Canon Welding - Good and bad sides.

I realized that I really like Canon Welding trope and I'm thinking of using it in my few projects. Main idea is to reveal, in some of the later works, that they all take place in the same Universe but at the span of hundreds of years, if not more, so they don't really interfeere with each other, sorta like Turn A Gundam did towards other Gundams.

I wanted to ask, what should I take advantage of and what are pitfalls I should try to avoid?

Bleh... I just used random stuff from one universe as backstory justifications in the other. Mostly for Mythology Gag / Imported Alien Phlebotinum and, in a Saint's Row / Red Faction kind of way, Fridge Horror.

edited 17th Aug '11 8:46:13 AM by USAF713

I haven't done this much (I tried it a lot when I was younger, but the result came off as stilted and trying too hard). I guess my advice is not to shoe-horn references to the other works. Only put in the references if they feel natural in the context.

If you want examples that can show you how to do it (or perhaps not to do it), Michael Moorcock's fantasy novels live on this. Stephen King does it quite a bit as well, at least in some of his books.

I don't plan to put any of my works into the other's official canon, but I'm planning to sneak references and cross-overs.