How much disbelief can you suspend?

[StillStunned]

Perhaps you should consider a change of profile picture? The color fits, as it is basically gold, but it seems that it would make sense to swap the cat for fish

Sorry, what were we talking about?

 

[WrongFrog]

If the story is entertaining enough to keep me reading, I can suspend belief indefinitely. Unless you do something egregious like have too many Tab As and not enough Slot Bs, or you're writing something about horses or witchcraft that is so incorrect it makes me throw my Fire across the room (there's a reason I spent so much money of the extra strong padded case), I'll forgive you.

Speaking of egregious sins, does anyone follow Samantha the Spicy Editor or Atomic Apple Pie on the Tok? There's been a few times I've choked on my coffee because I recognized exactly which book from my DNF pile they were quoting.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

…really has to be avoided, because it basically breaks any space opera setting. Effective interstellar travel inherently requires so much energy that anyone capable of it can wreak havoc just by redirecting said energy towards a chosen target. Think vehicular manslaughter, except on a planetary scale.

Contrivances that bypass the speed of light are typically even worse, which is even sometimes highlighted in works like Star Trek where you absolutely can’t engage warp drive anywhere near a planet.

In general, there has to be a tacit understanding in this kind of sci-fi that writers simply can’t go there, or the entire fictional universe simply falls apart.

there's a reason why that kind of sci-fi doesn't get made into movies.

I mean, sublight space opera can be done. It's just very, very hard.

 

[SimonDoom]

…really has to be avoided, because it basically breaks any space opera setting. Effective interstellar travel inherently requires so much energy that anyone capable of it can wreak havoc just by redirecting said energy towards a chosen target. Think vehicular manslaughter, except on a planetary scale.

Contrivances that bypass the speed of light are typically even worse, which is even sometimes highlighted in works like Star Trek where you absolutely can’t engage warp drive anywhere near a planet.

In general, there has to be a tacit understanding in this kind of sci-fi that writers simply can’t go there, or the entire fictional universe simply falls apart.

To me, Star Trek is an example where, most of the time, I'm fine with the level of magic, and I have no problem suspending disbelief. Transporter technology, for example, make no sense to me when I think about it, but I have no problem with accepting it in the show, in part because it so often figures prominently as a plot device and the show is fairly consistent in the way it presents it. Warp drive, same thing. The time travel pushes it for me, but I can deal with it. The episode where they encounter Abraham Lincoln crosses the line for me, as do the episodes where Kirk defeats robots by feeding them illogical statements (something he (or his crewmates) does in at least three episodes I can think of).

I remember reading Zelazny's Amber series as a kid (I recommend it for fantasy enthusiasts), and the world-building made no sense to me, but I accepted it anyway, in part because while the universe was crazy the characters were depicted in a fairly realistic, Game-of-Thrones-ish sort of way, where everybody is selfish and greedy and power hungry and distrustful of everyone else. The realpolitik aspect grounded all the fantasy mumbo jumbo.

One of my favorite pieces of book magic was ice-nine in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. It makes no sense as science, but it's presented early enough that by the time that it has an effect on the story the reader is primed to accept it.

 

[KeithD]

The lack of seatbelts on the bridge despite the weekly demonstration they needed them triggered my continuing disbelief in Star Trek (plus the cheap sets on planet surfaces).

 

[Euphony]

The lack of seatbelts on the bridge despite the weekly demonstration they needed them triggered my continuing disbelief in Star Trek (plus the cheap sets on planet surfaces).

Captain Kirk viewed anything prophylaxis adjacent as a slippery slope.

 

[gunhilltrain]

There was a great episode of Mythbusters in which they tested many ideas people had about sharks, and "blowing up an air tank" was one of them. Turns out the whole thing was bunk. Even if the bullet hit the tank (which is itself absurd) it wouldn't blow up like that.

But I thought this was an example of disbelief I could suspend, because the director did such a meticulous job of leading up to it and did everything else so well. Spielberg guessed right on that one.

An example of a Spielberg movie that did NOT work in this regard was War of the Worlds. That movie, to me, felt like a mish-mash of expertly crafted and visually stunning set pieces that worked great individually but made no sense as a narrative. The whole idea of the enemy craft being underground the whole time just made no sense and it never did, even though it made for a great initial scene. And it made no sense at the end when the aliens, who obviously were technologically superior, were oblivious to the risks of infection on an alien planet. Silliness.

