HKMiller wrote:
[snip]
I expect to tell all of these stories eventually, and then the
original AMAW will be merely an epilogue.
Unfortunately, for such an original story, that does seem to
be its fate. If I may make a suggestion, though: either
place the stories on your web page in the order you wrote
them, rather than the order they appear, or clearly document
on your web page, somehow/somewhere, what the order
you wrote them is, so that readers can go back and read
them in that order later.
There are numerous cases in SF of this, ground-breaking
stories later reduced to pointless epilogues, or even
of half the mystery of stories pointlessly dissipated by
going back and writing preludes. At least, I suggest, allow
your readers to read your stories either way.
Not just SF, but fantasy, too -- would you consider "The Magician's
Nephew" to be the first book in the Narnia series, or the last?
That volume contains numerous spoilers for the rest of the series, and
destroys quite a bit of the mystery and wonder. One trivial example is
that in the "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," there's a lamppost
in the middle of a forest... this is an amazing, wonderous, magical
thing. But if you already know where it came from (that is, if you've
read "The Magician's Nephew"), then there's *some* magic about it, but
no amazement or wonder. Similarly, if you know why the wardrobe is
magical, before reading "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," then
it's rather less wonderous and amazing.