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Willing Suspension of Disbelief



Willing suspension of disbelief is a phrase that refers to what we all do as readers. For example: we know there are no such things as werewolves, but we are willing to go with it in a story. That being said, that willingness to suspend our disbelief can be stretched to the breaking point. I have read novels (I won’t mention any names) that were so over the top as to be unbelievable. At that point I either must decide if I can enjoy it as camp or simply not worth my time.

Back when I was in college in my first phase of attempting to be a writer of science fiction, I was given some good advice. I was told that you were allowed one “wonder”: one thing that wows the reader even though it may not be quite scientifically plausible. Wrapped around that wonder though, everything has to make sense. Things need to be consistent as they relate to the wonder. For example, you could have time travel in a story. It is pretty much universally accepted in the real scientific community that time travel (at least traveling back in time) will forever be impossible. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it in a story. People are willing to suspend their disbelief in time travel as long as the story is good and all the other elements of the story are eminently believable. If you start throwing in multiple impossible things, readers will start to walk away.

This concept may be a bit looser in a fantasy novel, but even so, there are always consistent rules that apply to the world in question. For example, Gandalf may be able to do some magic, but he cannot fly. Not only does this follow the rule, but it makes the story better. If the good guy can do anything, then there is not much at stake when he is fighting the bad guy.

One could only wish that Hollywood would follow this rule, but more often than not, movies seem to follow a rule that says the more wonders, the better. Some of the impossible things that happen in movies are just because the movie makers don’t understand science (speedometers in space?) This even holds true for many movies that were made from good science fiction novels, because Hollywood just can’t resist tinkering. Of course I am not saying all science fiction movies do this, but many do.

In my own writing I have tried to follow the “one wonder” rule. Some of my stories don’t even have the one. As for my early stories that violated this rule, yeah, they weren’t very good. But then, many of my early stories weren’t very good anyway because I did not really know what I was doing. If you are a writer you should always try to gauge how far you can take your readers before you step over the line.

(My novel Star Liner, is now available as an ebook through Copypastapublishing.com, or the other usual online sources. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out soon).
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