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What Best Connects A Series of Short Stories?

Addison

Auror
I'm writing short stories set in my fantasy world, right now I have one and three quarters of drafts done. As in one first draft and 3/4 of another, FYI. When I looked over the stories I realized most of them would have two core characters throughout. The others, maybe not.

The stories are set in the same world. So would that be enough to thread the stories together? Or would they be better if there was at least one common character in every story? The plots are not connected, just the urban fantasy world.
 
I'd think that the world itself could connect them, or some aspects of it. Maybe a reappearing theme, or else something thematic in the world.

Regarding characters, you could have some overlap without carrying the same character throughout the stories. Think about the Marvel Comics universe. Spider-man doesn't show up in every comic. You could use a little more subtlety, even, in using the characters to "world build." E.g., in one story, there's a glance at the television and the MC sees Character X from a different story being sworn in as mayor. In a different story, there's a news article about how Character Y, from a different story, was found slain in a parking lot. That sort of thing.

Edit: Or perhaps the news story is about an event that happened in a different story, without characters from that story even being mentioned.

Basically, all the characters are aware of the same world that is around all of them. Maybe in two or three stories, the same general event, an event that is just background, is mentioned: This is kinda the "Where were you when [blank] happened?" sort of thing.
 
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RedAngel

Minstrel
I would also suggest using the model that everyone is connected by the premise of six degrees of sepperation. It is basically that you could pick any person in the world and typically find that your are sepperated from them by 6 people.

I would suggest if you want them to be connected that you either have some stories set within the same kingdom so that the overall story is similar with a different take on lifestyle and outlook and scenery but the same connections.

Or you could have opposing kingdoms who are still connected but you could see the other side.

You could have other stories within the region whom are not connected but have a different way of life.

You could have alliances form from different countries that could later connect them all.

You can have wars or crusades that bring them out of their region, country, or even their continent.


There are many tools to connect various people who are not seemingly connect. The parallels can be minor or unseen, others could be much more spelled out. You do not have to connect them all at once as long as they share some form of consistency. Just build a spiderweb of characters that are all connected to each other in some way throughout your stories.
 
I think setting the stories in the same world is enough as long its identifiable the same world, which you would achieve simply by keeping core ideas behind the world consistent and reappearing.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
One way to connect them via all being in the same world, and depending on your own style, is to come up with a little scene-setting intro that can both be varied but also is clearly unified thematically. If the setting is a fantasy world with an interesting configuration of moons or stars, you could make use of that as a kind of alert motif: three suns rising in the morning, we know we're in the world of Agarad, and we're going to be treated to a tale of wonder!

Another easy way is to drop names. It could be a key empire or mythhistorical figure or a unique race of people or a unique geological formation.
 
I'm writing short stories set in my fantasy world, right now I have one and three quarters of drafts done. As in one first draft and 3/4 of another, FYI. When I looked over the stories I realized most of them would have two core characters throughout. The others, maybe not.

The stories are set in the same world. So would that be enough to thread the stories together? Or would they be better if there was at least one common character in every story? The plots are not connected, just the urban fantasy world.

I think the world itself could be enough of a connection.

Maybe you could connect the stories using multiple characters. Like, a minor character in one of the stories centering around the two core characters could be a major character in one of the ones unconnected to those two core characters. So the stories kind of have a common cast, although it's not common throughout every story.
 
I'm writing short stories set in my fantasy world, right now I have one and three quarters of drafts done. As in one first draft and 3/4 of another, FYI. When I looked over the stories I realized most of them would have two core characters throughout. The others, maybe not.

The stories are set in the same world. So would that be enough to thread the stories together? Or would they be better if there was at least one common character in every story? The plots are not connected, just the urban fantasy world.

As a reader, I enjoy discovering connections that the author does not go out of the way to hide but also doesn't force into my face. Stories written by the same author using the same setting automatically indicate a connection, but the stories may have other, more subtle connections that are the kind I like to find as a reader.

I think if you simply write each story as it needs to be told, the connections will form organically, and would be more enjoyable for me as the reader. If you put all the stories together in one collection as stories from the world of XYZ, then that gives away the connection right there.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Why do the stories need to be connected? There are lots of stories set in the real world; they are not all connected, save that they all (most!) take place on Earth.

What are the considerations for wanting them to be, or appear to be, connected?
 

RedAngel

Minstrel
They don't but people's brains love to put patterns together regardless if there are connections or not. Just being set in the same world should be enough.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
skip.knox said:
There are lots of stories set in the real world; they are not all connected, save that they all (most!) take place on Earth.

They don't but people's brains love to put patterns together regardless if there are connections or not. Just being set in the same world should be enough.

"Should be enough" is a loaded assumption, though. What I mean is this: if a writer of mysteries or spy thrillers writes a series of stories that take place on Earth, she doesn't really have to hammer home the fact that Russia, Cuba, Jamaica and England are all countries in the same world. (Reader has external knowledge and awareness of the basics of these facts.) But when you're trying to introduce readers to a different world, you can't just set one story here and another story there and expect everyone to immediately understand that they're set in the same world.

You need sòmething for the brain to latch on to. To establish the pattern. Pratchett does this by starting out with a kind of gods' eye view of the Disc I think in almost every book. Tolkien does this by connecting his stories through underlying myth and history and also by bridging the stories with the same series of races.

Two different stories could start out in the same city but end up in radically different streams of narrative. Some place or entity central to some part of the world could come into tangential play in several stories. Stories set in different locales could be about individual characters of the same race.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
That's why I asked what the OP intends. It's difficult to arrive at the right answer until one has the right question.
 
I agree. Intention is a major factor here, heh.

When I gave some early examples of things that could be done, I was assuming a mostly-Earth type of setting due to the OP's mention of "urban fantasy world." I suppose it could be an alt-Earth of one sort or another or a historical setting on our world or maybe even an urban milieu in a fantasy world. But I thought televisions and news because I thought maybe it was contemporary urban fantasy.

The type of connection desired also plays a big role in the decisions to be made. There's a long, winding continuum of possibilities.

That's why I asked what the OP intends. It's difficult to arrive at the right answer until one has the right question.
 
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