Linked short stories--any contract issues?

I've combed through Google to try to find if this was answered anywhere else, apologies if I missed it.

It is my understanding, through reading many BR&BC threads and searching for other threads on short story contracts, that there is absolutely no problem at all in writing linked short stories, using the same characters and setting, and submitting and publishing them other places. It's been mentioned that likely no one will notice, and I know Uncle Jim said somewhere that the idea of a "right of first refusal" in a short story is silly beyond all reason. I am trying to confirm this, because it kind of drastically impacts how I structure my secondary world fantasy.

See, my secondary world hosts a wide range of characters and plots, most of which can be written in stories not exceeding 10. But the characters overlap and come back again later. Damiel has a short story I'm editing, and comes back to a hypothetical novel later on. Dorian has multiple short stories, and once again comes back, to be one of the protagonists of the companion novel to Damiel's.

Is there any issue with this? Would it adversely impact my ability to publish the other short stories, or the hypothetical novels, to submit/publish short stories in this world?

Old Hack said:

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here, but think it's whether contracts for short story publications will demand rights to subsequent stories in that universe/genre/series.

Sometimes they do. But all you have to do when sent the contract is strike out the relevant clauses and return the contract with a note that you can't agree to those clauses, and if that's problematical then you can't allow them to publish the story or stories concerned.

This sort of clause rarely appears in short story contracts, in my experience, and when it does it is usually easily removed.

If the publisher isn't pleased with your request to remove those clauses then you've probably avoided a problem, so nothing will be lost.

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That is the question, yes. Also the reverse: would having one story in the universe negatively impact my ability to get the next published? Some of them actually directly follow from each other, but each stand alone.

Also in my paranoid brain I wondered if maybe somehow the first publisher would get peeved even if it wasn't in the contract, but I have no idea how that would work out since as I've read over and over, the only thing that exists is what's in the contract.

Thank you! That was my thinking as far as the initial story goes. Glad I wasn't too off base.

Old Hack said:

So long as they are definitely stand-alone then I don't see why that would be a problem.



If they were peeved that they didn't publish your subsequent stories then they would, I assume, only have themselves to blame for not making you want to work with them again, for rejecting your subsequent stories, or for not offering you terms as good as the publisher you eventually went with. So you're good.

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I think they're stand alone, but I guess the proof will be my ability to sell them independent of each other. (Or, before that, beta readers who read one and not the others thinking the individual story works. But ultimately selling.)

Thank you much!