You can blame H.G. Wells for the aliens being unaware of infection risks on another planet. He fudged it, of course, but that was the whole point of his work - that humans couldn't stop the Martians, but germs could. I do wonder why humans weren't vulnerable to whatever bacteria the aliens may have brought with them.

Mythbusters did a job on Speed (1994). I forgot all of the details. But I don't think the movie was intended to be the slightest bit plausible.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I mean, sublight space opera can be done. It's just very, very hard.

E.g. The Expanse. There's an invention that makes it possible to trek around the solar system but rarely any further than Jupiter, with the caveat that reaching that level of acceleration is only really done by trained pilots with drugs to reduce the effects of G-forces on the body, and going beyond the asteroid belt is months to a year or so of travel.

To me, Star Trek is an example where, most of the time, I'm fine with the level of magic, and I have no problem suspending disbelief. Transporter technology, for example, make no sense to me when I think about it, but I have no problem with accepting it in the show, in part because it so often figures prominently as a plot device and the show is fairly consistent in the way it presents it. Warp drive, same thing.

Similarly I dislike the time travel, but give me Raffi and Seven being badass and I'll be too distracted to notice. But in general the plots work well enough, because when they declare the problem of the week, and you immediately think 'well why don't they just do X?', someone says 'We must do X!' and someone replies "Ah, we can't do that because the thing is too Wotsit! It's too risky!" And you take their word for it because they've thought through it at least as much as you have in the last minute.

 

[gunhilltrain]

He also insited on no buttons, zippers, or pockets. Where the fuck do you put your credits (which, of course, federation credits are also a form of money which we wouldn't be using, and yet it's there), your ID, that data file you're taking home to work on? Men wouldn't be bald, women would all be beautiful, and never a tear would shed because unhappiness is outlawed.

Perhaps they used facial recognition technology instead of plastic cards. Still, that seems to point to a totalitarian dystopia, while the Federation seemed to be the opposite. Yet, Spock was a cool guy. He did have an extremely dry sense of humor.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

On the subject of convincing technobabble, I was thrown out of a story recently because the geekery didn't hang together. A college student was supposed to be particularly interested in a certain aspect of science, which didn't hugely need explaining, but the author wrote something along the lines of "he read that the earth goes round the sun" or "he was amazed that energy could be converted from one form to another" - the sort of stuff covered in Year 7 Science (seventh grade?).

Finding words to use for your technobabble can be hard if you know nothing about the subject, and even the experts can struggle to tell what will sound better when talking about fictional physics - why does "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" sound more convincing than a mere "apply the sonic", when they both represent "the Doctor points a McGuffin at the problem and it works"?

My Geek Pride story (Conference Collaboration, intended to be at a realistic fictional science conference) was done in a hurry so is not the greatest constructed tale, but the sciencey phrases should be sound because I pinched most of them from abstracts in journals in the appropriate year. And spared the readers too much detail by using phrases like "she continued the explanation", which also helps me remain vague about exactly what their specialities are and thus ensure no-one could conclude the characters are based on particular people...

 

[Bamagan]

There are a few elements of the original War of the Worlds disease angle that are at least initially plausible. When Europeans first visited the Americas in significant numbers, they brought a lot more diseases with them than they took back. That was largely because the 'New World' had few cultures with anything approaching 'Old World' population density, and there was virtually no animal husbandry being done at the time. A lot of the nastiest bugs humans got were a result of close contact with animals, and high population density makes it easier for lethal ones to linger, not to mention mutate rapidly. So, in a scenario where the Aztecs visited Europe first, there's a high likelihood that they'd have gotten sick soon after landing, quite possibly fatally.

So, there's a certain level of rationality for there to be a technologically advanced culture like Wells' Martians who simply have no idea just how chock-full of diseases human communities are, when you'd think by sheer numbers that they must be doing okay for themselves. If the Martian civilization hadn't had to deal with plagues and pandemics and outbreaks and whatnot, or any such events happened a very long time ago, it's not necessarily surprising that they would not consider the possibility of mass infection, and would not have the equipment or technical expertise to deal with it.

Where I personally feel it breaks down is the lethality of whatever the Martians picked up (probably more than one disease), and how uniformly they all died off all over the world. There are too many details of biology to really nail down how deadly their infections should plausibly be, but the timing is still a problem. I could be mistaken since it's been a while, but I think within a matter of hours every Martian is dead or at least incapacitated and dying. Waves or clusters of mortality based on differing timing of infection by various diseases would have been more plausible and satisfying.

