture‘ from Iain M. Banks. And a few others. Not that I’m anywhere near their levels, but I can always dream.

 

[Voboy]

I guess what I'm trying to say (probably badly) is that people probably didn't refer to this as the 'Welshiverse' (or whatever) at the time, but they do now, even if it's can come across as a bit grandiose for those kind of stories. The way people are talking about this kind of thing is changing.

Ah. I get it.

Speaking for myself? I used "universe," in quotes like that, when I wrote my Lit profile back when I joined. At the time, I'd not heard of the MCU (we are a DC household) and I still don't know much about it. So I myself am not using the term in fealty to the MCU.

It seemed like the right word to use at the time I did my profile, and it still does.

 

[RejectReality]

My adoption of "Universe" actually arises from another site, where that very term was used to describe connected stories and group them together. That terminology was in place when I signed up over 15 years ago. Said site was recently described as "stuck in the 90s" but appearances are most certainly deceiving when you take into account the tools available to authors and readers.

Adoption is actually a loose term here. I still refer to "Danica's World" stories and "Of The Wood" series in the course of discussing them far more often than I use "universe". That typically only comes up when I'm talking about "Of The Wood", "The Fey Folk", and "Ancient Peoples" all existing in the same world, even though none of the stories have direct connections to each other.

 

[sweetdreamssss]

Ive done both..

My first story is about Madiha (loosely modelled after me) on a one night stand during her trip in usa with a black man ..

Then another story of Madiha having a inflight encounter with a white man few months after the previous incident

Then the next story was about her and roommate Neha with their landlord which goes back to when she just joined into workforce.. the landlord story got a lot of likes so i wrote 2 sequels .

I wrote a story of her getting touched by a stranger in a bus ..

My editor Rustyoznail loved the characters so he wrote a series "india vs australia" involving them and a Russ. He also received an award for one of it ..

I recently wrote a story of Neha back in college when she went to yoga classes
.

I think we can have separate universes and we can even allow other authors to pick up from where we left ..

 

[Duleigh]

Ive done both..

My first story is about Madiha (loosely modelled after me) on a one night stand during her trip in usa with a black man ..

Then another story of Madiha having a inflight encounter with a white man few months after the previous incident

Then the next story was about her and roommate Neha with their landlord which goes back to when she just joined into workforce.. the landlord story got a lot of likes so i wrote 2 sequels .

I wrote a story of her getting touched by a stranger in a bus ..

My editor Rustyoznail loved the characters so he wrote a series "india vs australia" involving them and a Russ. He also received an award for one of it ..

I recently wrote a story of Neha back in college when she went to yoga classes
.

I think we can have separate universes and we can even allow other authors to pick up from where we left ..

Congratulations on finding an editor! They're rarer than frogs beards, and Russ is awesome

 

[sweetdreamssss]

Congratulations on finding an editor! They're rarer than frogs beards, and Russ is awesome

Yes , absolutely.. i had some really bad experience with people ghosting after receiving scripts and in one case, asking for nudes in exchange for editing etc until I met Russ..

He had also edited another author's work from my recommendation and she was a idol of mine ..

He is a very pleasant guy outside the editing and had some good conversation during the "india vs australia" series as he needed everything right and the results showed. All above 4.6

 

[jaykaythree]

From what I've heard, chapter stories work better if the chapters are written and ready to go fairly quickly. If there's a bigger gap anticipated in publication times, standalone universe stories might be the way to go.

I have some universe stories in mind as a branch from one of mine, something of "where are they now and how do they live day to day lives." But they're a while from now, not even in Drafts yet.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Congratulations on finding an editor! They're rarer than frogs beards, and Russ is awesome

Aww, shucks...