So, I've got a bit of a problem. I have an urban fantasy story set in an alternate late-90s America secretly crawling with immortal supernatural beings. I have a lot of different character concepts, each from different parts of the United States and the myriad immortal clans that secretly rule the magical beings there, but the two main characters are a girl with ghost powers who people constantly forget after interacting with her, and the feral amnesiac vampire-werewolf hybrid who for some reason is the only person on Earth who doesn't forget about her. The trouble is that the adventures of these two alone, I feel, couldn't possibly show the reader as much of the world as I want them to see, and there are only so many conversations I can have my heroine eavesdrop on to tell the stories of other characters. So I've been pretty strongly considering doing a multiple-perspectives thing a-la game of thrones. ...The trouble is that every time I try to plan out the story arcs of each of the POV characters in this first book... I struggle to work out how to connect them all. It feels like I'd be just writing an anthology of unrelated short stories, and that feels wrong to me for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Some part of me feels I need to make all of these stories connected and related in some way, immediately, rather than in terms of my long-term goals. Anyone have any advice for what I should be thinking about when planning this?
I don't know of course, but it's possible that you have a worldbuilding problem. It's very common among people who create vast complex worlds for their stories that they then want to show all of the stuff they came up with. But unfortunately most of it is irrelevant. You only need to show things that are relevant to the actual story you're telling. If I'm telling a story about some people who live in Podunk, and I know some cool stuff about Peking, it wouldn't work to take some other characters in Peking with a completely unrelated story and try to include that. It's really two unrelated stories. I mean, unless you can come up with a story that organically includes all these people in these different places, and they're all necessary in the telling of it. But it sounds like that isn't the story you've got.
Hmm.... Have you listened to or read American Gods? (Im excluding the series because, while i liked it, i feel that is handled this part differently than the book). To explain the world, a few chapters are about certain gods. The main characters are Shadow and Mr. Wednesday, but every so often, you're brought into the life of others... A salesman who meets a jinn.... Bas as she has sex with her sacrifices/tributes... How a god came to american on a slave ship, etc. These stories are intereoven into the over all story. What if rather than have your character eaves drop, could she find a journal of someone like her who has documented the other characters and thats how she finds and connects with someone them?
Possibly you could expand the idea into a series, where it moves from place to place in each book? Or write a bunch of short stories set in different parts of this larger world?
Yeah, I think I've been convinced to cut down on the alternate perspectives and limit them to the occasional thing. It was a rough decision but I'm feeling better about it the further I get past making it.
@WritingInTheDark Wow yep have suffered multiple times with this exact problem. I think @Xoic provides the real answer... But unfortunately most of it is irrelevant. You only need to show things that are relevant to the actual story you're telling. Think about it this way, Star Wars A New Hope. A basic farm boy who gets pushed through a storyline leading to a larger outside world. Even with the scope of the two sequels expanding the visible world horizons, it would still pale to what the expanded universe would become. Now imagine George Lucas sitting down and writing the story from the absolute start... And then you only ever seeing it that way. A boring political trade drama set in space. Yes, plan the back story, but show only the things relevant to this local actual story now...! MartinM.
