The suspension of disbelief

 There is an unspoken contract between the writer and their readers.  The reader says to the writer “I’m willing to suspend my disbelief in your story, provided you tell me a tale I can believe in.”

That means there needs to be a logical chain of cause-and-effect events which drive the story along,  The reader needs to see how the main character gets from their cosy everyday ordinary life into the more exciting - and often dangerous - special world of the story.

Several things feed into a story succeeding in keeping the reader on side for its duration.  The first is stakes.  There must be a problem or challenge to solve, or something which the main character has to overcome, to drive the story.  And that thing has to be high-stakes for the main character.  It needs to be something that is so important to them that they’re forced to act to change things.

Which brings me to the second thing which plays into suspending disbelief: the choice of the right main character.  Put simply, the main character you choose must have agency to act.  They must be free to react to the events of the unfolding story, and to adjust their strategy and actions in response to it. This is one reason for one of the commonest young adult story tropes: the orphaned child.

So many parents go missing or are killed at the start of YA books.  It’s a device for freeing the young protagonists from the control and concern of their parents.  Many. YA adventures would never take place if caring parents prevented their children from sneaking off in the dead of night to discover whatever evil is at the heart of the story.

A third thing which helps readers to suspend disbelief is letting them know that the character is up to the job the writer has set them to do,  This can mean foreshadowing at earlier places in the narrative,  If the character needs to have a specialist skill or knowledge or ability that ordinary people wouldn’t have, then the writer has to tell the reader that in advance.

Failure to do so is likely to result in the reader thinking, “Oh come on!  He/she/they couldn’t possibly do that!” and throwing your book across the room.  

In the novel I’m writing now I have sentient trees who communicate via a real forest internet.   I’ve carefully laid the groundwork for this by having my characters discover the extra-thick mycelium, and realising they carry substantial electrical data.  

Those trees also have moveable lower limbs.  I’ve tried to aid suspension of disbelief there by working out how they could move their limbs using a hydraulic system and organic pumps, which I imagine to work a little like our hearts.  I enjoyed the challenge of trying to make the system work.

Helping readers to suspend disbelief is a real art, and it lies in thoroughly knowing your story world yourself, so that you can convince your readers that it exists.