Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, especially with my own book series, is how it feels to have a set of stories connected together within a shared universe. The stories are different with new characters and a new conflict, but the worldbuilding persists from story to story. And while the main cast of characters may be different, the characters from previous stories could make an appearance for a hit of nostalgia and excitement for anyone whose read the other stories. But I think it can be rather tricky depending on the underlying thread that connects all these stories. There’s always the risk were the worldbuilding that helps one story flourish may be too restrictive to another.
There’s a belief that restrictions can be a hidden gem to work with when writing stories. Rather than having to contend with endless possibilities, the writer’s creativity has to work with the rules already established in previous stories. However this can also be rather frustrating to work with depending on the worldbuilding rules set and the type of story one might want to write. The Avatar series is a great example of both the pros and cons of this kind of story set up. Using Avatar: The Last Airbender as the establishing story, the worldbuilding rules are set for the other series as well to work within. The Chronicles of the Avatar by F.C. Yee do a really good job of staying within the boundaries established by the original series. It helps make the struggle more impactful as the limitations of what each Avatar in their respective duologies could do. Contrast this with The Legend of Korra that often broke these rules established in ways that aren’t quite well set up within the Avatar universe. It creates moments that are more strange than compelling or interesting.
Sometimes, rather than a shared world, stories may sometimes have a shared universe in which they take place. The universe serves as a setting for these stories to take place in, laying the groundwork for certain predominant rules for the universe to function but allowing each world within to function differently and allow for a diversity of stories to write. One of the most recognizable examples that come to mind is the Warhammer universe, both in it’s fantasy version and it’s science fiction version. The gods within each setting are the same and the soft magic system persists through each story, but the worlds and the various factions allow for different types of stories to be told. Then there’s Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe which is a rather interesting take on the shared universe idea. In his universe, a single creation myth is shared that creates the existence of magic in his stories, but each story seems to use that magic differently. I noticed in his recent Cosmere books that each world had it’s own magic system that operated differently than the other books. While this is really cool, it’s hard to identify they exist in the same universe as there’s not quite anything referencing the other books that I saw aside from one character repeating.
Surprisingly my favorite example of a shared universe is actually whatever it is that Hoyoverse has going on. The core focus for me as a writer has always been the characters as they always felt like the most compelling aspects of storytelling. They’re the ones you come to empathize with, root for (or against), and are the ones driving the story to it’s conclusion. Kiana Kaslana from Honkai Impact 3rd is my favorite character across all forms of media. While her story may have a slow and rocky start, it’s one of the best character driven stories I’ve read that have made me feel something. Now Hoyoverse likes to reuse their characters across their different games in what people call “expys” or “expies”, the character from the original story having a version of themselves within the new story. In Hoyoverse’s case, this tends to be the trio, Bronya, Mei and Kiana. It helps create this air of anticipation and excitement to see these characters make an appearance.
But what makes this more interesting is the fact that all the Hoyoverse games are all connected. In Honkai Impact 3rd there’s something referred to as the “Imaginary Tree” which connects all these different universes together. It’s especially fascinating when we learned that Welt in Honkai Star Rail is the same Welt from Honkai Impact 3rd. The fact that he’s crossed universes means we get to see his reaction to seeing versions of people he’s known from his universe in this new setting as completely different entities. His reaction combined with our own creates this kind of excitement to see new versions of characters we’ve already grown attached to in previous stories.
It got me thinking how the idea of a shared universe can take on so many different variations that the only real limiting factor is the writer’s own imagination. While I’m not really a fan of Marvel anymore, there’s a saying from Doctor Strange in Multiverse of Madness that’s been popularized and used quite frequently. The saying “I love you in every universe” has become a really popular line used for expys that people really love. One could use a simple sentence like that to establish a constant reoccurring element in each story that readers could anticipate and be excited for. It could be two lovers, either main characters or side characters or maybe swapping roles that remain a constant throughout each story. It could also be enemies, the idea of a hatred that spans across worlds and lifetimes. There’s so much potential to explore with the idea of a shared universe.
– Raphael
Raph's Cozy Musings 