Before diving into specifics, believable stories should first and foremost take into consideration the genre of the piece. Fiction, by definition, has more leniency when an author wants to incorporate fantastical elements, though, just because you can put flying pigs in your story doesn’t mean you should. This doesn’t mean a biography or a historic account can’t be interesting or engaging to the reader. Believable and boring are not interchangeable. Besides, human beings have a tendency to keep history interesting. If the author is clever, all he’ll have to do is fix his grammar.
Believable stories should next take character consistency and development into consideration. The character whether the hero, supporting characters, or villain should remain consistent throughout the story. This doesn’t define that character as static, but is where the character’s development plays a substantial role. As the character matures and experiences new situations throughout the story his decisions should follow the personality mapped out by the author. Of course there will be instances where the character surprises the reader and maybe even the author, but characters like people are always finding new and interesting things about themselves. However, people and characters are still creatures of habit in their speech tendencies, their mannerisms, and their favorite foods. Although these qualities may seem simple and unimportant they are what make a character unique, and consequently believable. Characters can create plot, and with believable characters can plot also follow a believable direction. Even if those flying pigs take up residence in your story, its believable if you’re mad scientist and his assistant Inga attached those wings to a pen of defenseless, innocent, piggies. It’s a little more skeptical if curly Sue with the over sized lollipop sews the wings onto the pigs, though one could argue that at least your readers wouldn’t be bored. Either way, we should all pity those poor piggies...
Samantha Audet
I agree with you that the story can be creative and nonrealistic and as long as the author creates this world properly. I also liked how you used the pigs flying to express your point.
ReplyDeleteAshley Sumpter
You obviously seem to grasp the fact that believability and reality are not necessarily the same thing. Belief is, ultimately, a choice - though many people I have known do not realize that they CHOOSE to believe what they choose to believe. I think a piece of writing is only ever believable when the author manages to convince the reader that they are making the correct choice.
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