Recurring Characters in Stand-alone Stories

[Northstar4695]

Do you ever use recurring characters in stand-alone stories? I have ideas for characters that I could see writing several stories about, but writing the stories in a logical progression that would make sense as chapters will be tedious. I am more excited now about things that would happen later in the timeline in my head. I also don't like that many people won't even check out the later chapters.

Each story would need to stand on its own, but in the post-script I might mention there are related posts. The drawback I am already considering is that some readers might be annoyed to read something out of order if they decide to read the related stories, even if I intend each story to stand alone. I suppose the other option is to just change the names and details and have several stories with similar characters (who would actually be the same person to me). I see that getting hard to manage the details.

Has anyone tried something like this or have thoughts about executing it? Thanks!

 

[jaF0]

I may use a more or less common character theme, but I don't always use names. Do any of my characters appear in more than one story? Likely, but no one would really know without names.

 

[MColton84]

Do you ever use recurring characters in stand-alone stories? I have ideas for characters that I could see writing several stories about, but writing the stories in a logical progression that would make sense as chapters will be tedious. I am more excited now about things that would happen later in the timeline in my head. I also don't like that many people won't even check out the later chapters.

Each story would need to stand on its own, but in the post-script I might mention there are related posts. The drawback I am already considering is that some readers might be annoyed to read something out of order if they decide to read the related stories, even if I intend each story to stand alone. I suppose the other option is to just change the names and details and have several stories with similar characters (who would actually be the same person to me). I see that getting hard to manage the details.

Has anyone tried something like this or have thoughts about executing it? Thanks!

All of my characters currently exist in the same universe. So they do sometimes appear in each other's stories, even if just as the cashier.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I regularly use the same male character in separate, stand alone story cycles. They're loosely interconnected in that one story might refer back to another, but they're not connected plot-wise. That same character wanders off into other story, but they're each complete in their own right.

I'm basically lazy, and it's always the new female characters that interest me, so using the same male character saves me effort writing him, since I "know" him so well.

As the writer, I know about all of the "joined upness" and the overall chronology, but readers don't need to. In any event, I write more about mood than plot, so they can be read in any order. Although The Hyacinth House definitely comes after The Madelyn Chapters, because I re-invent the "same" female character and have a Madeleine inspire a writer to write Madelyn, and Madeleine then recognises herself in the story and contacts the writer. It goes meta and very self-referential.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Do you ever use recurring characters in stand-alone stories? I have ideas for characters that I could see writing several stories about, but writing the stories in a logical progression that would make sense as chapters will be tedious. I am more excited now about things that would happen later in the timeline in my head. I also don't like that many people won't even check out the later chapters.

Each story would need to stand on its own, but in the post-script I might mention there are related posts. The drawback I am already considering is that some readers might be annoyed to read something out of order if they decide to read the related stories, even if I intend each story to stand alone. I suppose the other option is to just change the names and details and have several stories with similar characters (who would actually be the same person to me). I see that getting hard to manage the details.

Has anyone tried something like this or have thoughts about executing it? Thanks!

I’ve read books where the same characters are used. I’ve picked them up out of order but they stand by themselves.

I’m writing a trilogy where it would be beneficial for the reader to start at one and read through, but there’s enough (I hope) back references so they understand what’s going on. I don’t want to do the “In the previous episode...” type catch up. I do have a note at the start though.

Personally, I think you should writers what you want and not worry about the minority of readers who may be upset. MelissaBaby said she’s had comments in her very long series where readers have liked the latest chapter, then gone back to the start.

 

[NotWise]

Each story would need to stand on its own, but in the post-script I might mention there are related posts. The drawback I am already considering is that some readers might be annoyed to read something out of order if they decide to read the related stories, even if I intend each story to stand alone. I suppose the other option is to just change the names and details and have several stories with similar characters (who would actually be the same person to me). I see that getting hard to manage the details.

Has anyone tried something like this or have thoughts about executing it? Thanks!

My "Pixie" series in EC has Pixie and Tamara in every story. There are other repeated characters as well.

