Suspension of DisbeliefHas this happened to you before?
You’re enjoying something with a story. Things are getting tense, things could go either way, things have you glued to this story and you must know what happens. But when something happens you’re left aghast. Strange things have happened before, but this feels absurd. You’re no longer enjoying the story after that. Instead, you’re trying to make sense of it. But all you come up with are more questions. You’re not as invested in things moving forward.
Suspension of disbelief is the magic that lets readers enjoy stories, especially ones that could never happen in reality. A reader that is suspending their disbelief has faith that a writer’s post makes sense. They may not fully understand the world or how a character’s powers work, but they can overlook a lot of smaller details without having them explained to them. They will not question how someone can launch a fireball from their hands without getting burned, nor will they question why the trained henchmen have such terrible aim compared to the heroes. When a reader’s suspension of disbelief is pushed too far, it will break, and the reader will actively disbelieve the post. They will become much more critical of details that they wouldn’t have otherwise addressed.
It’s clear that maintaining suspension of disbelief is important. It’s how a GM can craft a world that players can feel a part of, and how player characters can use their powers without it coming across as power gaming.
But how do we create this magnificent effect?
We don’t have to! Barring those that dislike fiction, readers will start suspending their disbelief the second they start reading a story. They want to enjoy what they are reading and end up doing this subconsciously. It’s your job as a writer to maintain the faith they have in you.
Maintaining suspension of disbelief is simple to explain. For starters, you want to be consistent. If your world behaves in a consistent, familiar manner, readers will have no reason to disbelieve anything.
To break it down further, everything you write should “agree” with at least one of the three types of consistency. These consistencies are as follows:
-External Consistency:This is everything that the reader understands outside of your story. We know that cars can drive faster than people can run, gravity exists, and bagels are a great breakfast food. For the most part, anything that behaves in reality as a reader understands it falls under external consistency.
-Genre Consistency: Readers often become familiar with genres and the tropes associated with them. If they participate in a magical girl RP, they would not be surprised to see a highschool girl bench press a semi. Nor would a fan of eighties action movies wonder how a single commando could win a firefight against a hundred trained soldiers. It should be noted that not everyone has extensive experience in the genre of your story, so it may be desirable to partially explain some of these details away. The commando’s experience could be highlighted among other factors.
-Internal Consistency: This pertains to everything exclusively in your story/posts. If my character has five grenades, they can’t throw six of them. If they struggle to cast fireballs quickly, they can’t cast a stronger spell even faster. If they are shy, they can’t also be outgoing and charismatic. Not without reason at least.
You likely realized there’s a sort of hierarchy with these consistencies. External consistency can be overridden by genre consistency, which in turn takes a back seat to internal consistency.
Suspension of disbelief may seem simple to maintain, but it’s a frail thing. Forgetting that two characters have prior knowledge of one another or mixing up the location of a key item can be all it takes for a reader’s suspension of disbelief to crack. Though the most common ruiner of stories has to be the Deus Ex Machina, or “God on a Crane” for those that don’t speak latin. The name refers to a crane that was used during Greek plays to lower gods onto the stage, often to fix whatever was happening in the moment. There are countless examples of this, but I’m going to grab one of my own to use as an example.
Once I had a chance encounter with an editor from Marvel. His name was Eliot R. Brown. He was a lot friendlier than what I pictured an editor being, and he would talk to me about all kinds of stuff. During one discussion he told me that manga was a fad, and would go away in a few years. That bit of advice didn’t age too well, but what he had to say about storycraft has molded me into the writer I am today.
He offered to look over one of my stories. Naturally, I showed him part of a story that I was pretty sure would make me a household name. It involved a fight between a half-demon-half angel-dual scythe-wielding-guy called Gail and a thirty foot tall vampire/gargoyle called Stormcrow. The story opened with them fighting each other. Before a decisive blow could be struck, a third party instantly teleported Gail to safety by way of a mysterious teleportation device they had on a big airship.
There was a lot of cringe stuff in that fight. Lots of bad one liners and other things. It was bad even by the standards of
fanfiction.net. But out of everything I had written, the one thing he took the most offense to was the teleporter. He claimed its very existence was problematic. I tried to assure him that the teleporter was not problematic, and that a lot of people used them. And that was when he hit me with a question so powerful it forced me to scrap the entire opening of my story.
“If the teleporter can instantly transport things to and from the ship, what’s stopping them from teleporting an anvil thrice blessed right on top of Stormcrow’s head?”
The teleporter had broken Eliot’s suspension of disbelief, and for good reason. It had no clear weaknesses and was too easy to abuse. You could instantly save anyone or teleport blessed anvils wherever you wanted. It made the idea of fighting dangerous targets like Stormcrow seem silly when you could just kill everything with the teleporter. Its existence not only invalidated the fight, but the entire story. So long as the teleporter existed, you couldn’t have any kind of stakes.
That’s not to say that the teleporter couldn’t have stayed. What it needed were clear limitations in how it could be used. Maybe instead of Gail getting suprise rescued, he could have used a cell phone to let his partner know he needed a lift. Then he’d be instructed that he needed to stay perfectly still in a specific spot in order to get rescued. All while in the presence of a thirty foot vampire gargoyle with four arms. He might also have needed to be in a spot where he was clearly visible to the ship. There might also be a possibility that if things were handled poorly, Stormcrow could be teleported along with him, which would be game over for everyone. Stuff like that would have made the teleporter much riskier to use and not invalidate the rest of the story. Though better than that would have been to introduce the teleporter later where it could have its functions better explained during a low risk event.
I could give more examples, but that covers the basics for suspension of disbelief. It’s obviously important for a GM, but even players need to keep it in mind. Your character’s behavior and abilities should be consistent. Characters are allowed to grow and change over time, but it’s not something that should be happening scene to scene. So strive to be consistent with your writing, and those that read your posts will never struggle to suspend their disbelief.
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