Episode 26: Portal Fantasy
K
Hello, my beautiful cinnabar moths any kind of month you’d like to be. Thank you for joining us this week on the writers triangle. And today, we’re going to talk about what makes a great portal fantasy. And y’all know if you’ve been listening to the podcast on a regular basis, and I hope that you have and thank you if you have, that I absolute absolutely love portal fantasies. And if y’all follow the press, you know that I absolutely love portal fantasies, because we published three portal fantasies back to back to back for August, September and October, just because they speak to me, I, my very, very favorite book was Book One, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The other books get a little bit for me, the the in the series, but I’ll talk about that a different day. And that was one of the first portal fantasies that I read. And I absolutely love the idea of having everything in life be horrific. And being able to just walk through a wardrobe and to chaos and magic and everything is just different and new, and you get to become something other than you would have been if you never walked through the portal. Or if you had never crossed over however, the mechanism works if you didn’t cross over into another world. So that’s sort of part one that makes a good portal fantasy is having a really great reason for why the portal exist. And having a really great reason for why the person crosses over into the portal. So for example, in Dronfield, Gil is a hereditary thing that the main character, Marcus inherits from his dad. And this is not a spoiler, because it happens in like, geez, I think in the first chapter, if I, I’m pretty sure it’s in the first chapter. And the main character gets there through hereditary and gets started sleeping, and it’s accidental. And it’s horrible at first. That trope of when they enter into the new world, it being horrible and strange and awful, I think or at least scary in some kind of way. I think that He absolutely has to be there. So having a good reason for why they get there as part of it. And relatively normal secrets is also a portal fantasy. And they get there through accident and pixies in the midst. They get there through meeting someone who opens this portal for them. So the two of them, they meet someone who opens the portal. And in the first one, it’s better Terry thing. Another way is happenstance. But knowing why they’re going into the portal world that way, and how they get there. So it usually starts off with a pretty mundane life, right, nothing really going on. And then all of a sudden, wham, they’re in a portal. Or another trope is that it starts off with a really horrible life. And then they discover the portal because of the horrific things in their life, there’s usually some drive in the character that creates the desire to go to the to the portal if it’s not happenstance. So I want to talk about happenstance, a little bit before I talk about something in their life propelling them towards it. Because for happenstance, to be real and authentic, they have to be in the circumstances, that creates the happenstance. And the way that they have to get there, the way that they get there has to make sense. So for Marcos has kind of birthright and his age, and that’s how he happens to get there. In other portal fantasies that I read, like using the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They get there because they’re nosy kids messing around being ridiculous and think they’re playing a game of hide and seek and one of the ends up in the wardrobe and that’s how they find out but it’s a portal.
K
It has to make sense. Would your characters be doing the activity that leads them to the circumstances for them to encounter the portal and then the way they interact with the portal? Does that make sense? So if you have a character that, for example, never goes hiking, they’re completely not athletic. Could they end up going through a portal in the forest? Absolutely. Could they end up going to a portal in the forest? Because they went hiking? Absolutely. Does there need to be a reason for why they’re doing this out of character? behavior? Absolutely. Everything has to be justified in my mind. And that’s the type of Portal fantasies that I enjoy. I here’s the thing. Like I said, every podcast, this is one person’s opinion, this is my opinion on on portal fantasies, and happenstance, the person has to get there for some reason. So I don’t care if they’re abducted, and they end up in the forest. And we’re trying to escape and boom, they end up in a portal, going through a portal, just get me there in a way that makes sense in a way that I can follow. Because if you’re describing a sedentary character, and then you have them acting really athletic and doing something really athletic, that’s not going to flow that’s not going to have what I consider to be character continuity. And character continuity is either continuous behavior, or changes in behavior that are explained to the reader so that I can go on this journey with you don’t leave me out of the thumb. Don’t leave me wondering, Okay, how did this secondary person end up in the forest. So for example, using me, I am what I consider to be living the life of a sick Victorian child. Because I’m completely I’m almost completely bedridden. So if you’re going to write me going through a portal, that happened at a time that happened in the woods, for me, I just can’t see how I would get to the woods, personally. Because getting from the car, like I can absolutely drive to the woods, and then getting from the car into the forest, I don’t see how that would happen. And I have a compromised immune system. So I really don’t go into forests at all. But I did watch this one, I think it’s a French show. And it’s called it’s called enter the dark. And they did have a character who had really bad allergies, and didn’t like the forest, and was just really timid and would never be in the forest ended up in a forest. And how they got there made sense to me. So make it make sense. Make how your character gets from A to B, from their everyday life to the portal, make it make sense. I think situational portals are are easier to do happenstance portals, I think are a little bit trickier. Because they’re not situation base. In my mind, happenstance is just you’re walking along, bam, you’re in a portal. And then the other types of portal where it’s the difference between happenstance and circumstance, I think your if your circumstances puts you in a place where there’s portals everywhere, then you’re going to eventually go through one of those portals. And that’s what’s going to happen because you’re in the place or in the circumstances where you’re surrounded by portals. Situation is you’re in a situation where you come in, counter with the portal, and then you cross through it. And then there’s hereditary where you inherit it. And there’s all sorts of lots of different ways to get there. And how you get through the portal. Like, it could be that you come a certain age and then boom, you get into porn, you are able to pass through portals that someone tells you about or something like that. So the first part of having a really successful portal fantasy is having the characters get from here where they are now in the real world, to the portal in a way that the reader can follow. It doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t have to follow any rules other than your reader needs to be able to follow along with it.
