One of the fun things about being part of an author community is the chance to write in a shared project. I haven’t yet co-written anything. (Not sure any other author could live with my pantsing process.) But I’ve done one shared-worlds story, and I’ve now signed up for two more coming this fall.
The one I already did was Nelson & Caleb for MLR’s “Storming Love” series, based on enduring a hurricane. Those novellas had very little overlap, other than a shared weather event and a general part of the country. (Although we had fun naming the hurricane after the publisher.)
This time around, I’m diving a little deeper into shared worlds.
The first series I’m working with is the Single Dads of Gaynor Beach. This series focuses on a fictional small town on the California coast, and features single-father main characters. My book isn’t coming out till September 13th. (Lucky book #7.) The first story (Jake by Charley Descoteaux) is out now, with the next four in preorder. I’m still in the very early stages of writing, and having fun checking out what other authors are doing, and maybe borrowing their locations and secondaries to people my story.
The actual story for Alec will be a bit angsty. It came out of one of the weekly flash fiction bits I did for my Facebook group, a lonely guy on a pier whom group members wanted to see find not just a tiny HFN, but a true HEA. As a pantser, I’m looking forward to finding out what that looks like too.
The other series I’m doing is Road to Roctoberfest with rockstar MCs and a big open-air concert out in Nevada as the linking element. This is the second year for this series, so I had some published books to check for background, and my story for this one is written, and fermenting before I send it off to beta readers. My book will actually be the first for that series, coming out on October 4th, with weekly releases for the rest of the series.
There are a lot of elements that go into shared-world series. Not only is there the dance of coordinating information, trying not to contradict anyone else’s worldbuilding. There’s also the element of using someone else’s characters as secondaries. As authors, we’re very invested in out MCs (and secondaries) and it takes a certain amount of trust to let someone else write them, even just in a brief appearance. (I liked Charley telling us to make sure we don’t cure her Jake of his gumpiness.)
There’s also supporting each other in the writing process, and helping promote the series and each other’s work. I’m getting crash course in all those aspects, doing the two series together. (I didn’t plan it that way. It’s all the plot bunnies’ fault.)
I’ve read a bunch of shared world series. The Vino & Veritas series, for example, has some favorite authors and stories in it. It’s interesting to jump into stories that are connected, but also sometimes (if I’m not reading them all in order) I notice the links I’m missing.
Do you enjoy this kind of shared world? Do you like spotting the things that connect a book to the series? Or do you get frustrated with not knowing details from the books you haven’t read?
I’m having fun working on both of these series, and I hope many readers will enjoy them too.
– Kaje Harper
April 2022