Crafting an Interconnected World One Short Story at a Time

[This article originally appeared in the September/October 2025 issue of Writer's Digest magazine.]

As writers, we’re drawn to the accomplishment of typing The End, especially when it’s a short story. But have you ever closed the computer and thought … Is there more to this story? 

If so, you’re not alone.  

Short stories are deceptively more complex than their brevity suggests. It’s no wonder this format could benefit from a few more words. Sometimes you may want to extend the life of a short story, but a novel or even a novella may not be the best fit. Perhaps creating an interconnected set of short stories is right for you. 

Let’s discuss why linking your short stories could be a great way to explore creativity and a few don’ts to keep in mind. 

Interconnected themes, characters, and places create an immersive and rich environment that keeps readers engaged and invested, in other words, connected! Author Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier has built her career on leveragingthe beautiful St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, her original home, in many of her short stories. Her collection, Mayhem Can’t Stop De Mas, was a 2024 Claymore Award finalist, and the Caribbean island features heavily in each story.  

For Bernier, the island and her protagonist through most of her work, Naomi Sinclair, lean into a familiarity that we have already been exposed to in the storytelling we consume. “A major part of our current zeitgeist is the popularity of fandoms, like Marvel, and writing detailed, compelling interconnected stories is at the center of this.”  

Recurring characters or situations within the stability of a location can create a sense of cohesion in the story and a sense of community for the reader. The key to building a universe is understanding what the “rules” are of your location—real or imaginary. Bernier takes her readers on a culinary whirlwind of island foods she grew up with and shares sweet and savory dishes in the pages of her stories. The Virgin Islands become more than a place on the map, it transforms into a platter of guava tarts, soulful soca music, a steaming cup of bush tea, or buttered dumb bread. Bernier invites the reader into the serenity of the Virgin Islands through its culinary history, then turns it on its head with a mystery or a murder to solve. 

Don’t … allow the story to become a travel blog. As much fun as it is to utilize the location as an unseen character, it should simmer in the background and add seasoning to the stories, but it shouldn’t be the main course. 

Editor Michael Bracken adds a layer of complexity to the anthology idea with his Chop Shop series, a connected work with multiple writers sharing a premise and some of the same characters. This is a lofty undertaking for anyone, but Bracken is familiar with this territory. He is an Edgar- and Shamus-nominated and a Derringer Award-winning author of almost 1,300 short stories and editor or co-editor of 32 published and forthcoming anthologies. He has the necessary experience to helm this multi-layered work. 

Bracken takes a thoughtful approach to planning for a wide-scale endeavor like Chop Shop. “I wrote a multi-page bible before I invited other writers to contribute. The bible includes a description of the premise (stealing cars in and around Dallas, Texas), one setting that must appear in every story (the chop shop where the car thieves deliver the stolen vehicles), and three key characters who appear in each story (the man who runs the chop shop and two of his employees). These are what tie all the stories together.” 

Chop Shop uses side characters to anchor the stories. Bracken states, “Readers can easily see that these characters are the thread that ties all the stories together, and they can enjoy seeing how these characters inform the larger story as they interact with the various protagonists.” 

Don’t … be afraid to do some planning. Whether you’re a pantser, a plotter, or a bit of both, keeping track of character details like bad habits, catchphrases, or physical tics will help with consistency. 

Taking a singular character, a few partners in crime, and a main “big bad” and exploring their interactions across self-contained works is a key form of world-building. The sandbox can widen to include not only the protagonist’s journey but also minor characters.  

For example, Bernier’s protagonist, Naomi Sinclair, has a cast of supporting characters who act as benchmarks in each story set in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A prominent recurring character is Naomi’s best friend from childhood, West, who is legally blind. According to Bernier, “[West] is resourceful, quietly confident, and capable. He feels this way because he’s been equipped by a family with the resources and determination to see him succeed. It’sbeen fun to explore how he and Naomi connect even though she’s sighted, and he isn’t.” 

Instead of being background fodder, a side character can become a significant part of the story. Similarly, readers might recognize a character’s importance in a subsequent plot. 

Consider revisiting previous works and taking note of the characters that stick with you. Is there a background player that could have a deeper history to explore? Devise ways for them to reappear and interact with the protagonist or antagonist in a new outing.   

Don’t … be afraid to weave in a side character arc over the course of several connected stories. It pays off not only in the growth of the character, but it links the narratives and glues the reader to the adventures that came before it and the new ones yet to come. 

Sometimes, revisiting characters or places is intentional. Other times, a character gets stuck in your head, and you can’t help but let it seep into a new story. The latter inspired me to focus on a family line with the surname Booker and begin charting a path through this family’s history from Reconstruction Louisiana to the present day.  

My first story to feature a Booker appeared in Dark Yonder—“The Entitled Life and Untimely Death of King Booker.” I did a live reading of the story shortly after its publication, and many audience members were curiousabout King. This caused me to think about my leading man and his appeal, which spurred me to create a back story. This blossomed into a family tree.  

Since then, I’ve written 10 stories involving the Booker brood. One entry was awarded the 2024 Sisters in Crime Eleanor Taylor Bland Award, and four have been finalists or semi-finalists in the Killer Shorts Screenplay and Horror2Comic competitions. The collection that includes all the stories, Things Are as They Should Be and Other Words to Die For, a 2024 Claymore Award finalist for Best Unpublished Collection or Anthology and will be published in 2026 by Uncomfortably Dark Horror.  

Taking a deeper dive into the Booker family and their history in New Orleans has allowed me to think strategically about world-building. Focusing on this family’s lineage as connective tissue has been a satisfying journey that will continue for the foreseeable future.   

Don’t … limit how many companion stories you want to connect or the ways you want to connect them. A recurring location with a different protagonist, a character cameo from another story, or a theme threaded through each work are all options you can explore to reinforce the connection.   

Linked stories are not the same as serialized stories. In the latter, the narrative is more like a continuation of the previous entry rather than an expansive world inhabited by these characters. Interconnected stories should be viewed as a house on a block, not a complete house.  

Author Josh Malerman takes this approach in his work, Goblin, a set of novellas set in the fictional town of the same name. He bookends the collection with a man tasked with delivering a crate to a home in the titular town. In between, Malerman connects the tale with supernatural occurrences that tether each story together, but each entry is full and complete on its own and doesn’t rely on the previous or future installments for comprehension.  

Don’t … use cliffhangers or other abrupt ending techniques in your stories. Be mindful that your ending must make sense, especially if the stories will appear individually in multiple outlets.  

Elizabeth Strout is a master of revisiting characters and places through her novels. Four of her works are set in the fictional town of Shirley Falls, Maine, and four novels focus on her acclaimed character Lucy Barton. But one of her most famous works, Olive Kitteridge, a linked story collection, won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2017, Anything Is Possible, another linked collection, won The Story Prize. Yes, interconnected stories are recognized as literary masterworks! 

Don’t … wait to start creating your own interconnected universe. Begin by exploring a previous character through a flash fiction companion piece on your website or as a newsletter signup enticement. The sky’s the limit!