 

[MyBareTorso]

Though my stories are in no way "realistic", I like to ground them very much in the real world (no magic etc), and I like them to conform to their own sense of internal logic. I know women don't run around ripping off men's clothes, but that's what turns me on, so I've created a recurring, ideal-male MC whose actions and appearance at least make these situations "believable" in the context of a grounded erotic story. I do find it odd how many readers seem to come here looking for realism though, when many authors are likely here to exorcise their sexual fantasies, and are not trying to create works of gritty realism. Some do, of course, and that's cool too.

 

[gunhilltrain]

There are a few elements of the original War of the Worlds disease angle that are at least initially plausible. When Europeans first visited the Americas in significant numbers, they brought a lot more diseases with them than they took back. That was largely because the 'New World' had few cultures with anything approaching 'Old World' population density, and there was virtually no animal husbandry being done at the time. A lot of the nastiest bugs humans got were a result of close contact with animals, and high population density makes it easier for lethal ones to linger, not to mention mutate rapidly. So, in a scenario where the Aztecs visited Europe first, there's a high likelihood that they'd have gotten sick soon after landing, quite possibly fatally.

So, there's a certain level of rationality for there to be a technologically advanced culture like Wells' Martians who simply have no idea just how chock-full of diseases human communities are, when you'd think by sheer numbers that they must be doing okay for themselves. If the Martian civilization hadn't had to deal with plagues and pandemics and outbreaks and whatnot, or any such events happened a very long time ago, it's not necessarily surprising that they would not consider the possibility of mass infection, and would not have the equipment or technical expertise to deal with it.

Where I personally feel it breaks down is the lethality of whatever the Martians picked up (probably more than one disease), and how uniformly they all died off all over the world. There are too many details of biology to really nail down how deadly their infections should plausibly be, but the timing is still a problem. I could be mistaken since it's been a while, but I think within a matter of hours every Martian is dead or at least incapacitated and dying. Waves or clusters of mortality based on differing timing of infection by various diseases would have been more plausible and satisfying.

Yes, I was thinking of that angle. The aliens could be so far removed from their disease-ridden past that they had forgotten the techniques for dealing with it.

The Aztec civilization impressed the Spaniards when they saw it, but I'm not sure what kind of agriculture they practiced. Any population density that had was in the capital city, I presume, not more expansive like in the Old World. I'd still be on the lookout for any "bugs" that visiting extraterrestrials bring with them, as they should watch out for ours. Anyway, I can understand why Wells and his various remakers wanted to bring it to a neat conclusion rather than dragging it out more realistically.

Creepy the way the alien arm comes out. Yet the religious overtones get a bit heavy. Didn't God make the Martians too?

 

[CyranoJ]

This is an endlessly interesting issue for me, both as I write stories and when I read comments to my stories, or to other authors' stories. To what degree are you willing to suspend disbelief as a reader? How far do you push your readers as an author? What things do you do as an author to try to keep your readers on board?

Most of my stories take place in a Pornoverse filled with ever-willing sex partners, improbably big dicks and improbably beautiful people, all of whom are getting off no matter how grungy or dodgy the situation. Within those parameters, I otherwise try to keep characters semi-believable and interesting and to have them otherwise behave like humans.

In some cases, it's a bit different. In an e-book called The Serpent's Kiss, the Pornoverse in question is that of late-era Victorian porn, heavily invested in corporal punishment and the contrast between prim-and-proper public morals. (Its only innovation is that includes "interracial" kink, a territory in which Victorian porn pretty much never treaded.) It requires buy-in from readers who understand and are into that milieu.

With the Space Princess series that had its birth here and migrated to an e-book series on Amazon and other places, the Pornoverse also obeys the laws of Star Trek parody, including all the basic magical "technology" widgets of Trek and with Pornoverse parody characters that often parallel characters from the original show. So, there are multiple asks of suspension of disbelief from the reader there, for everything from the setting and the porn to the interactions among a core trinity of characters who are -- at the end of the day -- each pretty two-dimensional. It relies on the reader finding the premise as charming as I do, which isn't always the case... but OTOH, that was also my best-selling (relatively) e-book series.

