Writing Multiple Series in a World: Part Two

 All right, it's time for the second part of my series on writing multiple series in a world.

Why Do I Write Multiple Series in One World? (March)

What Does Writing Multiple Series in One World Look Like? (April)

How Do I Write Multiple Series in One World? (May)

Today's question I'm answering is, what does writing multiple series in one world look like?

Well, for one it looks like this:

A drawing of all my Ruskhazar main characters as drawn by myself

And this:

The Amar covers I have to date

But in all seriousness, allow me to describe what publishing multiple books in one world is like.

It's a little like having one giant series, but also a little like having separate individual series. It's somehow both at the exact same time.

On one hand these are totally separate series, no matter how interconnected they may be, they are telling their own story. No matter how many guest appearances and crossovers there are, each series has its own set of main characters. Each series has a different vibe (I would just have it all be the same series if these were not the case). These series are unique and separate from each other, they are not the same even if they are set in the same world.

On the other hand, well they are interconnected, and characters do meet up and have relationships with each other. I have some main characters who actually straight up hate each other's guts. Some characters are related to someone from an entirely different series, and some meet relations of my other main characters. For instance... and I won't say which series these are from to keep spoilers at a minimum, but I have one main character at one point murder the brother of a main character from a totally different series. So... yeah, stuff that happens in one series does sometimes affect what goes on in the other.

Even in A Tale of Gods and Glory which I consider pretty much its own little island because it takes place for the most part in an isolated part of Ruskhazar and the majority of the cast remain in that story apart from a couple of brief cameos... well, even that story has an affect on Ruskhazar as a whole. A few of my main characters in Rage Like the Gods are huge fans of Taliz. Even though Taliz is not explicitly in that series (if he does make an appearance it probably wouldn't be for more than like five minutes), I have characters who look up to him. Eirik and Dagmy want to model after him (Eirik by being able to tell a tale like his and Dagmy by becoming a legend like him) and another of my characters Hakon models the way he dresses after the way that Taliz was said to dress, straight down to an earring.

So yeah, your books are going to be connected, even if they are very, very loosely connected they will still be connected. I mean if not then what's the point of even setting it in the same world?

Which means that writing multiple books in one world involves a lot of figuring out of timelines especially if these books take place around roughly the same time. As an author you always need to know where your characters are at all times, even if they are not necessarily all on the scene. Well, when you write multiple series in a world, you have to do that but you also have to keep track of where all the characters in each series are at. You can't very well accidentally have them visit the same city at the same time and then not even meet. Imagine how upset the readers would be. Now that can be something as simple as "they're at their home" because either their story hasn't begun yet or it has already happened. In other cases, like in Rage Like the Gods and the Blood of the Gods Trilogy, all the characters in the Blood of the Gods trilogy are introduced in RLtG before their own books releases (although chronologically the first Blood of the Gods book is actually in the past of those particular main characters) so I have to figure out what books they are in and in what books they are... busy (aka having their own story told).

Complicated family trees are a must. I have one family—and oh my gosh, this is about to get convoluted—but anyway I have one family in Ruskhazar, the Kotovs. Meruna Kotov is one of my main characters in RLtG, she is an only child, however her father had two siblings who have since been disowned. An uncle and an aunt. The aunt Bryn is one of the main characters in An Assassin's Guide to Cheating the Gods (Blood of the Gods book one), she has two daughters. One is a side character in An Immortal's Guide to Betraying the Gods (Blood of the Gods book two), and the other is one of the main characters in the Ancient Gods trilogy. Meruna's uncle is a powerful necromancer, the foil of one of the main characters in Immortal's Guide and a key player in the Ancient Gods trilogy. That's one family, but three main characters in three separate series. And don't even get me started on the legacy of Elwis the Eel...

Personally, I thrive off of complicated family ties, relationships, and interconnections. I have such fun figuring all these relations out. One time I sat down and realized (completely without even trying) that all of my characters in Ruskhazar were pretty much connected (with the exception of perhaps Taliz because like I said, he is an island) they all either know each other or know somebody that knows the other, have mutual friends, and the likes. For example, some side characters are side characters in multiple series and make friends with other main characters despite still being best friends with the characters from the first book they were introduced in.

It's one giant messy family only if there was a family reunion probably only half of them would end up walking away.

So yeah, that's what it looks like. It looks messy, and complicated, and fun.