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Need help with my Fantasy series, please.

Zara

Dreamer
Hi Guys, I just need some advice on my Fantasy series that I would like to publish one day and I didn't realize at the time but although they are both fantasy they are a different sub-genres. One is high fantasy and the second book is more Urban fantasy. I'm new to Fantasy writing so may be mixing genres up too much, I may not have even chosen the right genre. So I was hoping for a little guidance?

My first book is a stand alone book that takes place in another world with very typical fantasy elements and a good vs evil concept (think LOTR). In this world the characters aren't fighting to save the world because it's all ready doomed. The excessive use of magic over thousands of years has brought on like an apocalypse. My characters have a different goal — to simply survive.

There is also a land in-between worlds that is used as like a passage from one world to the next. A bit like 'no man's land' (I don't have a name so i's called that for now). Just an empty area that connects all magical worlds. And you can find anything there, all types of people from different lands move through, including the dead. My characters have heard word that those whose lands have been destroyed have settled in this place so their goal is to get there, which of course they do. They settle in this land and build homes ect. In the journey through the portal something goes wrong for one of my female characters; she and her new born daughter (Sarah) are separated from the rest of the group and end up in our world and since our world only has very low magical abilities it's not strong enough to open another portal and they are trapped. The others have no idea what happened to them or where they disappeared to.

My second book picks up 25 years later and focuses on Sarah who has grown up as an ordinary person in our world, but when her mother is killed by a strange beast it pushes her to start uncovering the truth about her own identity and where she should really be. Most of this book takes place in our land that has a very low form of magic until she discovers 'no man's land'.

Would this be okay? People may pick up my first book to read high fantasy and get disappointed if the follow up book is not. Am I worrying about nothing?
 

Zadocfish

Troubadour
I think it sounds like a good concept, so long as you ensure that the "real-world" stuff is well-established in the first book! That may generate interest in what happened to the lady and the newborn, provided you make the lady and her baby interesting, rather than just a sequel hook.
 

Russ

Istar
Reader expectations can be tricky to handle. You might want to consider dropping some hints in the first book about the fact the second one may be different.

However, it should not be too bad, depending on how you publish, as you will only be deviating from one released work, not many. Tricky call.
 

Zara

Dreamer
I have thought about keeping my first book as back story and starting from the Urban type book and making that book one.

But it's tricky because I'd like to write the other idea as well.
 
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KC Trae Becker

Troubadour
Thanks for posting this question. I have a similar question for my series of 5 books. The forth book chronologically takes place mostly in our world. The others have much heavier other world portions. The series climax is in our world. Since I have time travel in this series, I'm planning on telling the story non sequentially, so that it would be more like 4, 1, 2, 3, 5. This gives me time to build up some of the unusual aspects of the other world and develop my characters before I plunge readers into the strangeness of the other world.

I was wondering what people thought of that, and realized switching the order of your books might make the 2nd book, with the girl in our world, more dramatic.
 

KC Trae Becker

Troubadour
I have thought about keeping my first book as back story and starting from the Urban type book and making that book one.

Funny, you were posting this as I wrote my post.

I think it's a great idea, you just need to tie the two stories together either at the end of the other world book or with a third book.
 

K.S. Crooks

Maester
I think it sounds like a good concept, so long as you ensure that the "real-world" stuff is well-established in the first book! That may generate interest in what happened to the lady and the newborn, provided you make the lady and her baby interesting, rather than just a sequel hook.
I was think the same thing. If I read the first book and was then thrust into our world for book two I would be a little disappointed unless you make a few references or have a few peeks at our world and establish a small connection between the two worlds, which is what I think your land in-between does. The tv show Once Upon a Time is all about going between the world of fantasy and our world and does so in a variety of ways.
 

Zara

Dreamer
I mean Max Gladstone did something similar in his books, I think my best bet would be to make each a stand alone book.
 
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