Drawing from the Well
Scenes Arranged: 0
Total Scenes: 166
This is getting old. I’m changing up the formula today to make some progress.
Filling the Well
That Hideous Strength: 54%
Elegy: Page 15 of 89
The Prophecy of Zarah: 100% (Book 13 of 25 for #ProjectBookworm2019)
Jessica Jones: S2E12 of 13
I did manage to get a short story read yesterday. I haven’t made any progress anywhere else, but it’s better than no progress at all.
Polishing the Well
We watched The Lion King last night. I cried. Twice. It’s my favorite Disney movie of all time and it hits me in a lot of dark, soft places that are wholly unavoidable. I still love it for all that it is and all that it does to me. I can’t wait for the “live action” remake in July.
Well Chat
Avoiding Fantasy Strain
In almost every book, but especially in fantasy fiction, there is an element that has to be accepted by the reader in order to go along for the ride of the story: suspension of disbelief.
So what does this mean? We live in reality where there aren’t nursery rhyme monsters or magic or even technology advanced to the point of science fiction (which is why it isn’t called science fact). Thus, in order to engage with stories that involve any of these elements, we have to stop believing that these things do not exist to connect with a world where they do. Said differently, we have to press pause on our disbelief function. We have to suspend disbelief.
Why does this matter for authors? Well, there is only so much a reader can do before their brain will rebel and bring them back to reality. When a reader cracks open the cover of your book and there are things in it that are strictly not real, they have to decide to believe they are for the sake of the story. Every time they do this, it puts strain on their brain because they are consuming the story at the same time they’re trying to believe it when their brain is screaming “No!” The more times you ask the reader to ignore that voice in their head, the stronger the strain becomes. If the strain becomes too great, the cable allowing for the suspension of disbelief will snap and the reader’s brain will rebound, rejecting everything that had been believed so far. That can lead to the reader reaction, “None of this makes sense!”
As an example, my family watches Supergirl on the CW. There’s A LOT of suspension of disbelief here, even for me. Super powers. Flying people. Dream energy. Time travel. Every season, the disbelief cable is drawn a little bit tighter. The other night, we were watching it and a scene came on the screen where
SPOILER ALERT
Lex was getting out of jail left, right, and center it seemed to conduct his evil schemes with Privet/Red Daughter. My wife looked at me and said “Isn’t he supposed to be in jail? Didn’t he only have 72 hours out?” I said, “Yeah, but he’s got the warden over a barrel so he can probably get out whenever he wants.” FOr me, this was not straining disbelief too much. For her, it was.
A week earlier, we were watching the same show and the disbelief cable snapped for me. Supergirl was melting stone with her heat vision to seal a cracked dam. That was too much for me. I commented that what she was doing didn’t make sense and wouldn’t work. EVERYONE in the room commented with the basic sentiment of, “We’re watching a TV show about aliens with superpowers and THAT’S where you draw the line?” and I said, “Yes. It doesn’t make any sense. It isn’t good story.” Everyone rolled their eyes and we went on with our night.
SPOILER ALERT OVER
The important thing is that if you’re going to tighten the cable to suspend disbelief, you have to do it gradually and in a way that makes sense to readers (not just in your own mind) and with sufficient explanation to carry them on. Otherwise the cable will snap and you’ll lose them.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG