Is anyone else doing linked stories?

I've decided to do an episodic novel that oscillates between different characters, all in the same town. It's a little more than linked stories at the moment, because there seems to be a central plot that is driving everyone forward for now. I find this is a rather helpful way to keep writing without getting stuck on a long story arc or a boring character, it's easier to write in 2,000 word sprints this way.

I considered doing something like that, and in a way I wish I had, because, like you said, it's a way out of getting bogged down in one character/plot arc. But I settled on a different idea in the end.

I do like linked stories though. And your novel sounds intriguing. Good luck with it! :)

I wrote a story like this for NaNo last year. I had 10 different characters who hadn't seen each other in years and took them through a day, writing about their insecurities of seeing one another and the secrets they were hiding.
It definitely makes it easier to get your word count up, but try to keep the story lines straight!

I'm sort of doing this, but a little differently. I have a fictional town where I'm setting a series of stories. All the characters live in the same place but I'm concentrating on one tale at a time. Characters from other stories make cameos, but they rarely intermingle outside their own individual sphere, if that makes sense.

If I tried doing it all at once I'd go mad!

If you want a good example of writing something like this, read Needful Things by Stephen King. It's a similar idea and the way he writes it he manages to keep the characters separate but connect them at the same time.
It's also a good read ^_^"

I surely am. My story follows the lives of individuals who all attend and in one case teach a language class. A couple of storylines intertwine throughout and most of them Im planning to have tie together at the climax in small or large ways (hurrah for chekov guns). Apart from that I'm just following individual stories and experiences of immigrants who come together once a week to learn them some english.

What I like about writing it is exactly what you said- its perfect nanowrimo fodder for those of us with slightly shorter attention spans, you can chop and change and its great for jump starting creative juices if you've previously run out of steam in one place.

What I'm not enjoying- oh my god it's so hard sometimes. With an ensemble vastly different cast, varying in ages and cultural backgrounds the research is about four times as consuming and getting different voices down- it's third person limited but even so I've had to shift tones dramatically to establish the characters and develop them as they deserve to be- is quite different.

Still I'm, at this point, happy with the descions i've made so far this year.

I think the hardest part of this kind of writing is keeping all the story lines straight

I did that last year. It definitely makes it easier to keep up the word count, but I had some issues connecting the characters.

Yes. I have five main characters, alternating chapters for each of them, and their connection is they all work together. It does make it a bit easier I think because I can escape into a different character every chapter.

I also like reading books like that - recently read the Imperfectionists.

Elizabeth

I'm doing that. I did it last year, and if I finish what I've got now, I'll jump back in. It's about 8 novels at this point, and about... 5 of them are done?

It IS a lot of fun, and you can do so much play with worldbuilding. :)

I think this is called "short story cycle". I'm doing it, spanning half a dozen stories or so across two centuries. Yes, they are interlinked, though weakly.

I'm planning another project that is heavily linked.

Sort of. My story's in 2 parts. The first part has the main character narrating in first person. Then, part 2 has 4 chapters, each from the POV from a different character, including the narrator of the first part. I think it works. Sort of!

This is what I'm doing at the moment, but linking the different characters together is somewhat challenging! Also, I tend to spend more time on certain characters because I prefer writing them, so some stories are being a bit pushed to the back. Good for the wordcount though!

I guess that's what I'm doing. If you ever read the series by James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small), that's the style my novel is taking. Written in the first person, handful of central characters, and lots of "odds and sods". I've not been able to put in all the time I should have, but I've nearly 7,000 words and it's only the first afternoon of my story! LOL There are several reasons I like this style, but one of the biggest is that I'm not locked into writing it in any particular sequence. If an idea pops into my head that will fit into the series later on, then I just do it. So, whilst I currently have a beginning, I also have some bits for the center and ideas for the end. It'd be nothing short of a miracle if I made it to 50K words by Wednesday, but you know what? It'll be a good headstart for a Springtime finish!