Willing Suspension Disbelief: how to believe in books
by reberald_
You may think that the title hasn't much to do with the key topic, but give me the benefit of the doubt and wait until you'll get to the end of this. I promise you that everything will make sense then. Or, at least, I hope so.
We are about to discuss the willing suspension disbelief.
What are we talking about? This is not a magic formula or neither I intend to start an English lesson of a high moral level—'cause, not really important, I'm Italian and I am just 20 years old.
So.
We're opening a speech which concerns 90% of you, readers and writers. Yeah, that's right: I'm pointing a finger and inviting you to get comfortable, because—again—I'm going to explain the so-called suspension of disbelief, as we could define it in a easy way.
I'm talking about it now, sticking to my PC with the pretension of being able to make the idea right as much as possible, but Samuel Taylor Coleridge, dear fanboys and fangirls, in 1817 coined this expression in one of his writing. Cool, no? It was like two hundred years ago. And I really hope you all know who Coleridge was.
Let's read this passage together: "[...] It was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
Interesting, eh?
So, if you have already understood the philosophical discourse that the present one is trying to carry on, then you can sit in front of the keyboard of your computer and write. But if you don't have the faintest idea of what I'm talking about, I hope it will be interesting for you to become aware of the one who can make your life easier, especially whenever you decide to immerse your rational nature in a work of fantasy. Or in a science fiction. Or in a horror. Or in any other kind – fanfiction included, my friends.
How many times have you read a great love story, started in a college, victim of continuous pull and spring, a succession of nonsense quarrels that even beautiful could pale compared to, and then crowned with a lovely marriage? Too many. How many times did you happen to hear about it from your acquaintances? Mmh... Never. Don't misunderstand me; I imagine that there have been stories similar to those of our beloved love novels, or even of our own fanfictions, but we must be credible.
Though, I grant it to you, maybe we twist our nose a little bit, but we devour the book and accept what happened without reflection too much on it.
There. In that tiny moment, in those events, without thinking too much further, without asking ourselves if this or that could ever be possible, has acted the suspension of disbelief. Why do we ever ruin a reading—that is exciting, instructive, relaxing, stupid, unpleasant—allowing the perplexity to interfere continuously? It would be a nuisance. Especially because three quarters of the events narrated by our dozens of books have never happened and could never happen.
My example up here involved only a hypothetical romantic story. Imagine how much of this strange thing I'm talking about you would need to face a fantasy with a mind free from any thought. A lot. Elves and dragons don't walk on our streets every day.
And what about those thousands of stories born from literary fandom? Each of you, at least once, must have stumbled across one of them. I'm talking about those jobs that don't require much; that are written to vent the passion of their authors, fans of Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Game of Thrones... Fans of literary masterpieces that have inspired even the youngest writers. If you're an inveterate reader like that, you know what it means to love a book to madness and having to start a fanfiction that is inspired by it. And you have also tried to find yourself on the other side, one of those who read and know every single detail of the universe from which the stories are taken. You have expectations and, below, you expect certain things not to be devastated, that your beloved characters won't suffer too much from the imagination of others.
The willing suspension of disbelief helps you to adapt, within certain limits, to this problem.
But I would say to go with order.
Let's talk about it seriously, because what is obvious never really is. The willing suspension of disbelief - you need to focus on it as a mental action, something that is automatically implemented by the brain - implies that the reader has no problem with accepting the unnatural, impossible, improbable behaviors that are necessary for the work itself. For its maximum enjoyment. It foresees that are tolerated: supernatural beings and powers, humanly impossible situations and technologies that don't exist in the real world, often contrary to logic, rationality and scientific principles we don't think about until a novel begins to tell us the story of a teenager ables to fly and at that point—Mmh. Wait a moment. But this is impossible. So we close the book and refuse to read it because the facts narrated within it can't stand neither in heaven nor on earth.
Eh, no: wrong.
Maybe you hadn't thought about it until now, but reading a fantasy, or a fanfiction, or any work that has a minimum of imagination and that has asked its author an unlikely invention, requires precisely that you suspend your skepticism and be ready to accept whatever is about to be proposed. Do dogs speak in this story? Good. Do horses fly? Great. Is the female protagonist able to control the natural elements? Magnificent. Are these facts that can take place in reality? Unfortunately, no.
It's all your will, of course. Free will and anything else. But have you ever wondered how any reading would be if you refuse to believe? An animal that shakes its head, would be an indication of excessive anthropomorphism.
And now we come with the cons, alias: when this suspension loses its meaning? When the imaginative products and transgressions to the real and rational world transcend their own canons and are inconsistent with each other: if an alien invasion is taking place on planet Earth, surely no one can expect humans to manifest the same abilities of the invaders, because the nature of a human being is known by everyone.
Then there are situations in which the spectacularity of certain scenes depends on their lack of credibility. So let's close one eye. In the action scenes, in which the protagonist manages to defeat an entire team of opponents—armed, trained and in a higher number, which always succumbs without ever being able to hit him—, do we really have to waste time wondering if is it credible? Come on, it's certainly not necessary. Or the self-awareness of the character, which is when he addresses to the public by breaking the fourth wall, or by implying with a glance, a phrase or a gesture of being consciously part of a work of fiction. This challenges the suspension of disbelief of the public. And it challenges us to contest the fact that has just happened with logic, rationality or doubt.
The only problem is that the constant abuse of suspension can lead to the creation of clichés that damage the work, leading to an excess of unreality and exaggerations that inevitably prevent the reader's adaptation. Because too much is never good.
We must know how to measure the imagination.
Exactly. It must remain within the limits of decency, my Wattpadians.
So. I personally address to you writers, now. Do you know how to push readers to stop their own doubt and believe in your story? You must believe it first. If you put your heart into it, they'll know that you are not lying. If you succeed in suppressing their if and but, convincing them to put aside rationality and to believe that a book is enough to dive into the abyss, or to chase a star that is actually a guardian angel, then you have grasped the meaning of all this.
You have to be really good, I guarantee you, because how many times they have twisted the nose in front of a Mpreg, tried to explain the underlying error in making them believe in magic, or even refused to start because there's no sense in the fact that the protagonist always survives any adversity? So many. And you don't have to let yourself be demolished by criticism. Perhaps there are inconsistencies in your story, or perhaps they still have to understand that the problem is theirs—because if they start with the presupposition that they can't accept the presence of dragons in a fantasy, then it's better for them to change literary genre right away.
I believe that the willing suspension disbelief shouldn't be imposed, but earned. It's directly proportional to the writer's talent in handle the impossible.
And you, as fanwriters, know something about the power of stories.
Because, since always, you are the first to believe it.
Do you think you believe enough in your abilities to make your readers believe?