Suspension of disbelief

Happiest of Fridays, everyone!

Suspension of disbelief is a funny thing, especially in speculative fiction. You can make your readers believe in space travel, or ghosts, or all manner of magical powers, so long as you keep all your worldbuilding consistent and unexplained. But it's usually not the otherworldly things that can throw a person right out of the story.

Maybe your reader is from Boston, and your Massachusetts-set story refers to the subway system as the 'Metro.' (And you shouldn't do that, because I just clutched my heart in agony at the very thought.) Maybe your reader is pursuing their Masters in biochemistry, and the science in your book isn't quite working for them. It doesn't even have to be the reader's specialty. Sometimes it's just one of those tropes that rubs the reader the wrong way.

For me personally? My pet peeve is when writers fail to keep their characters' injuries consistent. I sometimes feel like I can hardly pick up a book or watch a TV show without a character talking perfectly clearly after they've just been throttled, or blithely walking around and bantering and fighting crime with a head injury or 'a few cracked ribs.' Not because I'm a sadist - hopefully not, anyway. But when the character can just glide through setbacks without even missing a step, it drains the stakes from the narrative for me. It's hard to get invested in a character when it seems they're going to achieve their goals without any problems.

(And I have a hard time understanding why any writer would pass up a chance to make their character suffer some more... which does sound a little sadistic, now that I type it out.)

Though the phrase "write what you know" is the one that gets bandied about in various creative writing classes, I don't agree with that - those would make for very boring books most of the time. But it's very important to know what you write, down to the smallest details. A throwaway line for one writer could be about something the reader knows back and front - and when a reader loses the thread of the story, sometimes it can be tricky to find it again.

What breaks your suspension of disbelief?

A Foolproof Process

After drafting my most recent novel, I think I've come up with a foolproof approach to writing fiction, sure to go down in the annals of history as the gold standard model of the creative process. To produce a book in easy, manageable steps, just follow along!

• Read a shelf or two of nonfiction on pertinent subjects
• Make things up
• Start with vague vast plans of interlocking plots and intrigue
• Daily wordcount goals ensure consistent productivity
• Trash 20,000 words of directionless buildup
• Start book again, vague vast plans unchanged
• Trash 20,000 words of awesome actionpacked material that leaves you emotionally cold for undefined reason
• Outline obsessively
• Hate your obsessive outline
• Create three separate equally obsessive outlines.  Feel unable to choose between any of them.
• After con banquet, collapse in chair and read a new friend's short story collection.  Feel awed and intimidated.  Ice breaks open and continents shift inside you.  Write.
• Daily wordcount goals are an unnecessary strain
• Outline again
• Introduce three new subplots completely unconnected to outline
• Delete subplots on which outline originally depended
• Daily wordcount goals ensure consistent productivity
• Just keep flying
• Realize characters' emotional entanglements have drifted dramatically from original intent
• Build characters in favorite story-focused RPG system
• Ignore said character builds.  Write anyway.
• Stop every day in the middle of a scene so you know where to pick up tomorrow
• Keep writing
• More writing
• Screw 'end in middle of scene.'  Always reach the end of a scene, so you know the next logical dramatic beat.
• More writing
• Adverbs!
• Wait, no, no adverbs.  What were you thinking, adverbs?
• Blog the process
• Realize that you're boring your readers when you blog the process
• Write with electronica because of the driving beat
• Write with metal because of the incessant energy
• Music just breaks up your flow, man
• More writing
• Oh my god it's so close keep going keep goingkeepgoing…
• Stop.
• Deep breath.
• Write 'the end.'  You now have a 160,000 word manuscript.  Your target is somewhere around 120,000 words.
• One day euphoria
• Two days black depression
• Two days video games
• Roll up sleeves.
• Edit.

I hope that helps!