Reality, and Suspension of Disbelief in Fiction.

Suspension of disbelief has been variously described as "emotional involvement in a narrative to the point of reacting as if the characters and events thus presented are real even when aware they are actually not" and "willing acceptance of the premises of a work of fiction, even if they seem fantastic and impossible". And yet it is a fragile thing, easily broken... I cannot recall the number of times I have dropped a novel due to my disbelief at a character's irrational decision even though I had easily accepted that very same novel's premise of dungeons spawning on Earth.

But the fact remains that there are some very real limits to this suspension; limits that are oftentimes breached earlier than the limits of our reality. Reality can be stranger than fiction, but fiction is, in many instances, subject to what one consider the limits of reality. Reality is free to be irrational, yet fiction can put off readers with the same irrationality. 'Immersion' as some would say, is destroyed when things don't make sense in fiction, and yet, when has our reality made complete sense? Would it be too much to say that fiction is, in fact, the answer to life's quest for organization, order and meaning?

Yes, I am aware of the existence of absurdist fiction and the theatre of the absurd. But this was mostly about, y'know, wish-fulfilment fiction that fill the pages here. ¯\_( ツ)_/¯

 

If a character consistently makes decisions that feel unreasonable or crazy to you, it does make the novel very hard to read. Feels almost like torture

 

Eh, unreasonable people are everywhere, whether irl or fiction. If it's too stupid I'll probably drop it but if it's entertaining, just read it.

 

I think this has to do with the author more. The authors can have a poor picture of what they want initially and, when they write to some point, they can suddenly change the direction of the story and that goes against the original premise that the reader had made up to that point. It's not as much about things being irrational, as things going against the established rules, as irrational as those rules may be.
I have lost so much time in anger over stories that seemed to personally provoke me but never dropped them because the anger was on me, not the story. I, maybe didn't even understand or know, the tiny lizard brain beneath my main one did, that I was reading it on my own volition and the story gave me all I needed to know about what it was.
On other hand, I have dropped good stories up after they changed their directions too

 

I had to suspend my disbelief from seeing an actual post with actual content other than shit.
I'm fine with wish-fulfillment, sadly they always come with the JP protag that is whiny and gods that apologize by doing dogeza, which just annoys me.

 

I feel called out

 

True, so very true.

Agreed, but we can't always justifiably drop-kick that guy like we can drop a book.

Yep. Pretty much so.

Let me quote myself: When you cannot really make shitpost threads because your very being rebels at thought of your thread not being value for money. (◞‸◟；)

 

I guess it's also up to you on where you really set your boundaries for novels and how far are you willing to go for the novel to somewhat redeem itself as well is another way to see it. I'm pretty guilty to reading shitty novels but yea sometimes I just put up with it because I have a hope for it that it'll get better or at least reach the quality I was expecting from the story. Not because I agree with the current shitty quality but sometimes because of the reviews that says it gets better lol.

 

when character portrayed as A but act as B the best example is smart character but act like dumb cat~
there thin line of brave and reckless~ basically it cause and effect stuff~ while it kinda reasonable to let go your brain when reading most WN but sometimes you can't help to think few things that lead to conclude, this cat getting dumber after reading such stuff~

 

I see the suspension of disbelief as a contract. The writer's role in this contract is to build a world and characters that feel real and believable and the reader's role is to be open to the idea of buying this fictional world and its conceits. And like regular contracts, it's possible for either party to violate it, and there's a consequence when it happens.

One of the big corollaries to this is that world building is an essential ingredient in creating this sense of disbelief. Every bit of detail that describes how the world looks, how the people behave, and how the different economies interact with each other builds on the fictional tapestry and gives it a greater sense of presence. The opposite is also true and a story with very weak world building is just going to feel thin and artificial. It's why I always boggle at those isekai stories which spend ten times as much text detailing how the adventurer's guild works than it does on what the city looks like, or how the country works. The worlds in these books feel completely artificial because the authors fail in upholding their part of the contract.

The other big corollary is that it is easier to violate the sense of disbelief with mundane things than with fantastical ones. Everyone knows that dragons and magic and the like aren't real, but it's still pretty easy to buy them because there's no frame of reference to it. In comparison everyone knows what an elephant is, and we all know that they're not pink. So if a pink elephant shows up in a story, it's very hard to take it seriously because of the way it violates what we think of as real. A creature like that only works in comedy because comedy is allowed to work with a different kind of contract. Note that this corollary also applies to game systems in stories: these act as an extra layer of artificiality telling the reader that the story isn't real.

On a personal level, I don't think that it's a big deal if a story has a plot hole or if a character does something irrational. Neither of these are very serious storytelling sins in my book, and the latter can even be good as long as it's inline with the character's personality. I'll even enjoy books that are poor at creating disbelief. Yeah they'll feel artificial, but artificial can still be fun as the rest of the story is entertaining.

 

Suspension of disbelief is a complicated topic, as it isn't just about the author making all the details believable, but also about distracting the reader from asking questions about all the unspoken things that the author don't have an answer for.
And there isn't really an objective way to determine at what point a story actually fails in terms of immersion, because it will fail at many different points for different people depending on what things they pay attention to.

The biggest sign that immersion has failed for me personally is whenever I catch myself complaining specifically about the "author's decisions" as opposed to the story itself, which is especially common for stories with arbitrary worldbuilding that just repeat popular trends.
A lot of plot holes and inconsistencies can be rationalized if there is leeway for it within the story, but it becomes a lot harder to do so once you start thinking things like "the author just wanted to do that" or "the author didn't think of this or that".

 

I suppose creating a compelling narrative would prove helpful in distracting the reader.

This I completely agree with.

 

Well, for some people all you need is a single character they can stan for. lol