K
And some people who write portal fantasies do a really good job of having it be a mystery and not letting the readers follow along with it. Those are valid choices to make as a writer. I’m not trying to squeeze anyone shoes. I’m saying for me if you want me to get to The, into a portal fantasy, you have to get my buy in on how they get there. And that’s step one for me, if I don’t understand how they’re in the portal, fantasy and how they’re in the portal, how they crossed over to the other world, I’m lost, and I’m not into it. Like I’m out of here, I don’t, it’s going to be a do not finish for me. Because I will have lost interest. And again, I’m one person, and you can say you know what, and save in the comments, and you have a good reason for why you like being lost, or why you like writing a really confusing beginning to a portal fantasy, because there is a market for that, and people do read it. I’m just not one of those people, right. So I’m talking about what I think makes a great portal fantasy. I’m also talking about what everybody cinnabar moth thinks, and what the feedback we get from beta readers on on portal fantasies. When you get those high four and five star ratings, what we find is that the person enjoyed the mechanism of crossing over into a new world, and they enjoy the characters. I don’t know why and Portal fantasies, there has to be at least one likeable character. But that kind of seems to be what everybody wants. Personally, I don’t need to like any of the characters to read a book, I can hate read a book, like I hate this character, I want to watch them be destroyed, kind of reading. And then if they’re not destroyed, at the end, I can be like a gross, but still really enjoy the book and just be bummed out. And I hope that they get what’s coming to them in book to kind of thing. So now that we’ve talked about the mechanism of how to get there, there has to be a mechanism of what creates the portal. And for me, you can have someone come into the space and create the portal, you can have the portal already exist. You can have the portal the way of crossing over V sleep, or whenever you turn right, or just some sort of way that they crossed over one of my favorite books on London, has them crossing over by going, I believe into the sewer. And that was really fun and interesting and kind of gross to think about, like, how would you end up there, you know. And for me, that was exciting and fun and an interesting. The other part of it is once we get them to the portal, once we get them through the portal, we’ve decided what the portal is going to look like, and how the portals going to work. What are the rules of the portal and the rules of the portal, basically, whatever you want them to be, and how they get to the portal is however you want them to get there. And what they find on the other side is whatever you want it to be this is your imagination, your creativity. For me, if they’re crossing over to get to another place, that’s just like the place we’re in. That’s just like Earth. Nothing’s different. All absolutely nothing changes. I struggle a bit with that. If I’m honest, I feel like what was the point of having them go through a portal to just be back on Earth, if there’s no like time travel if there’s no jumping through a portal to get to another country. So it can be Earth, if they’re going through a portal to end up back in their bedroom, and they started in their bedroom. For me, I wonder why did I just do all that work? And when I read I consider me doing work for the author. I feel like I’m working for the author because I’m reading your book.
