Many stories these days are part of a series and we all know what is meant by a prequel and a sequel - and a standalone. With both of these, there is an explicit placing of the story in the series timeline. But what do we call a story that takes place entirely within the time frame of another story? Or one that is contemporaneous with another related story, even if the stories don't touch until later in the series?
My new novella Colette, currently being posted, is a case in point. It is contemporaneous with Mrs Henderson's Limp and is also a prequel to Through my Eyes. Again. The main character, French/English Colette is referred to in Through my Eyes. Again. and also in the upcoming sequel Through different Eyes. That upcoming novel (watch out for it in 2023) takes place almost entirely within the time frame of Through my Eyes. Again. telling the story of Col and Mutti Frida from when they disappeared from Will Johnstone's life in late April 1964.
Colette is thus a parallel story to Mrs Henderson's Limp and a prequel to Through my Eyes. Again. The four stories are all related - and the epilogues of Colette and Through different Eyes describe the same event - but through different eyes.
I suppose the four stories populate and define a "universe" in some way - but one that has diverged into an alternate timeline sometime after 1945. Perhaps the defining moment for that split is when Will Johnstone's consciousness is transported into his twelve-year-old body (October 1962).
But placing them in a universe has left unsolved the problem of how to describe them. In a way, these stories mirror life. We are all the central character in our own story but a subsidiary character in the story of those people entwined, however loosely, in our story.
In that sense, prequel and sequel seem to lose their relevance.