I'm working on a project right now, and I was just wondering if there is even a market for this project at all, if I even have a chance of publishing it. It's kind of unusual (I think), not so much in the story itself, although I like to think it's an original idea, but more in the format. It's a series of short stories, all taking place in the same setting, and all interconnected, but each one it's own story. Characters from one show up in another and stuff like that, but there is no overarching storyline that ties them all together, except that they all take place in the same setting (a super messed-up prison). The goal would be a novel-length collection of shorts, all interconnected but seperate.
Is this marketable at all, or am I just doing a whole bunch of prewriting right now to develop the setting in which I am going to have to write a novel?
Posted by asherahpole (Member # 1900) on :
What's the genre? Science Fiction? Fantasy?
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
I think you may run the risk of frustrating your readers because they will look for some kind of overarching theme or storyline and not find it.
Setting alone is not enough of a connection among the stories.
Of course, once you've written them all, you may discover that there is some other connection, theme if not plot, perhaps, and you may want to rewrite them to strengthen that.
Posted by SiliGurl (Member # 922) on :
Yes, it's sellable... If it's engaging and entertaining and well written! I wish I could remember the name of the author (sorry!) but my husband mentioned an author that has LOADS of published books that he really enjoyed; most of the books were just as you described. THey weren't interconnected shorts, just mini-adventures in the life of the hero.
Depending on content/genre, I'd give it a shot if I saw it on the bookshelf.
Posted by loggrad98 (Member # 1724) on :
This has been done before. I remember reading a book recommended by my 6th grade teacher that did just that, a bunch of short stories set in the same locale, and with character reappearing, but there was no single story line tying them all together. I was then recommended another book that did the same thing in college. I cannot remember the titles, but I will see if I can find out and post it here later.
Posted by writerPTL (Member # 895) on :
I think it would work fine, especially if you could try to make a theme overarching. Something like The Martian Chronicles maybe, where there are different stories, but there is also the thread about humans finding redemption and a new start on Mars, even though it's still not an arching plot or anything.
Posted by Kolona (Member # 1438) on :
Kind of like Asimov's I, Robot. Posted by Gwalchmai (Member # 1807) on :
Will the main characters in these stories be the same throughout or will they change? Fritz Lieber wrote a series of short stories about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. If I remember rightly, although these were all set on the world of Nehwon and all featured Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, each story was seperate from the others but there were some regular characters who put in repeated appearances. They were originally written for magazines but have since been published together in a couple of large volumes. Maybe you might want to try this route too. Sell them individually to magazines and if they proove to be really popular somebody might publish them in a compilation.
[This message has been edited by Gwalchmai (edited January 26, 2004).]
Posted by GZ (Member # 1374) on :
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (more a lit-fic book) does a group of stories all set in the same town, whith the characters only slightly overlapping.
Isn't OSC's Worthing Saga a short story cycle as well (Can't say much more than that, its still on my To-Read List)?
[This message has been edited by GZ (edited January 26, 2004).]
Posted by JK (Member # 654) on :
I definitely think you could make that work. I do, however, think that it would work a lot better if you could get a theme to link the stories as well.
Having said that, there was a telly series called "Oz", I believe, that was a bit similar to what you seem to be suggesting (in that it was set in a prison and told the stories of the inmates), and that didn't really have anything linking the different stories except the locale.
Go for it. Might as well give it a go.
JK
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Ray Bradbury's DANDELION WINE is kind of the same thing. Besides locale, the other thing that tied the stories all together was the fact that they all happened in the same summer.
