h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some people are good at writing short stories. If your idea has any merit, you should be able to craft a short version of it. This makes the creation of an entire alternate world less important than crafting believable characters and situations.

If the short story goes well, then you can expand it. My sister excels at short stories. When her editor talked her into writing a novel, the results were less wonderful.

Tolkien published at least one collection of short stories, which seem like precursors to the lengthy sagas he eventually wrote. Entire movies have been made from good short stories ["Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Brokeback Mountain," "The Dead," among others]. Some authors have crafted excellent short novels ["The Old man and the sea," "Of Mice and men," "Red badge of courage," among others].

Don't be expansive until you have a solid foundation.

Trying to guess the peculiarities of a specific world is part of the fun.

The same thing also goes for series with no specific reading order. I love the Discworld but skip over the introductory pages decribing the disc on the elephants on the turtle flying through space that starts off quite a lot of them.

Yeah, what I appreciated about Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' was that the premise could be stated so succinctly. Also, that once you realised what he was up to, which takes all of two minutes, you could just go with the flow and enjoy the little surprises he threw in.

Pratchett had that rare gift of writing contagious fun without ever becoming tedious or aggressive.

I fully agree. You could also see where his latest holiday had taken him. Anyway, the Discworld novels are the basis of my deeper understanding of the English language.

Oh, that's a great use of his novels! He has an accessible style and is also a good model!