Hi all,
For those of you that have more than one fantasy world, how do you keep them unique? How do you keep them sorted? Do they ever communicate? Are elements ever in common? Do your worlds ever end up as polar opposites? These are just some questions I've thought of as I've thought of maybe working on Mesal a little more (often over-shadowed by Enderion) and I thought I'd hear y'all's perspective first.

eruheran

So far I only have one fantasy world, but I'm going to have another one. I was wondering that myself, so this topic should be a good help.

You mean different fantasy worlds from different books, not parallel worlds that occur in the same book, right? (The latter would be a different circumstance.) In other words, how do we keep all our stories straight?

I have never in the past overlapped any of my book series. The worlds are completely standalone and no reference is made to any content from my other stories. I do think it can be interesting to link some of your book series together; faithful readers will find it amusing, though sometimes it comes off as cheesy or conceited. I think if you have the time and patience to detail all your fantasy worlds, making them interconnected in a great fantasy universe, that would be very interesting to read. I myself, though, just prefer to start afresh with each story and not be bound by any of my previous tales.

In practice, I'm generally focusing on one major work at a time. I'll occasionally detour, stick a short piece in the middle, but I'm usually on a spree with one work or the other. That work will remain at the forefront of my head and all my other worlds are safely stashed aside.

Keeping each fantasy story unique, though, is a good thought - something to be careful of. We all have our favorite elements that crop up in our stories, the styles we default to - so unique can be a challenge.

I have several worlds, most are poorly developed. For me it would happen by reading a fantasy book and thinking, "Hey! I like that premise (cobha)! I'll make a world like this!" And because most were simply imitation, they never went very far, but I still have three worlds that I've kept. Because when these worlds were first imagined each was created with a unique premise and cobha, I've never had a real problem keeping them separate. There was a phase where my variety of fairy-races in Fantasy and the fairies in Mythica seemed to be a bit redundant, but I've somewhat fixed that since then.

Whoah, Eruheran! Wouldn't it be awesome if your second world were like a parallel world, and everybody in the first one had a body and life in the second one? That would be so cool! Eruheran and Erutaron, One and the same.

It is quite simple. I just threw them all together onto one flat planet. Where I once had one world with a Pangea-like continent, I now have a world with four big continents as well as islands.

I already did this once in Enderion...check out the Petathora, Al-Diurina, and Tbuga continents, all of which used to be worlds, sort of.

eruheran

I have multiple fantasy worlds, but each one has such a unique story and setting that I have no problem keeping them sorted. Making all the different elements of each one original presents more of a problem. None of the worlds are connected at this point.

For me all of the seven worlds I invented are unique, but share common elements. They all have the same physics, and the same spiritual hierarchy. Their geography and climate will vary, and the kinds of inhabitants. Right now I have only worked on three or four of them, and one of those is very small and simple, so keeping them straight is not difficult.
My worlds were all joined at one time way back, but as my histories in the chronicles indicate that didn't last.
I keep them unique by giving them different plant life, different customs, and different kinds of enemies. Naturally the good guys turn out different if their enemies are unique. Another way I keep them different is by having each of them have different races, or types of races. For example, the Purple World has a race of men, but these guys also have among them professional ghoul killers. In the Red World, there are normal men, but they have among them professionals at craft, commonly called wizards. in the Green World, there are normal men, but they have among them professional warriors who know special kinds of craft in order to have an almost mystical union with their sword.

Different worlds in the same story or different stories?

I create a new world for every story I write. I've always wondered at people who write completely unrelated books that all take place in the same world, for me it doesn't last that long. Of course, often times I destroy the world at the end of the book so maybe that's why.

Prince of Yen is the exception that proves the rule. I created so much history for that book it seemed a pity to waste it so once the first book is written I'm doing others. Not sure if it's a series or a trilogy, or just one book that covers past or future history but it's called the Elleysian Chronicles.

Lightning Ranger is set on some kind of alternate medieval earth. I'm stealing liberally from actual civilization and Authurian mythology and mostly making it up as I go along.

Ynoureth is one of my most well developed worlds, with lots of maps I forgot I'd made. It's pretty much stolen from a short story I wrote years and years ago, but I stole characters from that too. It's a typical questing place.

*tries to remember other fantasy worlds*

I guess they're all just so specific to the story they never cross because my stories are so different. (or maybe not, I've been told my first four novels had the same plot and the same characters... didn't have the same world though.)

For the most part, the worlds from different stories are completely unrelated and have no connection. I haven't ever done anything on purpose to make them all "feel" different, but they're different worlds, usually with different rules of magic and such. I keep them straight the same way I keep my stories straight; they just don't get mixed up. I don't do a whole lot of world-building, though, so there's not always a lot to keep apart. I don't have reams of history for each one; maybe just a few fragments here and there as they relate to the story I have planned.

There's an exception, though. I never set out to create a big world with all sorts of different stories in it; I was just talking with one of my brothers one day and we realized that a bunch of stories took place in the same world. In the universe for this world, there are multiple worlds. I've only done any sort of development for two of them. The first is named Rhoive, and that's where most of the stories take place. It's the primary world. The second is Hlior, where one of my races lives. Hlior has a lot less history and development, simply because there aren't many stories that involve it or take place on it. Geographically, it's quite different, and that's the main thing I've focused on.

Currently I have one fantasy world with two continents.