I conceived of the series as stand-alone stories, though they do daisy-chain together, with the main male character in each story (but the first) introduced at the end of the previous story. Each story follows a structural formula and has essentially the same plot.

The main problem with writing them as stand-alones is that you have to repeat the characterization of common characters in every story. I expect readers to get pretty tired of Pixie's back story, so I try to tell it a little differently in each story and throw in different details. That's a challenge.

The good thing about doing it this way is that it isn't a chaptered story, there is no over-arcing plot, and if I never get around to giving the series an ending (and I probably won't), I still don't have to face the onus of having an unfinished story.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Do you ever use recurring characters in stand-alone stories? I have ideas for characters that I could see writing several stories about, but writing the stories in a logical progression that would make sense as chapters will be tedious. I am more excited now about things that would happen later in the timeline in my head. I also don't like that many people won't even check out the later chapters.

Each story would need to stand on its own, but in the post-script I might mention there are related posts. The drawback I am already considering is that some readers might be annoyed to read something out of order if they decide to read the related stories, even if I intend each story to stand alone. I suppose the other option is to just change the names and details and have several stories with similar characters (who would actually be the same person to me). I see that getting hard to manage the details.

Has anyone tried something like this or have thoughts about executing it? Thanks!

Yes.
I have (goes to count) six stories in three different categories which feature the same two main characters. They're titled similarly [i.e. the characters' names: one or two word title] so that it's obvious they're meant to be about the same people. For most (maybe all) I've got a short author's note at the top delineating that the story is part of the same collection (for lack of a better word).

I haven't gotten any specific feedback about the fact that they're the same couple. The scores for the stories are in line with my other stories, and vary a little based on the category and content.

Basically, these characters roamed around in my brain for a long, long time. My first few stories left out the personal details (names, physical description) but as I wrote more, it made sense to flesh things out, add background, etc. I have a couple of more stories started with these same characters, that go further into their backstory. But each story is its own complete arc. They're vignettes about this married couple's life.

Like I said, I haven't gotten feedback about whether having these same characters is a plus or a minus. But it just made sense to me to have some constant central factor to build each vignette around. And since I don't know their whole story arc, there's no way to put them in a particular order.

So, I say, if what makes sense to you, and sparks your creativity is to have the same characters in multiple stand alone stories, then do that. And don't worry too much about convention.

 

[SimonDoom]

I sort of like the idea of having a character pop up in my stories like the character Enoch Root in Neal Stephenson's novels. He's immortal, and he pops up unexpectedly in his novels, which cover many centuries. His purpose is to help push the main characters toward fulfilling their destiny. In my case it would be a character who pops up in people's lives to introduce them to something kinky to make their lives more fulfilling or interesting. I might use my character "Simon" from Slut Lessons For Scott's Wife in this way.

 

[PennameWombat]

Do you ever use recurring characters in stand-alone stories? I have ideas for characters that I could see writing several stories about, but writing the stories in a logical progression that would make sense as chapters will be tedious. I am more excited now about things that would happen later in the timeline in my head. I also don't like that many people won't even check out the later chapters.

That’s essentially the definition of my You Promised Me Geeks series (see link in sig.) But even they take place in a broader shared world, Mel’s Universe (see my biography and list of stories.) Any character from that universe can appear in any of the stories although different ‘series’ focus on subsets, such as Tracy and Asha in Geeks and Mel and Chris in Chronicle.

There is an ongoing chaptered story (Chronicle) in that universe along with other series and stand-alones.

Each story would need to stand on its own, but in the post-script I might mention there are related posts. The drawback I am already considering is that some readers might be annoyed to read something out of order if they decide to read the related stories, even if I intend each story to stand alone. I suppose the other option is to just change the names and details and have several stories with similar characters (who would actually be the same person to me). I see that getting hard to manage the details.

Has anyone tried something like this or have thoughts about executing it? Thanks!

I use the author’s note at the front as well as a postscript to mention the other stories. However, for the non-chaptered stories I attempt to make each story enjoyable on its own without having to read the others. Now, will it be a ‘deeper’ story if you’ve read the others? Probably. Reading the third You Promised Me Geeks story (UK Summer) you don’t know WHY Asha and Tracy are friends, how they met, why Asha is blackmailing her brother so she doesn’t inject him with brain-eating worms, etc. Just that they are. That’s all in the first two stories.

