Multiverses-can we talk about them?

Read Zelazny's Amber novels. The end.

Yes. (grins)

Multiverses. Anything is possible. You could read Stephen King's Dark Tower Series, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

And ok, I'll give you a suggestion. Pick a trait, maybe one of the deadly sins. Pride, lust, envy, greed, etc. Make that trait 3d and build a world around it. What would Pride look like if it were a city? Broad? Massive? Over built? What would the people in Pride dress like? Bright colors, expensive cloth, over accessorized? What would the society be like? Would they openly mock those who couldn't afford to dress well, or would they treat them like they were invisible, so as not to lower themselves by noticing them. Now, you can do that in a horrid, hamhanded way where everyone knows exactly what you are doing, but you can also be subtle, and maybe once you get to worldbuilding, the floodgates will open and you won't need a trick to help get you started.

My problem is, too many worlds, not enough stories to go in them...

How long is your WIP? What is the structure? There was a multiverse show called sliders that was episodic and covered a maybe over a hundred worlds, devloping the main plot slowly. There are books that delve into a single other world in the multiverse, or focus on only a few. Dr. Who has a similar structure.

There are so many questions that need to be answered, before you start throwing around numbers like "a zillion" worlds. Most of these are questions about necessity. How many worlds are necessary? Why? Can you cut down? Once you've answered questions about numbers, then it becomes possible to deal with issues such as how much depth each world should have, and how to devlop that depth economically.

Isaac Espriu said:

Maybe just create the places they're going to explore without creating the entire universe(s) they're in? You can still have a basic history for that world/universe without having to create every place within it.

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Even "extremely different" universes generally have SOMETHING in common with our universe (as in most universes have gravity, though the constant of gravitation may be different in some other universe).

Often there are huge similarities that a not-quite-astute reader might not eve notice: Characters are often huumanoid, often speak English (or whatever language you're writing the novel in!), etc. Sometimes a "parallel universe" is like those comparison pages in Highlights magazines, they look the same and you have to look hard to detect the differences (Heinlein, "The Number Of The Beast" and Larry Niven, whichever story where the guy was part of a research effort experimenting with transporting into orbit rather than just transporting place-to-place on Earth - at first it doesn't LOOK like a parallel-worlds story!).

In "Job: A Comedy of Justice" the MC ends up travelling to different universes, generally different Human Earths where there are different laws and social mores and stuff. Then he dies and goes to a couple more different afterlife universes.

Also, be aware that some things will be different from a scene in one universe to a scene in another universe in the same way that things are different from one country to another, and other things will be different because they're in a different universe. It may be hard to tell the difference, and it won't really matter, unless one does a lot of physical travelling within one universe, then you can decide and tell/infer (and the reader can thus figure out) what difference are because of physical location within the universe.

There's "Time Enough for Love" (I read a lot of Heinlein) that's all in one universe, but the MC lives a couple thousand years and the book is sort of his bio, describing all the "characters" he was over time.

The One investigated the theory that if you were to travel to alternate universes and destroy your duplicate, the remaining duplicates of yourself would absorb his power. The more of you the kill, the stronger those of you who remain will become.

Don't fret, Kitty! It's not as bad as you think. William James notwithstanding, dramatically multiverses don't exist. Not in Amber, not in Narnia; nowhere. Though they exist as ideas in the minds of authors and readers, they don't actually exist in the text.

What you have in the text are scenes taking place in locations. Between one location and another is a bit of linking narrative -- and that's all. In one scene the character might be in a delicatessen; in the next it might be twenty fathoms under the sea. Is that on the same world or a different world? Dramatically, you can't tell. If the text says 'he drove out to the marina, got a boat and dived beneath the ocean' then you get one answer. If it says instead 'he teleported to another world and dived in' you get another. The location dominates the scene and other than whatever linking you put in it exists in isolation from any other location.

'But a multiverse is different from a single world', the reader may argue. 'There are different rules and societies and different moods'. But the same is true if you move a character from a deli to an under-sea scuba scene in the same world. The laws have changed. Human society has given way to a society of fish, molluscs and kelp. The mood will be utterly different. This will have an impact on the scene.

'But a multiverse can have multiple copies of the same character, or multiple versions of the same plot.' -- so too can a single world. Consider dream sequences, reincarnation, time-travel stories...


With this in mind, I offer the following suggestions:

1. Research locations, not worlds: You don't need to research whole multiverse worlds; you need to research locations for your scenes, and have enough plausible linking narrative to connect them. For that you don't need a detailed, comprehensive multiverse map -- just enough to get a feel for how it hangs together.
2. Pick locations by challenge and mood: Two things a location must do are fit with the challenges of the scene, and enhance the mood of the tale. No point building worlds that don't enhance your tale.
3. Researching locations is the same for any story: get the physics, environment, society, aesthetics, mood right. Populate it with interesting characters that suit its place in the story. Make it deep enough for consistency and credibility. For the rest of the world make sketch notes in case you wish to reuse it later.
4. Let the drama lead. Don't be bound by your maps. Move stuff about if it makes the story better. The Fellowship of the Ring would have been a very different book if Frodo had hit Moria before reaching Rivendell. The Moria experience would have totally screwed the hobbits' character arcs, not to mention the drama of the Rivendell scenes. Tolkien rightlly put Rivendell before Moria.

In short, other than a bit of creative premise-phlebotenum to justify why your locations are so disparate/inaccessible etc... plus any trickery you may want to deal with multiverse-twins, I don't believe that it's any more difficult to establish a multiverse setting than a regular fantasy/SF setting. I hope that the suggestions above help.

Kitty Pryde said:

My characters can travel and pretend to be just from out of town, or proudly claim that they come from another world, depending on what the situation calls for.

