Not Another Wardrobe: Why Portal Fantasy Is a Tough Sell

By David Griffin Brown

It’s a super common entry point into a fantasy novel: the protagonist steps through a portal or is somehow transported into another world. Suddenly there’s magic. A strange land, a talking animal, a prophecy.

If you’ve queried a portal fantasy lately, you’ve likely hit a wall.

Agents tend not to love them. Some refuse them outright. Not because they hate Narnia. Not because they think readers should stay in the real world. But because the subgenre has been buried under an avalanche of uninspired manuscripts.

Let’s dig into why portal fantasy is a hard sell—and how to make it work if you’re set on writing one.

Another Day, Another Wardrobe

A portal fantasy is a story in which a character from our world is transported into another. Classic examples include:

• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
• The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum)
• Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie)

The trope is as old as fantasy itself. But that’s part of the problem.

The Lure of the Door

Portal fantasy offers an easy on-ramp—for writers and readers alike. The protagonist begins in the real world, just like the reader. Discovery happens in stages. You don’t need to dump a detailed magic system on page one. You can learn the world as your character does.

That’s especially appealing to pantsers. You build the world as you go. There’s no pressure to know every faction, language, or rule of spellcraft from the outset.

Compare that to a secondary-world fantasy. The story starts in the invented world, which means you need a fully formed setting and a natural way to convey it—without info-dumping all over the page and dragging down the pace. That’s harder to pull off.

Portal fantasy lowers that burden. But that’s also the trap. The slow build often comes at the expense of plot. And if the protagonist’s only goal is to explore, it’s not enough to carry the story. And yet it doesn’t have to be simpler—but it often is, because the structure invites gradual discovery over cohesive design.

Portal Fatigue Is Real

Agents receive a lot of portal fiction. A lot. And most follow the same pattern: protagonist is bored, bullied, or misunderstood in the real world. Then they fall into another realm, uncover its lore, and—after a quick internal pep talk—save it.

Here’s why that’s a red flag for agents:

1. Oversaturation

At a Sirens Conference panel, multiple literary agents shared that portal fantasy submissions comprised as much as a quarter of the YA fantasy slush pile—and pretty much none went on to publication. This indicates significant oversaturation of an undesirable subgenre in agent inboxes.

2. “Kid Stuff” Stigma

Portal fantasy is strongly associated with middle-grade escapism. Agents still perceive it as more suitable for younger readers, meaning that YA or adult portal stories must work harder to demonstrate emotional depth and thematic gravity. (But just because it’s more associated with middle-grade fiction doesn’t mean it’s an easy pitch there, either.)

3. The Plot as a Vehicle for World-Building

This one deserves its own section.

The Most Common Mistake: World-Building as Plot

Many portal fantasies fall into this trap: the story exists just to showcase the author’s invented setting, history, and magic system. The result is a travelogue. A protagonist wanders through strange lands, meets quirky guides, eats unusual food, and learns how to cast a fireball.

If your story is a vehicle to showcase your world-building, you're hawking a longwinded brochure more than a gripping plot.

Good world-building is merely the backdrop to a character’s journey. It doesn’t replace it. As an editor, I see this a lot—a character travelling here and there, learning and exploring and running into various unrelated or semi-related conflicts. This generally results in a meandering mess without a through-line of stakes. And that means the reader isn’t starting out with a promise that fuels their emotional draw from inciting incident to climax.

Your protagonist needs a narrative goal—something that’s difficult to achieve. The fantasy world should complicate that quest, not be the quest.

Ask yourself:

• Could the plot be morphed into a real-world setting?
• Are the stakes clear by chapter three?
• Do character choices drive the plot?

(In response to questions regarding the first bullet—consider that if the plot of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was moved in the real world, it could be about some teens rescuing their brother from a gang and bringing down the gang leader. I don't mean that the plot can be exactly copied and pasted into the real world, but reimagined with contemporary equivalents. What couldn't really function in the real world is a character wandering around and "discovering" the world, finding out how it works. Yet the "world discovery" plot is super common in unpublished manuscripts.)

What the Classics Get Right

Let’s go back to The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy doesn’t just sightsee. She wants to go home, and to get home she needs to meet with the wizard. Every scene moves her closer or further from that goal. The fantasy elements are obstacles and aids, not the quest itself.

In Narnia, the Pevensie children face moral and emotional decisions. There is definitely an exploration element, but right away the White Witch kidnaps Edmund, so they have a quest that drives them forward—rescue their brother and defeat the villain.

In Peter Pan, the goal from the outset is to avoid growing up. The challenges the children face force them to slowly accept that growing up is a natural part of life. The fantasy world is a thematic counterpoint to the real world—to the responsibility they must one day face.

Alice in Wonderland is a tricky one. There’s no plot beyond following the White Rabbit. And yet it works because of the lyrical prose and unbridled creativity of Alice’s wacky encounters. Still, with the lineage of portal fiction in the rearview, it would be a hard sell today. It succeeds because it was groundbreaking for its time.

Making Portal Fantasy Work in Today’s Market

If you're set on writing portal fantasy, here are some tips to rise above the slush:

1. Get to the Portal Fast

Too many stories spend fifty pages in the real world setting up a protagonist’s boring life. We get it—they don’t fit in. Skip to the part where the conflict starts.

2. Make the World Cost Something

Wonder without consequence is just whimsy. What does your protagonist lose by stepping through? What do they stand to gain—and what’s the price?

3. Tie the Worlds Together

If the fantasy world doesn’t affect the real world, consider why it matters. You don’t need a magical bomb falling on New York, but there should be a reason this story couldn’t just happen in the fantasy realm alone.

4. Avoid “Chosen One” Tropes

Being name-dropped in a prophecy isn’t a character arc. What’s more interesting is why your protagonist is needed—and what they have to sacrifice to meet the challenge. Anything can be done well, so I’m not saying that prophecies can’t work, but keep in mind that when a trope is overdone, you need something extra to break through the noise.

5. Go Fresh or Go Home

If your portal fantasy is just Wonderland with a new coat of paint, don’t bother. Agents have seen it all: magical doors, chosen ones, fantasy realms desperate for an outsider to save them.

If you're going to write portal fantasy, it needs to do something unexpected—tonally, structurally, thematically. Surprise your reader. Subvert expectations. Build a world that isn’t just new, but that holds a mirror up to our own. And give readers a protagonist they’ve never met before, someone quirky and fresh and troubled and resolute. Unique characters beget unique plots—because who someone is determines what they want and what they are willing to do to get there.

Does Your World Need a Portal?

Portal fantasy isn’t dead, but it might be hibernating. If you want to revive it, you need to offer something rare: emotional resonance, a fresh premise, and a tight, character-driven plot.

You also need to be honest with yourself. Are you writing this because it’s the best vehicle for your story? Or because you think world-building is the fun part?

Build your world, sure. But make it the stage, not the star. And make sure the story demands a portal—it should be causally imperative to the plot and not simply an authorial convenience.

Otherwise, your manuscript might just disappear into the slush—like a wardrobe door that closes before anyone steps through.

David Griffin Brown is an award-winning short fiction writer and co-author of Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling. He holds a BA in anthropology from UVic and an MFA in creative writing from UBC, and his writing has been published in literary magazines such as the Malahat Review and Grain. In 2022, he was the recipient of a New Artist grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. David founded Darling Axe Editing in 2018, and as part of his Book Broker interview series, he has compiled querying advice from over 100 literary agents. He lives in Victoria, Canada, on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.