No one has ever commented on that aspect of the stories.

Now, I’m far, far from any of the most popular lists, in fact, so far I barely know those lists exist. Whether this is why or that I’m just not good, I can’t tell you.

 

[SGLevy]

This is actually what I'm doing with my current series, but there are some pretty big gaps in the timeline and I don't want people to be confused when I jump over some major stuff and don't know how to handle it. I wrote them all out of order but I'm posting them in chronological order.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Do you ever use recurring characters in stand-alone stories? I have ideas for characters that I could see writing several stories about, but writing the stories in a logical progression that would make sense as chapters will be tedious. I am more excited now about things that would happen later in the timeline in my head. I also don't like that many people won't even check out the later chapters.

I've done it occasionally. One of the major characters in my current series was previously mentioned in a stand-alone. I reused the name without realising it, and when I noticed the reuse a couple of chapters down the road I thought: actually, there's no reason why she can't be the same person, and it might be more interesting that way.

Plenty of other stories are written that way, both on Literotica and in professional publishing. Or you can do something like Pratchett's "Discworld" series, which is really a bunch of shorter series set in the same continuity that sometimes interact with one another.

 

[Omenainen]

Do you ever use recurring characters in stand-alone stories? I have ideas for characters that I could see writing several stories about, but writing the stories in a logical progression that would make sense as chapters will be tedious. I am more excited now about things that would happen later in the timeline in my head. I also don't like that many people won't even check out the later chapters.

Each story would need to stand on its own, but in the post-script I might mention there are related posts. The drawback I am already considering is that some readers might be annoyed to read something out of order if they decide to read the related stories, even if I intend each story to stand alone. I suppose the other option is to just change the names and details and have several stories with similar characters (who would actually be the same person to me). I see that getting hard to manage the details.

Has anyone tried something like this or have thoughts about executing it? Thanks!

I did this. I wrote one story about these characters and liked them so much I wanted to see what they do next. I wanted to post in different categories, and so I wrote them as standalone stories and not a series. Because as a reader I would want to know, I added a note to the later stories listing the previous ones in their chronological order. When I was done with them, I also listed them on my author page.

It was fun, and I’d do it again, even when I got the reader response of declining view counts and increasing score across stories (the ones posted in the same category, anyway). It worked well while it did, I didn’t have any major problems until I got to the last one, where I wanted to wrap up things for side characters from previous stories, but they had no business being there when the stories were supposedly standalone. That took some juggling, but I’m pleased with the result, and have been told the last one works as a standalone as well.

Just try it out, see what happens. At least there won’t be readers complaining about unfinished series, when it isn’t a series

 

[BobbyBrandt]

So far, all of my novels have at least one character or character reference from another story.

Four of them are part of a series where several of the characters age and develop over the years, while there are stand-alone stories where characters from the series make significant contributions.

It can seem redundant for a writer to re-establish a character from one story to another, but it is important to do so in a stand-alone piece of work if you intend for the readers to embrace them in the same way from one story to the next.

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

I've often brought back characters in later, apparently unrelated stories and begun completely new series based on relatively minor characters in others.

My latest tale, One Step Beyond brings back a minor character from another recent work as I felt she had a good fit with the male hero and wanted to allow her some redemption from a bad experience.

I also like to mention characters in passing to give a bit of closure as to what may have happened to them when their story ended.

I would estimate that out of 45 stories so far, 30 of them will have people who cross-pollinate, so to speak.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Yep. I started a story as a one off, but brought back all the characters in a second story. Eventually, I wound up with six separate stories about the same characters, yet in each story they were a little bit different.

I have also used the same characters in other separate stories.

 

[KeithD]

I have used recurring characters in standalones in both my KeithD and sr71plt accounts and have grown attached to them: Clint Folsom (NYPD detection; "Death In" series), Hardesty (DC cop), and Sam Winterberry (CIA Candy Store series).

 

[HappySpouse]

**This is not a series, just a reoccurring character put in unrelated stories**

Who is Emma?

