As a reader, I love a long string of books set in the same fantasy world. As far as I can tell from experience, these types of interconnected books seem to come in two varieties.
In the most common version, the plot continues from book to book, though each book has a shorter arc (or sometimes even a series of arcs) that wraps up by the time it ends. The main plot for these books is often epic and sweeping and serves to keep the reader on the edge of their seat and looking forward to continuing the journey with the characters. But the shorter arcs help to make readers feel like something has been accomplished with each story.
I call those books sequels. Think of Rosaria Munda’s Aurelian Cycle.
In the other kind of connected books, the books are all in the same world but the plot and character arcs are usually (although not always) unique in each. Each book can stand alone, and they can be read in any order.
I call those a series. Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, Fire, and Bitterblue (The Graceling Realm) are a good example of such a series.
Yes, absolutely! But a series doesn’t always have any sequels. This might seem a bit confusing, so let’s think of it this way:
I’ve written a series of books set in different parts of the same world. Each book stands alone, so much so that they can be mostly read in any order. The only exception to this is The Wind Reader, which it’s better read before The Wysman or The Trickster, if you’re looking to read all three. (Though it’s not necessary to read it in order to understand the other two!)
However, it’s challenging to build a world that works in a single book, but is also wide enough to serve the interests of multiple stories. With some experimenting, I’ve found it’s possible to create an immersive and connected world in a series of stand-alone novels.
A writer needs to think about three major challenges:
In a single book, it can be challenging to create a world that feels real and interesting without overwhelming the reader. It’s always tempting to ‘info-dump’ when you’ve spent so much time making sure that the fantasy world functions properly. But I can promise that the reader doesn’t need to know about the 3,000-year history of (your Fantasy World Name)’s coinage within the first three chapters. Here are some things that work for me.
The trick here is to expand and build only the world you need to make the story work.
For instance, my YA fantasy Glass Girl is set on a volcanic island because I needed a place to put sleeping dragons, and fiery volcanoes fit the bill. The idea of the dragons came first. The setting grew to accommodate them.
As I work, I add concrete details about setting. These details should be as specific as possible. For instance, if the characters are eating, I don’t say they ate “food.” I say they ate “goat meat.” Generally, don’t pass up an opportunity to specify things like clothes, games, music, and so on. You don’t need much (see previous comment on info-dumping). Just a touch to make the place feel real.
What will your characters need to know (or do know) in the moment? My Glassmaker Emlin would want to know that she was eating ‘goat meat stew’, but she wouldn’t worry about the fact that the tavern bought the goat from a local goatherd who inherited their smallholding from their father twelve years ago. (See?)
In a stand-alone novel, you have to be economical with your words. Try world-building through active description. That means you don’t stop the story to describe a setting. Instead, reveal the world as the character acts within it. For instance, describe a palace gate as a character walks through it, preferably with the character reacting to the passage in a way that reveals something about them, too. Make your words do double duty.
A story is a change agent, so we look for a character to change as a result of whatever happens in the story. In a stand-alone novel, the change has to happen in limited space and time.
Not all changes have to major. Characters sometimes change in a more limited way, especially if they’re going to reappear in a later book and have another chance to grow. In that case, the event that affects them can be less wrenching.
If the character is going to change in a major way, the plot event that causes the change has to be intense. If this book is the character’s only chance to reach a turning point, make it a big one. And remember, a big change for a character is not the same thing as a big change for the setting. Characters don’t have to change the world – the biggest challenges are often more smaller in scope!
Giving a minor character a book of their own stretches the space you can use for character development. Plus, readers often like seeing more of a favorite sidekick. And the reappearance enhances the world-building that’s done in any one of the standalone books.
For instance, in my YA fantasy, The Wind Reader, Doniver is surviving on the streets with the help of his friends Jarka and Dilly. He thinks the king is unjust and has to decide on the right thing to do when an assassin threatens his life. Jarka and Dilly are his found family but their role in the book is to support him. At the end of The Wind Reader, the trio splits up and, as far as we know, never see one another again.
But there are two other books in this trilogy and in the subsequent two, Jarka and Dilly come into their own. Jarka remains in Rin City, and The Wysman traces what happens to him. Street kids are disappearing, and he can’t let it go, even when the king tells him to stay out of it, so that gives us a second look not only at Jarka but also at the king Doniver doubts. Dilly stars in the third book, The Trickster. She goes home to Lac’s Holding, which gave me a chance to create an entirely different part of this world, a seaport that’s a fantasy version of New Orleans. She teams up with a smuggler’s son to stop a treasonous plot.
With their common characters, the reader would meet some of the characters a couple of times, thus deepening their characterizations and widening the world-building.
When you reuse a setting or a character, you sometimes feel as if you have to fill in the details of what’s come before. But you don’t really have to do that.
Any book has a past, and the writer should treat later books like the first one. As with world building, use only as much backstory as is relevant to this story.
For instance, Dragoncraft is the second book in a series introduced by Glass Girl. Emlin is the point of view character in Glass Girl, but she and Addy share the plot’s main action. The two of them split the point of view in Dragoncraft. I had to decide how much of their history to include in that second book, and the answer was only as much as affected them in this story. Emlin might wonder how much she should trust Addy, for example, since she’s learned that he’s prone to stretching the truth. But it didn’t matter exactly how the two of them snuck into an ice house in Glass Girl.
The kind of fantasy series I’m describing is tied together partly by occurring in a world that remains interesting and consistent, even when books move from one part of it to another. But what really ties any writer’s books together is consistent theme and tone. When a reader picks up a book by their favorite writer, they may not know who the book is about or what events will happen. But they know this writer thinks of the world in a certain way.
Any reader who picks one of my books knows that I’m interested in themes of power and family relationships. They know how the world is likely to work and how I think it should work.
I don’t even mean for those themes to recur. As long as I’m writing from my authentic self, that’s what I get. I suspect most writers are that way. And those individual writer fingerprints tie books together, even if the books aren’t direct sequels.
By making every word count, it’s possible to write stand-alone fantasy novels with an immersive and satisfying world, well-developed characters, and resonant, meaningful themes.
If you’re looking for a new writing project, consider creating a stand-alone novel, always knowing that there might be more story to tell – hidden in the one you’re working on.
Interested in reading first-hand what all of the advice above looks like in practice? Here are all of the books mentioned above.
If science fiction is more to your taste, author David Wilkinson has two books which can be read in any order, set in the same world/universe. We Bleed The Same is a character-driven Space Opera, whereas Under The Shell follows more of a crime noir tone.
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