I was trying to decide if realms were the best thing to call what I'm talking about. But I have a question: So - I'm nearly finished creating my world. What it looks like, making a map, the kind of creatures and species, etc. Now, on the matter of getting to my world, is where I had a question. When I first decided on this story, I originally had my character find the world accidentally (think Narnia, except she doesn't get there through a wardrobe). I really don't go into detail about the world at all that she's in (say, our world). She basically just in a wooded area and maybe an empty street at the beginning. I really don't want her to ever re-enter that world. Basically she was held prisoner there by her mother (who with good reason had to flee the world they were from). Is that too weird to have them come from another place, hardly mention it, and never go back? I should mention at some point it will be brought up as to WHY they were there eventually. (PS - So excited to find this forum, I've been looking for a good one and I hope this is it!)
I don't think it's a problem. Fantasy and other spec-fic readers tend to be a bit more flexible with suspension of disbelief, and portal fantasy is a decently common trope, so I wouldn't worry about "too weird".
If she's in a world that is substantially the same as our world, and substantially the same as the world she came from, why would you even mention it at all...until and unless you get to the bit where you have to explain WHY they were there. And there's your problem. If you're going to suddenly come out in chapter fifteen and say "Things are so different from Narnia..." the reader's going to feel a little cheated, especially if the difference from Narnia is a plot point; you need to work in some "difference from Narnia" earlier on to foreshadow what could otherwise become a deus ex machina.
I don't think it would be a problem either, especially as the world she comes from is like our world. We all know how that works. We'll be more interested in hearing about this new world. And I think there are a lot of characters in a lot of stories who go into magical worlds and then don't think about their old one very much or want to return to it. I mean, even in spite of any personal history they have...it's an exciting magical world! Most people would want to stay for a while.
It would only be weird if she has no connections to anything from that realm. No friends, memories, or anything that she misses. It would be kind of sad if she never thought about where she came from, it would mean she didn't have anything worth holding on to.
The world is extremely different from our own. I really don't go into any detail of it at except for that she is leaving it (the world that is like ours). She is basically held prisoner here and sees nothing of it until she escapes and even then she is in such a secluded area that she doesn't see anything. She doesn't know anything of the world and gets into the other by complete accident. The only reason I have her begin in a different world is because the person her holding there had to flee the world my main character later finds. I hope that makes sense! Haha
She doesn't really have anything from that world except the terrible memories that come from it. And even then, she doesn't know much about the world that she leaves because she has seen only a room of it/house of it.
You don't have to do it immediately. Lot of books start in the middle of action and flesh out their protagonist's backstories later. But one of the things that make portal fantasy so interesting is the contrast between our world and the one the hero ends up in. If she's been locked in a basement all her life, it kind of makes the whole thing redundant - why not just place her in the fantasy world to begin with?
Mostly because the person keeping her there had to flee from this world. I may wind up making her just be in hiding but I was just considering my options
Okay, so World 1 is the one like ours and World 2 is the new, magical world, correct? So the main character's (MC) mother had to flee from W2 and ended up in W1, where she locked her daughter away in a room or house, never letting her learn more about life. MC ends up escaping her imprisonment and going through a portal to W2, where the adventure happens. My biggest issue is where in the world will the MC get her personality? She'll certainly have NO social skills (which isn't a problem if played in well) and if she wasn't even allowed to read books, watch TV, or browse the Internet, she really doesn't know anything about anything. That would've been a really boring life, and frankly without mental stimulation all those years she would have a hard time "turning her brain on," so she wouldn't be able to do any great feats in W2 (unless she isn't human, of course, but suspension of disbelieve only goes so far before she just turns into a Mary Sue). Do you have a reason for her being locked away? I would think coming to a whole new world that doesn't even know about one's own would be enough of a hiding place; why doesn't the mother agree with me? Does the mother hate her daughter? Did she purposefully not give her daughter a life? These are questions I'd be wondering if I were reading this book, and if they go unanswered and the MC keeps doing things that I don't think she'd be able to do, I'd probably put the book down. Try to get to the root of the reason you want her to be locked away and figure out if you can work it in another way.