We authors work really hard on creating the perfect setting for our novels. We agonize over every little detail—is the map right? Is the magic/history/whatever believable? Is it a logical world? The same goes for the cast of characters. And I mean not only the protagonist(s), but all of those secondary and tertiary characters. We have to describe what they look like, give them individual voices, and sometimes their own backstory and/or goals.
That’s a lot!
And then you’re only going to use all of this hard work in how many books? One? Three? Perhaps, if you’ve got a long series it could span to 9 or 12 books? (Rarely are they very much longer than that). Why?
Why not use that world you’ve created, or those characters you’ve brought to life in other books, in other series?
Not only will you be saving yourself a huge amount of work recreating a whole world and the population of it, but your readers will love it. Reading a familiar name is like discovering an Easter egg. Even though your new story/series is different from the one before, it doesn’t mean that you can’t share some characters across books.
I have created two worlds in my books: my Regency world which spans across four different series, and my fantasy world which is used in three different series. And even then, I will randomly have characters from my fantasy world mentioned in one of my Regency books as they overlap in time. Any reader who delves into my books get not just fun stories, they get a whole world which they can come back to again and again with both old and new characters.
You’ve done so much work to create your story world, why waste it?
Your Book World—Spread It Around!
