How to Create Suspension of Disbelief

Ever wondered how J. K. Rowling convinced billions of people that a boy wizard could play polo on a broomstick? Or how George R.R. Martin made dragons feel as real as horses? Welcome to the fascinating world of suspension of disbelief – the literary equivalent of convincing your cat that they really can catch the red dot.

The concept of suspension of disbelief has been around since the first hunter-gatherers sat around the fire and said, honestly, the mammoth was this big. But why will readers accept some impossible things but reject others? Why will they believe in dragons but not that you can drive across town in less than fifteen minutes? Let’s see.

What Is Suspension of Disbelief?

In any dramatic work, the audience has to ignore the reality that they are witnessing a performance and temporarily accept a false reality. For example, the world is neither black and white nor a cartoon. So anyone who watches a black and white movie or a cartoon has to know that what they’re watching isn’t real. How can Casablanca or The Iron Giant evoke emotion in the audience then? Why would anyone let something that obviously isn’t real affect them?

Because, one way or another, the author persuades them to suspend their disbelief.

The Original Definition of Suspension of Disbelief

Suspension of disbelief is a concept as old as storytelling, but Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the actual phrase in 1817, saying:

…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.

In modern terms, he’s saying that if a storyteller can give a story an illusion of truth, the audience will ignore the fact it’s not really true. They will happily take a journey into a fictional world, where they temporarily set aside ‘er… what?’ and just go with it, but only if the author can maintain the illusion.

To make their reader suspend their disbelief, forget the story is fiction and engage with it as if it’s real is then the goal of any author. Maintaining that ‘poetic faith’ is one of the most important skills for any author.

It’s a difficult skill to master, and later I’ll give some tricks that help. But first, let’s identify the issues that prevent suspension of disbelief.

Mistakes that Prevent Suspension of Disbelief

Several mechanisms can interrupt suspension of disbelief. They fall into four categories:

1. Writing
2. Plot
3. Characters
4. Setting

Let’s look at these problems in more detail.

Writing Issues that Prevent Suspension of Disbelief

The most common way to disengage the reader’s suspension of disbelief is simply through poor writing. This can be as simple as misspellings and poor grammar. I go through how to spot and remove some of these common mistakes in these articles: Fix your Grammar, and How to Proofread.

Jarring writing draws the reader’s attention away from the world of the story and makes them aware of the mechanics of reading. The text ceases to be ‘transparent’ to the reader and they remember that it’s ‘just a story’. When this occurs, the reader loses engagement with the text.

Plot Issues that Prevent Suspension of Disbelief

Plot Holes

How often do you hear someone saying that the plot of a movie or novel was ‘unbelievable’? that’s because they’ve spotted plot holes and been unable to suspend their disbelief.

Plot holes, where the reader notices the narrative lacks internal consistency, ignores obvious facts or where simple questions about the plot are unanswered, are major irritants for the many readers.

For example, at the end of William Boyd’s Restless, Eva Delectorskaya kills her WW2 spymaster and former lover, Lucas Romer. The plot hole is, why does she only do this in 1976 when she’s had the motive for revenge since 1941?

In terms of plot mechanics, the answer is obvious: Boyd wishes to bring together the two threads of the novel (one being set in 1939-41 and the other in 1976) to provide closure to the narrative. Nevertheless, in terms of the story world, there’s no answer, and so the reader has their attention drawn to the artificiality of the story.

Deus ex Machina

Another issue for suspension of disbelief common to all genres of novel is the deus ex machina, introducing characters, abilities or objects not previously in the narrative in order to solve a problem faced by the protagonists.

For example, the last sentence in Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love after Rosa Klebb has mortally poisoned Bond is:

Bond pivoted slowly on his heel and crashed headlong to the wine-red floor.

THE END

That Bond is dead is emphasised by the fact that From Russia with Love is the only Bond novel to close with the words THE END.

But From Russia With Love was a huge commercial success. So Fleming resurrected his hero at the start of Dr No by inserting a (previously unmentioned) ‘doctor with experience of tropical poisons’ who just so happened to be staying at the hotel.

A deus ex machina destroys suspension of disbelief. It’s a transparent contrivance, and that’s breaking the contract that the writer has made with the reader.