K
And so I’m working on working for you I’m doing a service for you is how I view reading every author’s book that I read. I feel like me reading a book is a service. Because you wrote the book for it to be read, why not? Go ham? Why not just be wild with it right? And do whatever you think should be done and have fun with it. For me, I like when the world is different and consistently different. So I already mentioned consistency once and I just feel like consistency and continuity are key. I really don’t like books that lack continuity. I really don’t like books a lot. worldbuilding so for me, the portal of that. Fantasy is the epitome of world building. I like when people create an absolute entirely new world and everything is completely different. Those are usually my favorites. I want like Different floral, different fonts, different species, different customs, different food, just everything to be different. And I like that to come naturally. And I don’t like it. I don’t like to learn about the world through being told what the world is. I feel like I want to read it like Susan tripped over a large purple mine and grasp the turquoise, and grasp the turquoise branch above her to steady herself. That’s to me is like, Okay, we’ve got these different colors of some sort of vine or tree, and I’m not sure what and Susan looked at, you know, the Green Lake, wondering if she could drink from it. But she was so thirsty, she had no choice, you knew either way, she’d die kind of thing, and have her drink from it. Rather than having characters tell each other about the world, I’d rather have them experience it, and then have some of the nuances of the world in conversation, but not the majority of it. And I don’t want that new Worldliness to wear off I want it to be consistent and throughout the book, and for there to be continual references of it. For example, in jumping Gil, there’s a reference to the different food that happens many, many chapters into the book that reminds you beyond the characters that they’re in a different world. And I thought that was that was really clever, and, and relatively normal secret secrets. The world you’re reminded of the world being different through different actions that they’re taking in different settings that they’re in, and the way that the mystery of the book is being delivered. And with pixies in the nest, you’re reminded of it being a different world, through all of the actions and settings are, I want to say Earth adjacent, and sort of Earth with a twist. And I liked that I liked that. Okay, this is something completely different. This is this doesn’t feel like Earth, this doesn’t feel like my house, it doesn’t feel like the character went from their house to their house.
K
Another type of Portal that I really enjoy is to a portal to move through time, or a portal to move through place. Like to travel a portal to move through time, you really need to make sure that you have all of your time references down. Even if you’re doing something that is supposed to be set in the 80s. I believe not my records is set in the 80s. And I know that Chad did a lot of research about the 80s even though he was a young person during that time, but someone like me, I remember the 80s really well. And I also have a fascination with the 30s and the 20s. And everybody has a time period that they’re fascinated with. So it helps keep to keep the reader if you’re going back in time, it helps to keep the reader in the story if there aren’t any consistencies, like what type of communications did they have available to them? What type of food was available to them? What did houses look like? What did travel look like? All of those things need to be really consistent. When you’re doing time, time travel into the past. When you’re doing time travel into the future, you have a lot more leeway if your portal goes to the future. And that leeway, though, does need to have some way for us to understand how, what happens and what’s going on today turns into that future. Or it can be something wildly different. What I struggle with this when there’s a toe in both. And so for me, the man in High Castle, I just don’t get it. I don’t it confuses me. And so I know it’s hugely popular. I know this may be just like a really unpopular opinion. I know it’s not a portal fantasy. I know it’s a alternate future, but I can’t get there. Like I don’t understand how it relates to an alternate ending for World War Two. Why would the United States be different? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all, whatsoever, there was no fighting on US soil, there was no plans to fight on US soil, the biggest and the US was so slow to fight to get in on the fight on the European front. And I think that if the Germans had won, what about the Japanese? I don’t know, it just is until you see how my mind works and how I’m just like, I have all of these what ifs, so I can never suspend disbelief, because I just don’t buy it. It’s not authentic to me in any way.
K
And I might have x i don’t know if it’s the man in High Castle, the man from High School, High Castle, or some I know, it’s some High Castle and man configuration, but I just really don’t like it at all. I think it would, I think it’s hugely popular. So I think my opinion and me saying this, it’s not shocking, and it doesn’t affect anyone’s enjoyment of it. I’m not telling anyone not to engage with it. I’m just saying it’s not for me. And that goes down to world building in a way that’s consistent and believable. And that makes sense to the readers and how you get them there. And a lot of readers just get there quick. With the High Castle I didn’t, I’m completely lost. The reason I keep mentioning that and saying that is because it shows the gulf that can exist between one person and everybody else. So my one opinion, doesn’t change anything, and shouldn’t change anything about your writing. Unless you’re writing a portal fantasy to send to me, if you’re writing a portal fantasy that you want to submit to cinnabar moth publishing, then it’s gotta make sense. I don’t like confusing dischargeable stories, I can’t get past them. I have dyslexia. So reading for me, I have a lot of tricks that I use to read. And it’s really difficult for me when things are jumbled on purpose, because my mind takes a lot of things just jumbled them anyway. So I need as much clarity and writing as possible for me to get from point A to point B successfully, and to enjoy the book. So with world building, know your world, do the five senses. What is the world