User blog comment:Deathwalker 13000/Still Alive/@comment-1705775-20160827144307/@comment-1705775-20160827191422

we'd need to keep a wide variety of alternate realities, however we could learn from Doctor Who - it has lasted so long as a franchise because instead of obsessing over canon as a whole it basically works as such:

the canon is as the writers want it to be, they write stories and if they connect - so be it.. if they do not connect they simply have it as part and parcel of the weirdness that is Who..

if we all wrote our stories in that manner (as in telling a story first, worry about connecting them later (if we even wish to) ) then it would really hasten our ability to make stronger works.

even in "shared universes" like DC and Marvel most stories are very much written that way as well.. they are connected only after the stories are already made.. some stories never officially connect but can be linked later in future stories or just kept in their own special place, neither denied canon or appointed as such.