Helping your Readers Believe
According to Wikipedia, “Speculative fiction is a broad category of fiction with elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, nature, or the present universe.” This brings me the heart of my article: How can authors get their readers to believe in a chimerical world that does not (and likely cannot) exist in reality?
Subtlety
To keep their readers reading, writers need to sell readers on the “reality” of their world. This does not mean inserting overt character reactions or overdone narrative explanations. Authors will win more hearts with subtlety, especially by employing eye or bodily movements that portray emotion without words. What doesn’t help readers believe is listening to an invisible narrator explaining how this place doesn’t comply with normal laws of physics. That’s already obvious. Wordiness isn’t the answer. I believe nothing convinces readers the story is “real” like wide-eyed, open-mouthed, shocked still silence. Those subtle reactions will magnetize an audience, whether its on the page or on a screen.
I’ve read overdone fantasy that explains history and details until I want to scream ‘enough already’ – it reminds me of the line: Me thinks thou doth protest too much. Overexplaining can be insulting, and it does little to convince readers to “believe” in this new world that’s been foisted upon them. I say give the reader some credit for wanting to believe in your world, and help them accomplish this by being more subtle.
Subtlety is powerful. Remember when Harry Potter and his young friends first encountered the moving staircases. They hadn’t been warned about them; they were just told to go to their rooms. Soon dozens of students stood open-eyed and slack-jawed as the staircases moved, wondering how they were supposed to find their rooms but saying next to nothing about the challenge facing them. No over-reaction, no descriptive narration, no lengthy dialog – just flummoxed characters realizing they don’t need to know why these staircases move – they just need to get to their rooms.
Feelings
Subtlety contains the power to turn your readers into believers by tugging at their feelings. A paragraph of description rarely generates feelings. But if a writer can make a reader feel what’s going on in this speculative world, then he or she can make that reader believe it.
Some Spec Fiction authors reuse the same “world” story after story, which is mighty convenient for them. Yet others, like me, face the world creation dilemma with every story they write. Here’s when writers need to remain vigilant and consciously invest in getting the reader to believe in their world. If the backdrop world they create for their characters isn’t believable, even with some effort on the reader’s part, the reader will grow indifferent to the characters and their challenges. In essence, the story’s characters can fall off a cliff, drown, or win the lottery, but the unconvinced reader won’t care much because they’re not invested. They just don’t feel the story’s world is real.
Feelings are the key to investment. If an author can guide readers through their distrust of the author’s “different” world and to the suspension of their disbelief, then the readers will readily hang in with the story.
Belief is a Compliment
A few weeks ago, one of the reviewers in our critique session gave my speculative story a great compliment. She wrote, “I believed in your world – it felt real.” Awesome! I could have jumped through the computer to shake her hand and buy her lunch.
Authors should remember to invest in their audience by using feelings to convince readers that the fanciful world they’re visiting is real.