Emma is a fictional version of my wife that can be subjected to all of our fantasies.

What does she look like?

Emma is blessed with the looks of my wife. A 5 foot 5 inch redheaded bombshell.

Anything else readers should know?

Unless specifically stated, these stories are not sequels. Meaning the experiences Emma had in one story do not carry over to the Emma in another story.

I have three published stories with Emma in them (and 5 partial ones I'm working on from time to time). I came up with this blurb to point out the two important facts, it's not a series and her experiences don't carry over. That way she can have "first time" experiences as many times as I see fit without it confusing someone who may have read one of the others.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Yep. I started a story as a one off, but brought back all the characters in a second story. Eventually, I wound up with six separate stories about the same characters, yet in each story they were a little bit different.

I have also used the same characters in other separate stories.

I've done that too; start with a stand-alone story and then start writing sequels. I added characters, but the existing ones stayed the same. It could have been a series, but I didn't envision that at the beginning and I didn't plan for it.

 

[AvroAnson]

Do you ever use recurring characters in stand-alone stories? I have ideas for characters that I could see writing several stories about, but writing the stories in a logical progression that would make sense as chapters will be tedious.

My first story written here over 20 years ago was a series. It was highly imperfect mixing far too many genres and activities to be well liked. After that experience I have written mostly stand alone stories, there are a very few series that usually "jus' growed" from a single story. Even though they are often posted in different categories they are the same "characters" although they sometimes use pseudonyms.

Because I personally lack long periods of downtime to devote to reading, I definitely prefer to read, write, (and watch movies not series) in discrete "chunks." So, stand-alone stories within a single "universe" (sometimes as simple as say "Perth in the 1950s") are my preferred style. Should any story "require" reading a previous story to make sense -- something I try hard to avoid -- I link the predecessor story at the beginning.

 

[YDB95]

Yes, I've done that quite a bit. Sometimes a standalone story makes me fall in love with one or more of the characters and I just have to write more.

 

[SamScribble]

In one of my stories, I needed somewhere for the two main characters to stay when they were out of town, house hunting. I was originally thinking of putting them up at coaching inn that a friend and I had stayed at a few years earlier. But then I remembered that, in another story, one of my central characters ran an up-market B & B in the area. Perfect. And so that's where they stayed.

 

[KeithD]

In one of my stories, I needed somewhere for the two main characters to stay when they were out of town, house hunting. I was originally thinking of putting them up at coaching inn that a friend and I had stayed at a few years earlier. But then I remembered that, in another story, one of my central characters ran an up-market B & B in the area. Perfect. And so that's where they stayed.

Yeah, I do that sort of thing frequently. Also, when I have a character reading a book, often it's one of mine.

 

[SamScribble]

Yeah, I do that sort of thing frequently. Also, when I have a character reading a book, often it's one of mine.

I might have to try that

 

[AvroAnson]

Yeah, I do that sort of thing frequently. Also, when I have a character reading a book, often it's one of mine.

I might have to try that

"Mommmm!"

"What is it Denise?"

"I need to go and Bobby forgot to bring the toilet paper!"

"Oh ..."

"That's all you can say? Mommm! We are in a cabin in the woods with NO TP!"

"Here, you can use this to wipe."

"What is it?"

"An autographed copy of Avro Anson's latest book."

 

[RejectReality]

You can also add the reading order to your story side Bio ( not forum Bio. That's broken ) and update it whenever a new story comes out. You're allowed to mention your Bio in author notes of the actual stories because it's a Literotica page. So you can direct people with each new release to the timeline you have there.

That's what I do with my "Magic of the Wood" series. They have a definite timeline, despite being self-contained stories. Fortunately, they all have "of the Wood" as part of the title, so I only have to list the first word to outline the chronology.

I'll have to do that with "The Ancient Peoples" when the third story comes out shortly, and I'll have to use full titles because there's no connective tissue there.

I don't write those two series as chapters because there's no overarching plotline running through them. There's no conclusion for the series, just conclusions in each story.

My Danica's World stories span too much time and have too many gaps for that, so I use my bio to point people to the timeline page on my website for those.