Speedbumps and the Suspension of Disbelief

An important consideration in any work of fiction is the world in which your work will be set. As essential to a story as plot and characters, setting is rarely what makes a book, but it can be what breaks it.

Suspension of disbelief is a tricky thing because it varies from reader to reader. Some will launch themselves headfirst into the world you create. Others will be more skeptical and will require more ambience, more exposure, to accept your reality as plausible and whole. The best ways for the writer to facilitate the reader in suspending disbelief are to be descriptive in ways that feel natural, not forced, and to be consistent.

For instance, there’s a project I worked on where, in the opening paragraphs, there’s a mention of standing on the stone parapets of a keep, a mention of magic, and a mention of chamber pots. These three keys tell you some very important things about the world: That it’s not our own modern society, what the basic technology level is (stone construction, but no running water), and that since magic is possible, the basic rules of our world may not necessarily apply, and the reader needs to keep an open mind and be ready to integrate information about how this particular magic works, as it’s presented.

That’s a lot of information to have provided in just three small snippets of ambient information. It sets the stage for a basic set of assumptions about the world. Now it’s the writer’s responsibility to honor those assumptions, or to have good and relevant reasons for turning them on their ears.

Suspension of disbelief is a fragile thing, though. It only takes one speedbump to jolt a reader out of your world and back into our own. Consistency is the key to a smooth, immersive ride.

Keep your technology consistent or keep it plausible. It doesn’t have to be both, but it must be one or the other. It’s your world and you can do whatever you want with it, but if you want to have space travel before you have indoor plumbing, there’d better be a good reason and mechanism for it, and you need to provide it. Make it something your audience can believe.

Keep your language consistent. Be aware not just of “modern slang,” but of the sort of metaphor that draws upon modern experience or culture in more subtle ways. You probably don’t want to “steamroll” over someone’s input in a world without steamrollers (or steam power, altogether).

It’s entirely possible to take this to its absurd logical extremes, such as…I don’t know, avoiding “orange” as a color adjective if your world doesn’t grow citrus. There’s a balance, though. Use your own judgment, and your editor’s, to make sure that your metaphors don’t get in the way of the world you’re creating and the story you’re telling.

Suspension of disbelief is a fragile thing. A single speedbump can break its spell; once broken, it’s hard to weave back together again. Create ambience, lay out your basic assumptions in natural ways, and keep consistency in mind as you create your world, and your readers will glide smoothly into your story.

Tagged as: advice, editing, worldbuilding, writing