Implausibility and Coincidence

Implausibility and coincidence make events that occur in the narrative seem too contrived. Thinking ‘Oh, how convenient’ reminds the reader that the story is fiction.

An example is The Thirty-Nine Steps where John Buchan is forever having his hero, Richard Hannay, escape from peril through the most unlikely coincidences. Hannay’s miraculous ability to escape from impossible situations through coincidence and pure luck makes it hard to take his jeopardy seriously.

Handwaving and Lampshading

Handwaving (also known as lampshading) occurs when, to avoid plot holes, characters briefly discuss and dismiss the plot hole with words such as “I can’t believe this is happening… but it is”. By dismissing the problems with the plot, the author provides a fig-leaf of plausibility, hoping to maintain suspension of disbelief.

For example, in The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons, which is the last part of the four volume Hyperion Cantos, plot holes are waved away using the conceit that the uncle of the female protagonist wrote the previous stories. The best example is when one character wonders why he is still alive when he died in the first book. The less than satisfactory answer being:

My Uncle wrote that to the best of his knowledge, but his knowledge was incomplete.

Character Issues that Prevent Suspension of Disbelief

Let’s explore some character problems that destroy suspension of disbelief:

NPC Syndrome

Some characters seem to exist solely to dispense information or move the plot forward. They don’t have lives or backgrounds or relationships. They never said something dumb to that hot checkout assistant in the supermarket that still keeps them awake at night.

In video games, these are called NPCs, non-player characters. They just stand around until the player interacts with them. Then they suddenly reveal their house is on fire or their baby has been kidnapped. This type of character makes the audience painfully aware that the drama is not real.

And don’t even get me started on loot boxes.

The ‘Plot Necessity’ Dilemma

Characters need to do things to progress the plot, but nothing shatters suspension of disbelief faster than a character doing something only because it’s needed for the plot. That’s the dilemma. The skill of the writer is hiding plot necessity behind what appears to be genuine motivation.

So if your character is investigating a creepy noise in the basement alone, in the dark, with nothing but a flickering torch for company, then you better have a great explanation for why they aren’t calling the cops, or their mom, or even just hiding under the duvet like any sensible person would.

Similarly, basic safety precautions are not optional. If your plot hinges on your protagonist being so gung-ho they forget to read the instructions on their ‘grow your own dragon’ kit, then you’ve got a suspension of disbelief problem.

Stock Photo Syndrome

Does your detective drink whiskey, dispense quips and call women ‘dames’? Does your protagonist’s quirky best friend tell them to follow their heart? Have you written an antagonist who kicks puppies? Well, they’re probably stereotypes, the dramatic equivalent of using stock photos to tell a story.

If your characters are stereotypes (which isn’t the same as them being archetypes) your audience will start thinking, ‘Hey, have I seen this one before?’ That’s death to suspension of disbelief.

The Instant Hero Problem

Real people need at least a moment to decide what to do after a UFO lands in their parking spot at work. They don’t drop everything to become international spies. Real people’s kids need picking up from school before they follow the ancient prophecy to their doom.

Most real people stick their head in the sand and refuse to do anything until absolutely forced to. So, if your protagonist is keen to single-handedly fight off the alien invasion, despite having no military training, it won’t feel very real. Make them hesitate for at least a little while before they leap into action, guns blazing.

The ‘But Why?’ Chain

Ask yourself ‘But why did they do that?’ for each character decision in your novel. If the answer to the question is anything like ‘because that’s what I needed them to do’ or ‘because they’re an idiot’, then you’ve got a suspension of disbelief issue.

You can go further. Even if you can answer the first ‘But why?’ somewhat plausibly, you can then ask ‘But why?’ again at a deeper level. And then again, at an even deeper level. If you can’t answer those questions without saying ‘plot necessity’, then you’ve probably got work to do on your character’s motivations.

Setting Issues that Prevent Suspension of Disbelief

Some setting issues include: anachronisms, ‘technobabble’ and making mistakes with logistics.

Anachronism

A suspension of disbelief issue that occurs for the writer of a novel set in the past is anachronism.

Some popular periods, such as the American Frontier and the Second World War, have had so many factual and dramatic works set in them that the audience understands the period and can spot inaccuracies. Also, for any work set in the last eighty years, some of the audience will have been alive at the time.