That said, the one of my stories that takes place in something closer to the real world instead of the Pornoverse (although it's still in an annex of the Pornoverse) is probably my favorite of my stories.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

The Aztec civilization impressed the Spaniards when they saw it, but I'm not sure what kind of agriculture they practiced. Any population density that had was in the capital city, I presume, not more expansive like in the Old World. I'd still be on the lookout for any "bugs" that visiting extraterrestrials bring with them, as they should watch out for ours. Anyway, I can understand why Wells and his various remakers wanted to bring it to a neat conclusion rather than dragging it out more realistically.

Creepy the way the alien arm comes out. Yet the religious overtones get a bit heavy. Didn't God make the Martians too?

There was an element of that in real history. Spanish had smallpox, Aztecs (may have) had (stronger strains of) syphilis. And West Africa had malaria and sleeping sickness, so colonization there was more limited.

I remember hearing before that Wells did consider writing a second, alternate War of the Worlds. No disease in that one, the Martians take over the world and humanity is forced to live as either livestock or vermin in the newly-established ecosystem. That one would have leaned more on class difference than imperialism: meek submission from the upper class and active resistance from the workers. I don't know if future generations would have cared so much for such a story.

The 1950's-era film probably threw in the religious angle so as to lean away from Wells' socialism, or at least his atheism.

 

[Duleigh]

As a reader, are there particular things that trip you up on the issue of believability? As an author, are there particular things you do to make your reader suspend disbelief?

To be honest it all depends on the story category and how the author deals with whatever is the event that would suspend belief. Tags are almost meaningless because Lit, in their "wisdom," hides them at the very end of the story so there's no attempt to inform the reader of the content of the story until after they read it.
As for suspending belief, unless they're SciFi/Fantasy, or set in a historical setting, most of my stories are written in the "now." There's no magic McGuffin to solve problems with the push of a button, no UFO's threatening the city, no 100% healthy persons over the age of 30. Everyone has some baggage to carry.

What suspends my belief is "Kink jumping" when someone is offered an opportunity to try some some bizarre kink with no warm up, no seduction, and they jump right into it. "What, tie me up and lower me into a tank full of piranhas while you hold me by the ears and fuck my mouth? Sounds like fun!"

Yeah. Next!

 

[SimonDoom]

What suspends my belief is "Kink jumping" when someone is offered an opportunity to try some some bizarre kink with no warm up, no seduction, and they jump right into it. "What, tie me up and lower me into a tank full of piranhas while you hold me by the ears and fuck my mouth? Sounds like fun!"

Exactly. Have them at least take an online class on piranhas, and then I'm OK with it.

 

[TheLobster]

"What, tie me up and lower me into a tank full of piranhas while you hold me by the ears and fuck my mouth? Sounds like fun!"

I don't think that's particularly safe or responsible. What if the poor things chew on the rope, ingest too much fiber, and then die of constipation?

 

[Gamblnluck]

what do you feel about hary poter? does it throw too many things at you?

Harry Potter is a prime example of a good story. The situation is out there, but for the most part it fits. The plot is consistent within the confines of the story. Even the characters are consistent with themselves. They each have their personality based on his or her background. They respond appropriately as well.. Criminal types, thugs, weak people who show resolve at times etc.
One of the things I liked about it was Rowling dropped little nuggets or what I call breadcrumbs (sometimes small obscure details) in early parts of the story that she picked up later. You'd only realize it if you read the series another time.

 

[TheLobster]

One of the things I liked about it was Rowling dropped little nuggets or what I call breadcrumbs (sometimes small obscure details) in early parts of the story that she picked up later.

Whenever someone says this about a novel, I always wonder how many breadcrumbs were dropped that the author didn't pick up later.

It seems to be a very effective technique of making the plot and the world appear cohesive, because all that readers remember are the "aha!" moments when they connect the dots with something foreshadowed earlier in the story. But if there is some dud earlier on that is never mentioned again? Crickets, usually, and especially if it's minor.

It really feels like a writer's cheat code.

 

[yowser]

Whenever someone says this about a novel, I always wonder how many breadcrumbs were dropped that the author didn't pick up later.

An interesting and astute observation. There are some most impressive writers (Nabokov and Pynchon come to mind) whose works are littered with obscurities, and one of the things this does is 'reward' readers who recognise the odd bits (in the process this means not 'insulting' the reader's intelligence/perceptivity, never a good look) and this can make for a most satisfying read.

