Cannon and story series

[RapeU]

When writing a series of stories, there is always a possibility of making errors with the timeline of events.

In some cases, authors may have stories that no longer fit the overall narrative of the series. What do you do with those stories? Delete them? Edit them? As a reader, would you read them anyway knowing it was earlier work and not cannon?

[Vela Nanashi]

I embrace the scp philosophy somewhat there is no canon, but some stories have what seems to be the same characters and some are consistent if read in a certain order, but any mutations (or errors) may be due to them being timeline messed with or alternative universes and in my multiverse alternative universes and timelines can merge and split and form really fun chaotic wibbly wobbly timey wimey things

See https://xkcd.com/657/ specifically primer

[Shocker]

I don’t feel a particular need to maintain a high level of continuity between my stories, so small differences don’t bother me too much. Though admittedly the T&A stories are loosely connected. But if you read a story with a recurring character, there is often a little indicator on when things happen. In neat operation Lady Penelope is having a fashionable short hair cut, and there are reasons for that.

Aside from that I try to keep details on all of my characters so slim, that I cannot very easily mess it up. If Penelope was suddenly a flat chested redhead, I really fucked up.

But I also haven’t written gigantic interwoven series lije @RapeU or @LtBroccoli , so my life is relatively easy.

[SoftGameHunter]

As a writer, I try to maintain continuity as much as I can because it just feels off not to. I don't have a ton of connected stories around here, so continuity is usually just within a story, but if I do re-use settings and characters, I'll generally re-read the earlier parts so as to avoid mistakes.

As a reader/viewer of fiction in general, I'm happy to accept a retcon if I spot it. I don't always, and I'll spend seasons of a show working on the wrong assumptions based on a throwaway plot point from episode two. But sometimes stories just want to make a change to send the story in a new direction, and will overtly declare something altered from the past. If it works, go for it.

Where I draw the line is when they make a mistake and dig their heels in rather than just admit they goofed. I'm looking at you, Star Wars! A parsec is a unit of length, and I don't care how many movies you make trying to redefine the original statement so it makes sense. And Obi-Wan did address Vader as Darth like it's his first name, and you can't just invent a whole series to try to show it was intended to be ironic. It wasn't ironic, it was informal and familiar! Okay, tangential rant over.

[LtBroccoli]

I try to keep the continuity flowing, but there are times where I make changes or screw something up. Because of new sites, rule changes and the like I've made edits or retellings when I repost them. But for other situations, I try to keep things smooth. When I use a character in a new story, I'll read previous stories with them, try to see where I left them off. I've tried to keep track of their various adventures other ways, but usually a quick scan is enough to jog the memory.

As far as retcons go, it depends on how bad it is. For example, I'm writing a character that is based off an actress with brown-hazel eyes. Not a problem except I made a big point about how her parents both had blue eyes. I'll do some handwaving later on to make it work, but it's still something I deal with. Worse is major features changing. I try not to make sweeping changes without a reason, but if a character was 5'10" in one story and 6'2" in another, there better be a growth spurt or lifts involved. Though doing sci-fi stuff sometimes allows more leeway, like they were possessing a different body.

Otherwise the worst screwups are accidents I need to make work. I painted myself into by naming a character a name that felt familiar but I wasn't sure from where. Turns out I used that name before. That young woman from above uses a last name I've used before but couldn't place it until I reread another story and realized that's Joe's last name. Do I rewrite her name or tie her into the tapestry? Well, guess who has a niece that will show up down the line as a major character when I get to it? This has happened a few times before. I miss the days of white pages. I'd just grab a phone book and randomly pull a name from there.