Using the same universe

Of course. If it's your universe, they're your characters and your stories, you can do whatever you want. Nothing wrong with it at all. In fact, lots of writers create a fictional place and then set a lot of different stories in it.

Yes.
Asimov's Robots series, Foundation series, and Empire series are all in the same universe.
Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Universe has two separate series plus a standalone novel.
L Frank Baum wrote about a billion books that take place in the magical land of OZ.
Neal Asher wrote a ton of books in the Polity Universe.
Pratchett wrote a ton of booksset all over the Discworld.
Larry Niven has zillions of books that take place all over the Known Space universe.
I could go on.

Kitty Pryde said:

I could go on.

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For a very, very long time, I suspect. There's a whole raft of examples of this kind of thing out there.

Thomas_Anderson said:

Would it be acceptable for me to use a large universe for different stories? One story involving certain characters from my fictional universe, and then another story using different characters, and the events occur in a different area of the same universe?

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So long as you have a rich and interesting universe, write as many stories as you can think of within it.

The great thing about worldbuilding is that you open up so many opportunities for story. Most of it will be backstory to help create a real universe for your first book. But if that backstory is rich enough, then it should be full of stories itself. There's so much fun you can have with a fully-functioning, fictional universe.

I'm still writing the first novel set in my fictional universe, but I've got about eight years worth of worldbuilding behind it. Because of that, I've currently got about twelve other novel ideas planned, all set in the same universe, spread out over ten thousand years.

Nothing beats getting deep and dirty in a well-made fictional universe.

Is this about novel-sized writing or short stories?

As said before, there are many examples where that works good for novels but for short stories it's absolutely fantastic.
You can't really form a unique, interesting world in 5000 words and tell a personal story in this world at the same time (unless you are really good with words of course ).
Thus using a familiar world or using the same one multiple times means you can stay focussed on the personal level, allowing a denser story.

Maraxus said:

Is this about novel-sized writing or short stories?

As said before, there are many examples where that works good for novels but for short stories it's absolutely fantastic.

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If you want a good example of different short stories set in the same universe, check out the Thieves World anthologies edited by Robert Asprin. I think there's 7 or 8 volumes?

Or for SF, the War World anthologies edited by Jerry Pournelle.

Also the Wildcards series edited by GRRM.


There's probably others but those are the ones that readily come to mind.