How The Chain Story Works

The Chain Story is a cooperative effort in storytelling which binds stories into a makeshift saga. Each story is connected to the next—often by the most tenuous of elements—and the participating authors bring the full battery of their skills and imagination to bear when writing for the project.

Each of the writers selected to join the Chain Story Project—chosen because of their wonderful work—has been given access to a planning document describing a unifying feature that has to appear in every story. It’s left entirely up to each writer just how much or how little they want to explore and emphasize this unifying link. In some cases it’ll play a central role in a story—or even a series of stories—and in others it’ll drift into the background so only the astute readers will find it. Each writer is given that leeway to make it easier for them to bring their worlds and characters into Project stories. In this way readers can be introduced to them for the first time, or renew acquaintances through continued adventures.

What is this common link? You’ll learn more about it as you read the coming stories, but the basic proposition runs like this: a once powerful, sorcerously endowed artifact was shattered back in the dawn of time. Those pieces, complete with their powers and secrets, show up across time and universes; presenting challenges for the characters in the stories. Some artifacts stick around for a time, others disappear as easily as they show up; the how and why of it being part of a mystery which, eventually, will be solved.

In many ways the Chain Story Project is going to be a long-running, themed anthology of stories that all deal with a common idea, but express it in as many unique ways as authors can manage. With luck, authors may even be able to create crossover adventures, so characters get to explore together through a host of new worlds. Through all of this, you, the reader, will get a chance to sample the work of writers new to you, people you’d lost track of, or see something new from writers you already enjoy.

Thanks for joining us here. Please share with your friends can come back because there will always be more in the chain.