@KaTrian and I dislike time jumps in our novels, so we try to avoid them. However, we seem to have just written ourselves into a rather tight corner: One of the main characters is pulled into another dimension where time moves more slowly, so while she spends about 2 years in there, only a few weeks (say, 2-4) pass in our world where the rest of the main characters are. After those 2 years or so, the "kidnapped" main character manages to make her way back into our world and eventually meets her friends again. What she experienced in the other dimension is important, so how on Earth do we show it without very extensive flashbacks, dream sequences (* shudder *), her telling the others what happened in several long scenes of just boring talking, or those dreaded time jumps between the two realities/timelines? Any and all suggestions are more than welcome.
Write 2 books, the first with your character in the other dimension, and book 2 follows through with her having returned? Otherwise it depends on whether readers necessarily need to know in full detail what transpired in the other dimension - exposition is fine, after all, but if it's chunks and chunks of it then you're better off doing time jumps through alternate chapters (alternating timeline/dimension that way) or splitting it into 2 books.
That's our current preference as well even though it's still only the best of bad options. Luckily it's turning out to be a series of short-ish books anyway, with the first one working as a standalone, so it's probable we'll do that exactly: one book covers the 2 years that one MC spends in the other dimension, and another book that covers the stuff the other characters do on our world. Thanks for your input; it helps to hear others would go with the same solution towards which we're leaning.
I would interpret that as time moving faster in the other dimension. Sort of reminds me of the Narnia series of books. Not that would help much with your situation since they don't retell/relate their story to people back in our world.
You're absolutely correct: time moves faster in the other dimension, hence the 2 years vs. a few weeks here. Brainfart on my part. Thanks for pointing that out!
Does the character age? How do they become different? What happens in the shift is very important to me and I would want to tackle that first. The character would grow and become different, perhaps drastically so, during the time spent in this other dimension. The experience might have changed them completely and made it difficult to find commonality and jump back into their old life. This could be withdrawing from friends or only partly opening up - so much may need to be implied rather than told. Memories can spark from anything, and these memories may haunt or comfort her. I do not know what is "best" - it is a type of writing exercise that is more experimental and if you have the desire, write a telly story part and insert it in, or split that up into a bunch of dabbles here and there. Depending on the situation and how you want to handle it, the latter might irritate me though. It might be a "story" within a story, but not even covering the basic outline of what happened to her friends is strange to me. Dabble here and there about the finer experiences, but leave some mystery in it.
