Invention Theory

I actually had a better title for this phenomenom but I have proceeded to forget it.
Invention theory, at its most basic, is the creation of far more than a single story can support. All authors do this to a degree, I think, but there are some who actually embrace it as part of their writing. When I sat down to write a short (now not so short) story involving five characters I could not just write the story of them at this moment, for it is not the only story they have to tell. Their lives are far more than the one year I show on paper, and in the end I write entire lives out for them.

This is a much larger issue in my fantasy and sci-fi. Not only must my characters have stories (which I have labled World Stories) but I must have nations and groups and languages, and all of those must have a history as well. And each piece of that history can break down into more history. It is not necessarily invented as needed, rather it comes as I think of it or figure out how it works. This is one of the reasons my actual writing does not get done at any rapid rate.