And where to stop.
And when to quit and walk away.
I never had a huge over-arching “Series Problem” that, when it was solved/ defeated/won/married or whatever the resolution needed . . . the Series was done.
I had an ever expanding Multiverse . . .
Which resulted in this ridiculous tangle of stories. With holes in it.
What stories are needed, what can be left out?
“What were they doing over here, while this was happening over there?”
IRL, they wouldn’t be sitting on their hands doing nothing. So in-story, what were they doing?
Well, when you’ve jumped your story all over the place, swapping out Main Characters with careless élan, you sort of have to wonder . . . Was your previous MC was just not paying attention to what was going on around him or . . . Ah, ha! I could send him off on a mission and strand him there! Whew! That covers it. (Ahem! You’re going to have to finish writing that story!)
But . . .what about the rest of the world? Surely someone was trying to fix the problem from that side. Right?
Right?
What excuse did they have for sitting around twiddling their thumbs?
Oh, now I have to invoke politics and rival factions and . . . write that story, too.
And what did they do then? Yeah, write that story too . . .
Do I put it in or leave it out?
Am I getting tedious? Repetitious?
This is getting ridiculous. What I need to do is go through a ten step withdrawal program for Writers in Love with their Fictional Universe.
I need to take a good hard look at what really needs closure in the universe and finish that and then Go. Write. Something. Completely. New.
I can always come back . . .
*Thump of head hitting desk*
I’ve got it so bad. And I have a minimum of three things to finish . . . How do you quit?
Mad Genius Club 
8 responses to “In or Out”
One advantages of relatively low stakes is that it’s easier for characters to ignore what’s happening in other characters’ stories.
If there are stories and audience in it, why stop?
Or is it just you’ve got other things you wanted to write too, and these are more prefab plot bunnies?
It’s more a matter of having reached my limit of “every Bad Guy/Evil Empire has to be nastier than the last.”
Now I’m just tucking stories into the empty corners and . . . umm . . . pouting because there’s a notable lack of “Something new” popping into the brain.
Ok, yeah. That does sound like it has been exhausted of stories for now. Probably time to let it rest for a while, and maybe think about what you loved about the universe before it became a huge series.
Oh, there’s plenty of little stories to amuse myself with, but readers like books with big battles and Evil to defeat.
Maybe I should shake the dust off my Lost-in Spaaaacccceeee! Asteroid miners. Instead of just exploring and trying to get home, they could run into bad guys and space battles . . .
Stone?
Here’s something maybe completely different! Fanmade trailer, if FF7 Remake was a movie
I am a retired professor of physics, and have been enjoying this long series. I wonder how far back these timelines have diverged? I ask because, around 1.7 BILLION years ago, there were some natural nuclear reactors in Gabon, since the u235/u238 ratio had not yet decayed beyond reactor utility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
I am not certain what other fun things might show up as isotope ratios vary over such long timelines. I also note that you may be more interested in the people than in these anomalies, but I am interested in how people might react either to encountering such anomalies or to pursuing them if they knew they would occur.
This might impact non-magic societies more than magical ones, since magic offers relatively easy isotope purification?
Anyway, just a few comments that might be of interest, especially to a geologist. I do hope your series continues!