: Re: How long can a fantasy novel stay in metaphorical Kansas? I am writing a novel with the basic Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland or the Matrix if you want structure. The novel begins in perfect
Not a writer, but I did a little research on your examples and it's too long for a comment, so I thought I'd write it up here.
On reading your question, you offered three classic examples: Wizard of Oz, Through the Looking Glass, and The Matrix. The Matrix is an interesting example because it doesn't start in Kansas - it has a startling, high-action, non-Kansas prologue before we see a bit of Kansas. At first I thought maybe, compared to the older books, this might be a concession to digital-age audiences with short attention spans, but then I thought back to Through the Looking Glass and realized I couldn't remember much of anything happening before going to Wonderland.
Looking at the text, it's Lewis Carroll's third sentence where we are clued in that something is afoot, by the White Rabbit speaking and using a pocket-watch. A couple sentences later and Alice is in the rabbit hole, falling down, down, down.
The Wizard of Oz doesn't get there quite as fast, but it does not dawdle. The first chapter has 753 words before we get to
Then a strange thing happened.
The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.
There are surely other stories that take a bit more time, but most of the ones I can think of get to "Oz" pretty quickly - the point of "Kansas" is to be mundane, why would you spend story time there?
Which isn't to say don't spend time in Kansas, but rather to say, make sure there is a strong purpose for time in Kansas. And if there is significant time in Kansas, consider a teaser prologue/first chapter to hook the reader in. These prototypical examples do not make the reader (viewer) wait.
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