I'm writing a fantasy story in which there is a contemporary earth (our earth) and a secondary world. Due to certain reasons all earthlings who are able to reach the second world have great magical powers which can cause great ruckus.
My problem is that I need to explain whether other earthlings in the past have caused conflicts inside the second world, before the main characters of the story.
If it happened, I need to figure out why am I narrating the story of these characters and not of previous earthlings. The reason can't be that they are simply special (I don't want them to be "the chosen" or something like that). I just want these characters to be in the XXI century because it's better for the plot. But I can't say that to the reader, i need to justify the choice.
If it didn't happen, it begs the question: why the adventures of these characters and the effects they had on the second world didn't happen before? All previous earthlings who visited the second world had the same powers.
In front of me I see the following options:
- Create a chronology and a big backstory of how previous earthlings have affected the second world. It's the most consistent option but also the most challenging (I'm not fond of it because most plots of my characters don't rely that much in past events);
- Made up an excuse to make previous earthlings unable (or not willing) to affect the second world in meaningful ways;
- Create a special reason why affluence of earthlings to the second world has increased in the XXI century. In the past only a small number of earthlings were able to reach it (for some reason).
How would you solve the dilemma? Do you see any other option? Which one would you choose? It would really be helpful if you could provide examples of dilemmas you encountered while writing one of your stories and describe your mental process in order to solve them.
P.S. I tried to keep it simple in here because the reason they have magical powers is kind of complicated and I don't think it helps to solve the problem (on the contrary it opens other problems, but I don't want to diverge your attention).