Story Status
Story Status
Every story in Duela has a status. Status describes how a story relates to the shared world, not how good it is.
Most stories will never leave the General Collection, and that is not a problem. The General Collection is where Duela lives.
General Collection
The General Collection is the default status for all Duela stories.
A General Collection story is fully part of Duela. It is not waiting for promotion, it is not lesser than Living Canon, and it does not need to be consistent with Living Canon to belong here. Most stories in Duela will always be General Collection. That is by design.
General Collection stories do not force consequences onto other writers. Another writer is not required to acknowledge events in your General Collection story. They may choose to, by branching from it or by simply treating its events as shared history, but they are not obligated.
Living Canon
Living Canon is a selection of stories the Committee recognizes as the current spine of shared continuity.
A Living Canon story may introduce characters, events, places, or interpretations that the wider community has agreed to treat as shared reference points. Other writers building on Living Canon can expect those reference points to be stable.
Living Canon is opt-in. A story is not considered for Living Canon unless the author indicates openness to it. Authors who want to retain full control over their work, including the right to restrict branching, should keep their story in the General Collection.
A story tagged as closed to branches cannot become Living Canon. Living Canon requires openness to derivative work, because its role is to be a foundation others build on.
For how stories enter and leave Living Canon, see Committee and Canon Structure.
Branch
A Branch is a story that grows from another story.
Branches must clearly credit and link to the story they grow from. A Branch does not replace its source. It continues, reinterprets, or diverges from it, and does not require the source's author to endorse or adopt its direction.
A Branch inherits its source's status in one sense: if the source is Living Canon, a branch growing from it can treat that source's material as stable. A branch from a General Collection story has no such guarantee; the source may change, and the branch simply diverges from it.
Branches may themselves be branched from. There is no depth limit.
For full branching conventions, see Branching Guide.
The cosmology
The cosmology is not a story status. No story is filed under it.
It is listed here because writers sometimes ask where the cosmological foundations sit in relation to story status. The answer is: outside it. The Essence, The System, the Old God, Bubble Theory, and the basic structure of Gods are not stories. They are the setting's load-bearing foundations. Stories should not casually contradict them. For full details, see Canon Structure.
Principle
Status describes how stories connect to the shared world. It is not a ranking.
A General Collection story with no branches and no Living Canon recognition is not a lesser story. It is a story that exists in Duela, which is the only thing it ever needed to be.