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Just have them do what Sliders did, where the characters always claimed they were "from Canada." For some reason, this was always enough of an excuse

So I'm really digging this idea of a multiverse populated by expatriates from Earth--though, were all the alternate Earths without human life? i.e., if they're all alternative Earths, would there have even been room for them to colonize? Or did they stick to colonizing the Earths that had no human life?

I'd suggest sitting down and thinking of what society a bunch of colonists would have created. Basically it's an exercise in extrapolation. What would colonists want from a colony? To preserve their old culture? To create a utopia, to expand commerce and industry? Maybe there's a New Italia world, but maybe there's also a world that's completely free-market, run by a merchant's guild. Maybe some rich and romantic eccentrics created a world deliberately styled on 18th century Europe. (I think the tv show Firefly did a good job when it came to cultural extrapolation in a far-future sci-fi setting.)

As for the actual knowledge of universe-jumping, that depends on the needs of your story. If there's a ship traveling between worlds, and colonies from Earth, I'm assuming this is far-future science fiction? If the technology is rare, then it's going to be rare for one of two reasons: the government has a hold on it, and only some people are allowed to utilize it for special colonization projects; or it's a secret held by the private companies that developed it, and only the rich can afford it. Either way, if there is inter-universal colonization, then it is probably a well-known fact. Unless all this colonization happened thousands of years ago, it's unlikely that people would simply not know about it. (Science fiction is rife with good stories about colonies that have forgotten they were once colonies--The Dragonriders of Pern series is a good one. But there had better be a darn good reason (and a lot of time passing) for the mass cultural forgetting.)

Anyway, just my thoughts! I'm really curious about what you do with this. But then, I've always loved world-hopping stories

After a rep comment asked the question, I thought I'd add a bit more about how to flesh out locations. When you have a 'multiverse' sort of setting there'll presumably be a lot of travel, so a lot of different locations and a fair variety among them. How to focus your research on locations that will work?

For this I assume that you already have your major characters designed -- especially your heroes and major adversaries. You know their species, physiology, society, psychology, relationships. You also have some idea of character arcs. You've probably researched the heroes' and adversary's homes already. You're just looking for 'other places' for locations along the way.

I also assume that you have some idea of plot. I.e. your adversary has motives, a goal and a plan; your heroes have motives and goals too, and you have major stakeholders with their motives, who'll react to the heroes as either friends, foes or fence-sitters. I assume that you know roughly how the plot will unfold: what the adversary will be doing at each step and how the heroes will respond (or vice versa).

Lastly, I assume that you've done some work designing the over-arching setting: e.g. it's planets with faster than light space-travel, or it's alternate universes with magical teleportation between, or whatever. Maybe you have empires spanning worlds, or maybe there are federations or loose alliances... whatever you please.

If you don't have all those things then it will be hard to research a good location. How can you know what a good location is until you know what's happening, who's involved, and how it fits in with setting?

But once you have those things it's fairly straightforward. Here's an example.

Let's say that the heroes are trying to find the person who assassinated their benefactor the Prince. But the assassin has fled worlds and is now holed up in special location in the multiverse. We need a new location in which the heroes confront the assassin and get him to talk.

My suggestion is to pick a location to enhance both the challenge of the scene and the mood. For this scene I want the heroes to be determined but scared. This assassin is a dangerous guy. I've decided that challenge isn't in finding him, but what you do with him when you've got him!

Here I want the assassin to really fight to escape. I want his ruthlessness to terrify the heroes and make them question their resolve. So I'll need a populated area -- more innocents to threaten. Also, I think his scariness will be enhanced if it's a peaceful populated area -- perhaps a pleasure place for young families. The assassin will make the heroes pay for chasing him by hurting young families along the way.

Ideas that come to mind are:

1. A carnival;
2. A botanical garden;
3. A pantomime;
4. A circus;
5. A school;
6. A shopping centre.

Of these, I like the circus and school elements. Let's say that our assassin is hiding as a circus performer in a big town known for its peace and safety. Weather is balmy, people are friendly, law enforcement is relaxed. The circus is full of school excursions. Our heroes will find hunting this guy easy -- but catching him will put kids, parents and teachers at risk.

What world is this location at? That depends on your over-arching setting. For this multiverse concept I'm using a space-opera sort of setting: many worlds connected by space-travel, and some tied into empires. So perhaps this is an affluent world with a good economy that's part of a stable empire. The world itself is almost its own gated community. The geography? Safe and pleasant. The climate? Good for playing. Security? Peaceful with low law-enforcement. Economy? Advanced, but green and livable. The history? It was developed as a pet project of a past empress, then taken over by mercantile interests.

Because this is a 'gated' world, the heroes will have some trouble getting in -- they'll need documents showing that they're family-men with steady jobs and no criminal records. Once in they'll have free reign to find the assassin because people are friendly and open. But it will be very tricky to catch him when law enforcement is lax and parents are unsuspecting. Will he poison children? Leave time-bombs? Will he create panic? Set the heroes up as the villains? Would it help if the people of this world are known for their flightiness and furious protection of their children?

All that decision-making is simplified by focusing on what really matters about the location: what the characters will be doing there, and how we want the reader to feel. The rest is just about fitting that location into your over-arching setting idea.

So in short: set up your the location to enhance the challenge and the mood, and to fit into your setting. You could park an assassin anywhere in your multiverse, but the best place is the one that adds best to the drama.

Hope that helps.

Kitty Pryde -- Thanks for the info! Outlandish backstory, but outlandish in the good way! *thumbs up* I like the idea of dimension-hopping critters.

Ruv Draba -- That's quite a lengthy bit of info there, but all helpful stuff, and good for everyone to remember. You've certainly given me a lot to consider for my own WIPs, and I wasn't even the one who originally asked the question!