Anachronism is particularly a problem for visual arts, as set dressing and props are visible to the audience. ‘Goofs’ in film are a staple of many websites. Novels, relying on the readers’ imagination more, are less prone to anachronism.

Not getting into details, setting your story in a hazy cloud of vagueness, can be a defence against anachronism, but this has its own dangers. As Diana Wynne Jones, the author of Howl’s Moving Castle, said:

Readers are not stupid. They can tell when you’re leaving things out because you don’t know them.

Technobabble

Technobabble is the use of cool-sounding but meaningless jargon to make a sci-fi plot sound convincing. For example, one character saying to another, ‘reverse the polarity of [something]’. If the technobabble then somehow saves the day, it’s bordering on a deus ex machina, with all the same problems for suspension of disbelief discussed earlier.

Also, almost any novel or movie that features computer hacking uses technobabble to disguise the fact that the author doesn’t know what they’re taking about. Dan Brown, I’m looking at you.

The thing is science-fiction readers do tend to be quite pedantic. They will check your maths, your physics, everything. So make sure you’ve got it worked out. Your desert world might be cool, but what are your sand warriors drinking?

Logistics

Maintaining suspension of disbelief is crucial in speculative fiction, because alternate worlds are inherently difficult for people to believe in. It’s particularly important then to convince readers that your imaginary world makes sense.

• Magic systems need rules, costs, and limitations. Magic isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card.
• How do your griffins survive? What ecological niche do your giant eagles occupy? Why does that niche exist in the story world, considering it doesn’t exist on Earth?
• Some sort of economy makes a world feel a lot more real. Who feeds the Dark Lord’s army, for example? Evil farmers?

How Accurate Can Any Novel Be?

It is effectively impossible to produce a novel with no errors at all in it. Even a novel set in the contemporary world may have a reference to real events, locations or technology that’s incorrect.

Bomber by Len Deighton is an example of a historical novel where the author went to extreme lengths to make sure the facts were correct. Set in the Second World War, it’s the story, told from both sides, of an RAF Bomber Command raid on Germany.

In the acknowledgements, Deighton claimed to have read over two hundred non-fiction works and interviewed dozens of veterans for research. The book itself covers details as minute as the oil consumption of the Lancaster bombers flown by the RAF, but Deighton said:

Wherever research and storytelling have clashed, I have favoured the story.

Similarly, Tom Clancy, whose first book The Hunt for Red October popularised the ‘technothriller’ genre, presents facts in such detail that critics said it:

Contains as much technical information about submarines and undersea warfare as a Naval Academy textbook.

But even the author of a technothriller must use artistic licence if only because many details are secret. Clancy’s technique in this case, which he calls ‘joining the dots’, involves extrapolating from publicly available sources of information. This lead to his being contacted by the FBI, who believed he must have received classified information, causing Clancy some amusement:

I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real. That’s the spooky part.

How to Help the Reader Suspend Disbelief

As well as avoiding the issues above, there are some other tricks you can try that help readers suspend their disbelief:

Claims to be Non-fiction

One classic technique to help the reader suspend their disbelief is to claim the tale is ‘a true story’. Think about how many urban legends begin with ‘A guy my friend knows…’

It’s a strategy as old as storytelling itself—so much so that words like ‘legend’ and ‘myth’ are used to describe ‘true’ stories whose origins we’ve lost. Most legends are probably either complete fiction (e.g. legends of griffins, centaurs, etc.) or are wildly exaggerated accounts of real incidents (e.g. the Greek war against Troy).

There’s something about simply claiming something is a true that seems to help people suspend their disbelief. People will just accept a ‘true’ story more readily than one they know is imaginary. Even claiming it’s ‘based on a true story’ seems to help.

One example is Jack Higgins’ The Eagle has Landed. The novel’s preface states:

Author’s Note

At precisely one o’clock on the morning of Saturday 6 November 1943, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS and Chief of State Police, received a simple message. The Eagle has landed. It meant that a small force of German paratroopers were at that moment in England and poised to snatch the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, from the Norfolk country house near the seas, where he was spending a quiet weekend. This book is an attempt to recreate the events surrounding that astonishing exploit. At least fifty percent of it is documented historical fact. The reader must decide for himself how much of the rest is a matter of speculation, or fiction…

Higgin’s claim is untrue. He’s using the simple misdirection of claiming his story is true to help his readers suspend their disbelief.