smell like? What does it taste like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? What does it look like, and incorporate that throughout the book, and you can incorporate it with any type of narration that you’re doing. But really make sure that you’re putting in enough information to transport the reader. And that goes for for any story when it comes to world building, you really need to transport the reader to the place that they are. And with pixies in the mess with with plaster there was a lot of work on what is the mist? What is the texture of the mist? Is it miss like when it rains? Is it miss like a misty morning? Is it mist that exist in this world? Or is it a completely different kind of mist. And if it is that needs to be explained, so that the reader can travel into the mist know where they’re going and have some signposts. And that’s what world building does. And world building and a portal fantasy, I don’t believe you can have a successful portal, portal fantasy without worldbuilding. I just don’t. This is the one thing that I think everyone would agree with is that if there’s no world unless they’re going into a space that there’s nothing and there’s no world, and now it’d be a trippy book to read, I think I would read it kind of thing. It’s not gonna work if you don’t, if you don’t mind, translate my senses if you don’t immerse me in this new place that I’ve arrived. And I think that goes for any place, right? You want to know where the person is, and time and space. And for me, that’s one of the things that my dyslexia affects is not understanding time and space along with reading. So if you give me a book with no signposts and no anchoring, then I can’t get into the book and I can’t read it because I don’t know where I am. And I just feel discombobulated and confused the entire time. And I don’t read I don’t tend to read books that confused me. I don’t enjoy them. So the long and short of it, I guess is what makes a good portal fantasy is one having a portal, you know what’s your portal and to knowing what is the portal do? Does the portal transport them to a different world? Does the portal transport them to outerspace, does the portal move through time, does the portal simply allow them to travel? Or does it do all of the above and letting the reader know,
K
this is what the portal does. And this is how the portal functions. And you let the reader know that by having your character’s experience that, and if the portal does multiple things, I kind of feel like, there needs to be multi multiple trips into the in and out of the portal to understand that rather than trying to pack everything into the first trip, write it and trust your readers to hang in there and get to the next thing that the portals does. I don’t like when, okay, we’re traveling through time we’re traveling to space, we’re traveling, like all of this different type of travel on top of each other. It’s tricky to write well, it’s tricky to write well, and keep clarity and continuity. So I feel like a simple first trip. Love it, get it. I know what this portal does? Have it do something different on the second trip, right on love it, I get it, I know that this is a what I think of as as a trickster portal, where you can’t go to the same place twice or whatever, through this mechanism. And I feel like you have to know can your characters come back? Are they going to come back into this real world and what the time difference is, is a day in Portal am a day here on our side of the portal. And if so, then if the characters return time has to have passed, they can’t have stayed still. And I mean snow, how much time has passed. Once you get on the other side of the portal, I need a fully fleshed out world, I want all five senses of immersion. And I want to believe it, I want it to be authentic. And I feel like consistency creates authenticity. So for me if the leaves are going to be if the flora and fawn are going to be unusual cover colors, and the food is going to be unusual shapes and colors. I say get into it and lean into it and give me lots of different colors give me lots of different shapes. But don’t give them to me all at once like the first I love the first visit being just the bot over for a few minutes and then back out. And I also enjoy the first trip being the Forever trip or the first trip being a cab enter the portal and not going to be here the rest of the book. Either way, pasting is key. And not info dumping is key. Nobody can explore everything in a space and a couple of pages. So try and pace it out so that we’re experiencing new aspects of the world. In every chapter, or at least, you know, and then try to have the world I usually rule of thumb is have the world fully fleshed out by the first third of the book, so that you don’t lose your readers. And readers being me. I think some readers really like a slow epic, portal fantasy. I’m not one of those. I like my portal fantasies to be a one day read to max and keep it moving and keep the action up keep you know, the discoveries up keep the pacing on point so I can get in an hour. I don’t sit down treat a portal fantasy and expect to be reading that for weeks. So that’s my thoughts on how to write a portal fantasy. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comment section or you can leave them over. You can hit us up on Twitter at cinnabar. Moth pub. Yeah, cinnabar moth pub, where you can even leave a comment. I think he can leave comments on the website@cinnabar.com. But I’m not sure so I think it’s safe. If you’re on YouTube to leave a comment, leave a comment here. And I will definitely see it if you tweet it at us with any questions you may have about my thoughts about portal fantasy. And I absolutely love talking with authors and helping authors develop their voice and you can ask me questions, even if he don’t ever intend to submit to us. Because that’s not the energy I’m bringing to publishing. I’m bringing a collaborative energy and one that supports authors and just loves authors. I think y’all are amazing. I think the world needs more stories. And I just appreciate all y’all for for writing and keeping us entertained. So I hope this ramble was interesting.
K
I hope it was insightful and I hope that you got something out of it. And I want to thank We all have our beautiful cinnabar moth or any kind of moth Do you want to be like I say every week you can be a butterfly. But I’m not right, Kerry for listening to this week’s episode of the writers triangle, and I’ll talk to you in two weeks. Bye bye bye