Stories with similar themes/deciding what you want out of story

Hi everyone!

I had another question that came to my head. I'm currently working on two stories (one I'm actually writing while the other one I'm world-building and character building).

I've noticed that there are a couple themes that overlap between the two, or at least what I will anticipate out of my second story (seeing that I've already decided what the characters generally will do). For example, the big question of each of the two stories will likely be the same ("What is happiness?"). However, while I already know that while the answer will be the same for stories, the paths between the two stories to answer that question are very different.

Would it be better to concentrate on my first story's ideas first while writing and then, when I'm done with it, start writing the second and see where that takes me? Or does pre-deciding what you want out of each story and writing around those as blueprints work better? Any strategies for approaching this would be appreciated!

edited 14th Dec '14 7:37:05 PM by Coujagkin

It all depends on what you, as a writer, are comfortable with. Some people are very comfortable working on multiple projects at a time. Others want to focus on one thing, get it down, and only then move on. If your asking how to structure narrative relationships between your two projects, it depends. Will the readers be aware of any discrepancies between the two? Are they in the same universe, share characters in common? If not, then I'm not sure what the problem is.

Two very different universes; I'm mainly worried about telling the same story only with different characters. I know what the main message of my first story is based on what I have already written. However, this second story that I've only started developing is beginning to reflect the first in its message. So I'm wondering if trying to differentiate the two stories' messages to "keep me on track" by saying exactly what I want out of the second story would be a good idea. I know that some others have similar themes that run throughout their compositions, but I really don't want to write the same story over again but in a different setting.

Some of my ideas for stories wound up being so similar that I ended up amalgamating them into one, taking the elements that worked for all and making a few changes to get them to fit.

Others that have similar ideas - and even characters - I've just plugged on with on the grounds that the first finished wins and, since it's got a lot of what's in the others, then "the story's told" as it were and there's no need to continue working on the others (the work done on them is not a "waste" as it's writing practice that fits the "just write something" advice and also served the purpose of giving me something to do when the other projects get "stale" or "bogged down".

Ok, thank you! I think I know where to go with this now—in the end I think they'll end up being two different stories but with overarching themes.

If you really have different characters, no matter how similar your themes and outcomes it would be almost impossible to tell the same story.