False Documents

By inventing and inserting genuine-looking documents, we can create a strong sense of authenticity that helps create suspension of disbelief in the reader

For example, Firefox has a great high-concept idea, and Craig Thomas set it up efficiently, using a series of memos between the head of MI6, Aubrey, and the other participants. This one, for example, explains to the reader what the story is about in a single page:

For how to create documents like these, see False Documents: Adding Authenticity to Your Novel

Internal Consistency

This is the contract you make with your readers: “I promise these impossible things will behave consistently.” Break that contract and readers will revolt faster than Star Wars fans who don’t like a new character being female.

For instance, remember how Star Trek characters can use a transporter to beam down to planets? Clearly, teleportation is impossible, but the audience accepts it because the rules are consistently maintained throughout the series. For example, the transporter can beam people to planets from orbit, but can’t beam people from system to system, or through shields.

And remember how everyone hated the last series of Game of Thrones? That was partly because it abandoned the travel limitations the writers had set up earlier. After previously taking entire episodes to walk from one city to the next, in the last season the characters may as well have been teleporting around Westeros.

To keep your story from developing consistency problems, it’s a great idea to write a ‘story bible’, where you record all the elements of your story and the rules you’ve set up. That’s the kind of commitment to consistency that will make your story world seem real.

Grounding

Readers will accept major departures from reality (e.g. faster-than-light travel, magic, talking animals) if logical consequences follow. They’ll accept the protagonist has a pet unicorn if the protagonist also has to clean up its rainbow-coloured unicorn-droppings.

So, for every fantastical element, think through the realistic, logical consequences and include them.

Similarly, if the characters in the novel treat the fantastical elements of the story as normal, the reader will too. George R.R. Martin’s characters treat dragons as part of the world. They’re not common, and they’re very dangerous, but they’re still normal creatures. Similarly, in my novel A Kill in the Morning, the protagonists stumble on a flying disk, which they react to not by thinking “OMG, a UFO from outer space!!!”, but as if it’s an unusual prototype aircraft.

In other words, make the extraordinary mundane and readers will suspend their disbelief.

Suspension of Disbelief: Conclusion

Creating suspension of disbelief is like being a magician: you’ve got to get the trick right, get your sleight-of-hand perfect, and leave the audience thinking not  ‘well, obviously there was a trapdoor’, but ‘are they really psychic?’

So, give your audience every reason to suspend their disbelief. Give your characters backgrounds. Explain their motives. Fill in those plot holes. Work out whose job it is to shovel unicorn poop. Include evil farmers on your map of the Dark Lord’s realm.

And, if the worst comes to the worst, just claim your story is true. That should do it.

Suspension of Disbelief: Exercises

• Setting
  • Take a section of your novel and rewrite it to describe the location in more detail.
  • Brainstorm a spider diagram for your story’s fantastical elements. How would they affect everyday life?
  • Where does food come from in your story world? How does the government make things happen? How do people live?
  • What jobs do people have in your story world? Hint: adventurer isn’t a job.
• Characters
  • Add a negative characteristic to your protagonist and a positive characteristic to your antagonist. Write passages showing those characteristics.
  • Draw a diagram showing your characters’ family, home, work, hobbies, friends and write some passages showing this information.
  • Write a mini-biography for every character in the story. Make some edits to your story to reveal their background.
  • Chart the reasons for your characters’ actions. Make sure none of them are ‘Because they’re an idiot’.
  • Rewrite a key scene from a minor character’s perspective. Do their actions make sense from their point of view?
• Plot
  • Find at the section of your novel where your character gets a lucky break. Rewrite it to make them work for their goal.
  • Consider the scene where your character reacts to the plot’s inciting incident. What’s their most realistic reaction? What’s their motivation to do something about the problem?
  • Brainstorm a list of plot holes, coincidences and contrivances in your novel – consider how you can address them.

Suspension of Disbelief: Want to Read More?

A book that goes into detail about problems that prevent suspension of disbelief is How Not to Write a Novel, by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittlemark

How not to Write a Novel is available on Amazon US here and Amazon UK here.

Thoughts?

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