A way with worlds: 38 - Parallel Earths

Now what's the point of this (besides noting Y2K apocalypse stories are a waste of time)?

• The "net of the world" is what you have to deal with when writing about the world - and writing about parallel worlds. To really make a radically different earth requires a hard yank on the "net" or several good pulls at the right places.
• One event has multiple subtle, widespread effects. Fixing Y2K issues didn't involve radical shifts, but many subtle alterations, people doing more work, etc.

The Y2K issue illustrates the folly of the Big Critical Event mentality as well as the idea that change is often localized in our world.

THE NET OF THE WORLD
In creating a parallel Earth a person usually picks some events that caused the Earth to be different than ours. The important thing is to make sure the impact of this change or changes is understood and written and developed.

The challenge of writing a parallel world is figuring out just how the "Net of the world" distorts and changes from the events you've decided differed from our earth. Too much change and it's unbelievable. Too little change and it's not really that different an earth. Too many events and you just may have a world face Armageddon after all.

This is not an easy or fast process - forget the tales you've seen of "slap-a-change-on-the-earth-and-write-it." Don't expect things to be perfect, don't expect them to be planned quickly. Writing a parallel world is usually an act of subtlety and not force, of careful thinking and consideration.

(You can see why sometimes it just seems easier to go with the domino theory.)

My recommendation is to take the time to think over your ideas, to write things down, and even to do research. Think about the "Net of the world" and just how far your changes will spread. Keep the following elements in mind:

• A change may not have enough significant impact to make a parallel earth truly different from ours.
• A change's impact usually is multifaceted.
• Changes can cancel each other out or alter each other.
• It takes a lot to get a cascading effect (a domino-like effect) but it can happen.

WRITE, WRITE, WRITE:
My final piece of advice on making parallel Earths - write things down. Take notes. Write your ideas down and then edit them. You're juggling a lot here - but it's worth it.

SUMMARY:
In writing parallel Earths, remember the world is an interconnected series of events - events can have wide impact, but the world adjusts and adapts.

A Way with Worlds is hosted at fanfiction.net, lit.org, sffworld.com, and Woman-to-Woman.
A German translation is in the works at Christian Spliess's Page
It is archived at the Way With Worlds archive.