There is often the creative gap between what the author 'intended' and what the reader 'got' out of the work, many times not the same thing. And this is one of the parts that makes the writer/reader dance so endlessly entertaining.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

HP was a good few books for children age 8-10. Then it tried to get more complex for a maturing audience, and mostly failed. I enjoyed the first three (I was a student at the time), decent yarns in the 'magical boarding school' genre, which was due for new works. The fourth was over-long, fifth introduced some politics but then forgot them, and the last two were rambling lists of people giving birth and dying. And then you get the mess of the Fantastic Beasts and Cursed Child plots which don't mesh with the first series, and JKR coming out with all sorts of bobbins about the books (does anyone believe Dumbledore was intended to be gay all along, with zero signalling in seven books?).

You've got issues like time-turners which are an integral part of the plot in book 3, then barely mentioned again. Even if there's a reason not to use them, the audience need to know (especially when you get to magical Hitler, one of the worst films I've ever sat through - FB2).

Then there's the mildly-clever use of Latin words as clues - Lumos for light, Sirius who turns into a dog being named after the Dog Star. And Lupin who is blatantly a werewolf - except he only became a werewolf as a child, so why does he have Wolf as a surname? Makes no sense.

Add numbers of wizards in various generations not adding up, especially considering how long-lived they apparently are, politics not making sense once introduced, more characters introduced only in the last book - it becomes a mess. Most kids now read the five books and then skim the last couple, if they read them at all (and same for the films).

I'm sure Rowling and her editors never expected the series to be chewed over to the extent it has been, but if JKR had just left a lot of questions open and said "it's a series for kids. We don't know" it would have worked a lot better than her constantly trying to justify herself since.

 

[StillStunned]

Whenever someone says this about a novel, I always wonder how many breadcrumbs were dropped that the author didn't pick up later.

I usually assume that they're throwaways, odd details that got added in for whatever reason, and it's only later that the author remembers them and thinks, "Hey, I can use that!"

That's what happens with my writing, at least.

 

[Living_in_a_lewd_world]

I find also consistency the most important aspects to make something believable to me especially in three aspects:

-consistency of description and actions – If a person is described as intelligent and experienced, their speech/actions should show that they are and they shouldn’t stumble over every little hurdle and fall in every pit on their way through life, especially not that, that are totally obvious to the reader and that should be obvious for people living in the world described. Also, when a character is described e.g. as a psychologist the person should at least a little behave like a psychologist would actually behave, maybe speaking with eloquent language and trying to analyse their vis a vis, else the character gets unbelievable and it is better not to mention their occupation at all, as it rather destroys the experience, than adding something to the story.

-consistency of the characters – when a character is introduced as inhibited, they shouldn’t immediately act slutty just because of seeing a dick, a pussy or some breasts, unless there is an event(-chain), that explains how the change comes. Personality changes mostly come through making experiences, that economically spoken reduce the perception of the costs or heighten the perception of the rewards of an action, not out of nowhere.

-consistency of the world – when characters can’t fly on a broom once, they shouldn’t be able to do it at another time just because it's needed to progress the story, unless there were some events happening, that logically explain in their world why they suddenly can +-points of enjoyment if it is nevertheless surprising, because one just figures out the hints throughout the story, when the event actually happens.

-Sometimes there might be the need to break with some logic. Those moments could even be key moments. But they should be short, have no immediate negative consequences, but the follow up should be quite rewarding for the reader. - I personally totally like "Breaking Bad". It is a great example of masterly (visual) story telling. Nevertheless, I personally remember the moment in “Breaking Bad”, where “Gus” admits to “Walter White”, that he is a drug kingpin inmid of his restaurant somehow unrealistic, as he is depicted as quite a cautious man. But I nevertheless remember what follows as so good, that I could totally live with that short inconsistency.

 

[TheLobster]

I usually assume that they're throwaways, odd details that got added in for whatever reason, and it's only later that the author remembers them and thinks, "Hey, I can use that!"

That's what happens with my writing, at least.

That's happens in my writing, too, and I suspect it's more or less universal, given the long list of examples here.

This is why I call it a cheat code. If you pick up the details, you are suddenly a genius writer with amazing foresight and masterful worldbuilding skills. If you abandon them without explanation, only literature/movie buffs will ever notice.