Saga of Life: A Shared Universe?

As my writing portfolio has grown, I’ve felt tempted to connect several stories. Create a shared universe, like the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) or the Cosmere (by Brandon Sanderson).

Looking at my upcoming ideas—a list of most promising things that I hope to write the coming years—they all could benefit from a shared universe. They are often self-contained worlds with funny magic and rules, but similar themes and general ideas as my other stories.

They could be … different planets in the same galaxy, for example. I like writing about larger systems and societies, for example, and already have a few stories where space travel or teleportation is a thing. Wouldn’t it be fun if those places actually existed in a shared universe? If a story could have a few chapters on another planet, which is the main world of a different book series?

Or, sometimes I come up with really fun characters or magic ideas, and I feel sad that I only get to use them in a single short story. Or from the limited perspective of one protagonist. With a shared universe, I could pull that idea into other stories if I think it makes sense.

But I never found a good way to do this.

I don’t want to make the same mistake as many of those cinematic universes: being so focused on connecting many stories that each story on its own is meh. Being so focused on stringing audiences along and getting them to buy your next book/ticket/streaming service … that you never actually give them anything.

No, each story I write has to really be standalone and satisfying on its own. The individual story comes before the larger whole, always. When the MCU understood this, it thrived. Then it forgot, and look where we are now.

I knew this would be incredibly ambitious and hard to do right. I wrote down the idea several times, I wrote some approaches for it, but nothing came close to “clicking”. For the most part, I hadn’t even convinced myself that this would be a good idea. I am barely known as an author, I barely sell books at the moment, so would it make any sense to connect them in some subtle ways?

And so I basically moved this idea to “reconsider in 5 or 10 years”. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but this usually works. Over time, your brain figures stuff out, you acquire new influences and inspiration, and something clicks.

A realization

Well, that moment might have come a lot sooner.

One morning I was moving a long list of “little ideas” to the folders of their respective writing projects. This happens often. During the week, as I read newspapers or exercise, I get all these tiny thoughts that I scramble to write down somewhere. At some point, I then have to actually collect all that and neatly type it into the right documents.

As I did so, it suddenly became clear to me.

As I write this, my Saga of Life project has entered its 4th cycle. We are nearing 40 short stories. It’s already quite big, and now I’m also increasingly able to connect stories and reference things. (When it was just the first few stories, in different time periods, it was obviously hard to make a character reappear.) It’s a free website with professional stories, made for quick and fun reading in any order you desire. It’s one of the main ways people find me as an author, and by far the project that will be most diverse and longest-running.

As such …

The Saga of Life IS the heart of a shared universe.

The Saga is positioned perfectly for this. It is by far the best approach, and I took it accidentally :p

Why?

• It was designed to have no clear beginning or end. And to have gaps. As such, I can always add something else to connect it to new work. (Because, as you might expect, I can’t see the future and I will surely create stuff I never expected to create.)
• It is built out of many short stories, and the fact they reference one another is something communicated to the reader from the start. As such, these stories can easily add some throwaway lines or characters from other series to a story, without getting in the way or feeling out of place.
• Similarly, the stories are often different genres and writing styles. There is no fixed template, which means I can always try a new structure if that helps connect to some new book I wrote.
• The entire idea of the Saga is that it’s about the entire history of the world. You see the origins of life and rise of humans from start to end. Even in this early stage, the Saga already has a few general “founding myths” that extend beyond just one planet.
• It is a free website that was already built on stories, quick reading on any device, and connecting those ideas. As such, it is the ideal way to attract new readers and give them a sort of “guide” to a shared universe.

With this approach, the Saga would act similar to Stormlight Archive for the Cosmere. It’s the biggest project within the shared universe, the “main” one that sets up a lot of it and points you to the side stories.

But it’s also clearly different. They are short stories, of course. They are written in varying genres, tones, time periods, etcetera. Because of that, it has a slightly larger focus on just being its own story most of the time, with the shared universe only coming into play once in a while.

The more I thought about this, the more I actually dug into the specifics, the more it made sense. The Saga of Life is the perfect fit for the “soul” of a shared universe that connects all my work. Call it a “guide”, or a “core thread”, or the “entrypoint”.

What does this mean?

But what does this mean specifically? It’s easy to just say “everything I’ve written is inside a shared universe now!”, it’s also meaningless and superficial. As stated, I don’t intend for that shared universe to be overbearing, so I’m also not going to change older stories just to force something in there.

It simply means the following.

• I have a map of an entire universe. I already had one for the Saga, but it was mostly empty—we have barely left our main planet yet. (So, yes, Somnia is just one planet of many in this shared universe.)
• Whenever I write a new book or series, I’ll give it a proper name and place in there.
• Whenever the Saga talks about the outside world (space travel, extraterrestrial creatures, or the gods before that time), I can now actually use those places. Instead of making up a new planet name on the spot, for example, I can refer to the known name of a world from a different story. (If it makes sense, of course.)
• Whenever I see a chance to connect a story to others, from now on, I will try to take it.
  • For example, I have one standalone idea about aliens arriving. (The idea is far more specific than that, of course, but this is the important bit :p) Those aliens … could be a race from another story of mine.
  • I have several godlike beings in the Saga, and plan to have a few more in other stories. They can obviously interfere left and right, if the situation and their powers match.
  • The myths/legends in one story could just be what really happened in another. The same with general “historic events”, if it makes sense for people to know that or have seen it.
  • The most easy thing would be to add many references (big or small) to other stories. For example, mentioning seeing a planet in the sky, mentioning some “ancient magic” that is simply the magic system of another book, etcetera.
  • The most satisfying thing would be for events in the Shared Universe to actually have consequences in other stories. This, however, strays painfully close to making stories too much about the shared connections instead of being standalone. So this will be rarely done.

The biggest challenge, now, is to find a general “structure” for this shared universe. To find a clear set of rules that could apply to any story I want. One that is specific enough to really make it a universe, to have it feel realistic and intentional, but not so specific that it ruins my ability to write other projects.

How was this universe founded? What are its general laws? What is its name?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, ever since I realized this idea. This article was written many months before it was published, because I wanted to give myself some time to potentially change/retract my statements here :p

And I’m still not entirely sure. I am sure I want to do it, but not how exactly.

• I think the shared universe is a good idea—it fits my hyperactive brain, my way of looking at stories†, the work I already have.
• I think using the Saga as its “heart” is a good idea.
• I think the specific ways to implement it are doable and interesting.

But I can’t even decide on a name for this universe yet! I have like 20 different ideas that all sound cool, but imply a very different tone and direction.

It will take a while before I write another article giving more specifics. It’s currently “easier” to connect my ongoing and future work to each other in ways both subtle and obvious. It might also take a while before those connections become clear or really influence each other.

I simply wanted to write this article to give my thoughts and announce this idea. Also, if you have any opinions on this, let me know.

A shared universe is ambitious, so I’m trying not to rush it and to hear other people’s thoughts. Too many people have been burned by cinematic universes lately, and I don’t want this extra work to become a burden instead of a bonus.

Until my next article on this, keep reading,

Tiamo