Forum: Author Hangout

I've been having fun recently writing a crossover between two of my worlds. Lexi, a P.I. from the regular world, investigates Laurel, a witch from a regular-world-plus-hidden-magic. A major part of the story is Lexi freaking out as she learns about the things lurking in the shadows.

I assumed from the start that I'd need to declare it as non-canon upfront. As much fun as it is to throw Lexi down the rabbit hole for one story, it can't be real to her without undercutting all of her past stories and locking me down on future ones.

The thing is: everything that happens from Laurel's world's perspective is completely reasonable. And a lot of it follows quite naturally as what should happen to her after her last story. When I go to write her next story, I'll be inclined to think of those things as having happened.

Is it fair to say a story is canon in Laurel's world but not Lexi's? Is it fair for a writer to declare some of their works as non-canon at all?

I don't consider this an actual problem - just a philosophical curiosity. I'm interested in what you folks think.

A half cannon might be used to fire a rocket. "Cannon and Canon are pronounced the same but could not be more unrelated. A cannon is a mounted weapon used for firing heavy ammunition, usually spherical projectiles. Canon refers to either a group of works in a particular area of study or art or a collection of religious rules."

I would probably say "canon consistent" rather than half-canon.

Or just put a note in the prologue or epilogue describing exactly what you said above, that at the time of writing you consider the story canon for one series but not the other.

I would say something along the lines of

The "Sex and Demons" stories are set in a different universe than "Lexi's Investigations". The two universes are similar with one glaring exception. Magic exists in the former, but doesn't exist in the later universe.

Lexi Green in this story in many ways is similar to the one in "Lexi's Investigations", but she is not exactly the same.

I think (without any prior knowledge of the material discussed, so strictly theoretical musings) the situation likely materially describes "timeline split" for universe A (Lexi), divergent on whether or not a particular investigation (and/or events leading to it) happened or not, but merely expansion of universe B (Laurel).

There's now two of Lexi, one per universe, with identical (or perhaps even only similar) history up to a divergence point, but different experiences after.

In universe B (Laurel) it was found out a particular copy of universe A is a part of it (Lexi exist, and is investigating), while in the separate universe A the universe B continues to not exist (Laurel isn't a real entity, etc). Events in universe A until divergence point are now facts also in universe B. The separate universe A continue unaffected by any facts of universe B. Meanwhile, universe B continues to be unaffected by future facts of universe A post divergence.

Dismissing existence of universe B within universe A might only be possible if the secondary effects are minimal. The investigation may fail to produce definitive results, or find it was all figment of fantasy (erroneously or not), or the memory of it may be lost or dismissed ("what a weird dream"), but it would leave it open for claims of full merge, that it still being secretly actually part of the universe B (Laurel etc exists). Some of that is likely inevitable... But if that render universe A inherently inconsistent...

...as if prior facts from universe B contradict prior facts from universe A, or in other words there's some need to retcon Laurel's universe's Lexi past, the Laurel's universe's Lexi has to be similar, parallel universe twin, but different, not bound to her own canon at all, not necessary to have exactly same history eiter.

The later is perhaps the easiest to handle. Besides a notice to readers, an intentional, however minor, but perhaps prominent break of prior Lexi canon early in the crossover could probably indicate the situation to attentive readers (and rest may not care anyway).