First off, let me be clear. I did not write the Avengers: Infinity War screenplay. Or any blockbuster screenplay, book, and/or novelization, a dictionary, thesaurus, app…pretty much anything that made me a millionaire.
Now that we’ve got that part out of the way, let’s talk about the movie (which I haven’t seen yet, so no spoilers).
The idea I want to discuss is creating a world where you use all your characters in a collective story. For example, I wrote a series about a group of assassins who work for the same agencies. They know about each other, have relationships (in backstory) with each other. The worlds in all books are the same, just locals are different.
So when deciding on writing a novella for my publisher, I went for the Avengers model, in which I brought all main characters together (thankfully that was only three at the time because I might’ve cried had it been a cast like in Infinity Wars) for a prequel.
It was a lot of fun to see them interact on the page, especially knowing what would be happening to them in the series. It also gave me a chance to open them up, to make the novels richer for the reader.
Have you thought about using this model? Or have you successfully done so? What were the pros and cons to it? Would you do it again or are you planning to do so in the future?
And finally, if any character dies in the Infinity Wars, you’ll tell me, right? You wouldn’t keep this vital information a secret, would you?
I think, if I understand what you’re describing, is very common in the world of series genre fiction. Or were you talking about bringing characters from different series together in one story? All my series have recurring characters, and it’s something my readers want and expect. It’s part of the genres I write in: mystery and romantic suspense.
Let me know if I’m off base with what you’re suggesting here.
Hi, Julie, and what a fun topic! Of the several (six so far) novels in my series, all have recurring characters, but never all at the same time. Only one has no recurring characters: Etti’s Intended. Etti’s story is a prequel that covers a time period years before she meets my Book One protagonist, so no other characters appear. It established the Coin Forest world and wedding rituals of Gypsies in that fifteenth century world. I like the thought of them all together in one room — it would be very spirited and lively!
I’m not likely to see the Avengers movie, but I get the concept. I can think of several authors who have multiple series and would be able to pull that off. Didn’t Agatha Christie even do that with Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver…and maybe some others?
Elvis Cole bumped into Harry Bosch in one of the Connelly books. Not quite the same, but they agreed to the cross over between authors.