Category: werewolf

I though I’d talk about something utterly unbelievable.

No, seriously.

Most of you have probably heard of willing suspension of disbelief. It’s when my readers (or moviegoers or whatever) are willing to overlook or ignore obviously wrong or just plain impossible things for the sake of enjoying a story. It’s a deliberate, often unconscious decision to… y’know, just go with it. We know super-powers aren’t real, but we can still enjoy Wonder Man. Ghosts aren’t real either, but I’ve really been loving School Spirits. Dragons? Also not real, but people keep lining up for Westeros-related stories. Heck, kaiju make no sense whatsoever. None. They’re 100% impossible, on so many levels. But people keep heading out to see Godzilla movies.

The catch, of course, is that this is willing suspension of disbelief. But if I’m not careful, I can push things in my story a little too far and my readers are suddenly no longer willing to suspend their disbelief. It hits a point where they just can’t ignore all the cracks and cut-corners and missing chunks and then… the whole thing comes down.

When that suspension of disbelief starts to crumble—or if you prefer, when disbelief starts to grow—I think it comes from two specific directions. One is from elements within my story. The other is from characters in my story. Let me talk about both of these for a few moments.

If we’re talking about I think genre stories tend to be the immediate targets when we talk about willing suspension of disbelief. Sci-fi. Fantasy. Horror. Genre tends to have a lot of the elements I was talking about earlier—super powers. Ghosts. Monsters. So it’s the easy thing to point at when we talk about suspension of disbelief because they’re easy things to, well, not believe in.

Now, granted, yes, some people just won’t believe this stuff no matter what. We’ve all seen that reviewer who begins “Well, I picked this up even though I never like horror… and now I remember why!” It’s possible for folks who don’t like a genre to tolerate a genre, sure. Just keep in mind, what seems like a little ask for another reader is going to be much harder for them to let slide. Their block of disbelief is going to be calving off massive chunks of disbelief like a glacier dealing with global warming.

I’m saying this just as a reminder– we can’t do anything about these people. If they happen to pick up one of our books, it is what it is. Let’s not worry about them too much.

But even for people who do like these more fantastic elements, there comes a point where I’ve pushed things too far. Maybe I’ve crossed one too many genres. Perhaps I brought in an element too late in the story that makes too big a change. Whatever it is, eventually there’s a beat, a moment, a thing where I’ve just gone too far. I’ve seen John Scalzi call this point “the flying snowman”—that we can accept a snowman who comes to life, sings, eats food (hot food, even), but hang on now he’s flying? Seriously? Oh come on…

Something I’ve talked about here a few times is that stories have to be believable. There needs to be a grounded world my readers can understand. That includes stories set in medieval fantasy valleys, gigantic space stations, and even a world just like ours except no one’s ever done anything about that serial killer who lives across the lake by the old summer camp. Whatever my setting is, it has to be something a reader can—on some level—understand and believe characters can exist in.

Take that giant space station. We all inherently understand the nature of a space station—even a very advanced one—and why it might need different crew members. Maybe even a lot of crew members. We can understand why it’s located out here on the fringes of space, working like a sort of interstellar lighthouse—or maybe a watchtower? Very isolated research? Artificial gravity isn’t a wildly new idea. Neither are supply runs or some form of food synthesizer or an oxygen generator. Look at that. A bunch of very understandable, very believable things about our space station, but still leaving us lots of room for weird, new things we don’t understand. Make sense?

Three quick notes to this. First, I personally try to resist the urge to give normal, familiar things new “genre” names unless it’s going to be really clear what they mean. Too often this is just, well, a lazy way to worldbuild. Most folks will get frustrated if they read through a hundred pages of jha’krynn forging and training before it becomes apparent a jha’krynn is just what people call a shield in this world. Plain old, normal on-your-arm shield. And they should be frustrated. Maybe even a little annoyed—I’ve been making them do extra work for no reason. And that frustration means they’ll be a lot more judgey going forward (maybe even looking back), and less likely to suspend their disbelief.

Second note ties to that other thing I mentioned. A world just like ours except… Some folks think “the real world” means I don’t have to worry about things being believable or relatable. But the truth is, unbelievable things happen in the real world all the time—things that would be pure nonsense in fiction. And a lot of what’s relatable to me in my life would probably be completely alien to a little girl growing up in Aswan. And the life of an undercover NSA agent would probably seem baffling to me. Depending on what my story is, it’s still going to need that grounding.

Third and last. My readers are going to have a sense of what’s possible in my world. Keep in mind, possible can still include highly unlikely. The thing is, knowing what’s possible means they know what’s impossible, and if something comes across as impossible… well, that’s another big chunk off the ol’ disbelief block.

Now… remember, way up there when I mentioned the two directions? Let’s talk about the other one. The Roman numeral II in our outline. Or probably a B, thinking about it.

Anyway…

The other thing that can wear down my willing suspension of disbelief is my characters. If they’re doing or saying unbelievable things, or if they’re just inherently making someone think “I can’t believe anybody would…” I mean, my readers won’t be willing to suspend their disbelief long for someone like that. Honestly, how many found footage movies hit that point where we’re basically yelling at the screen “WHY ARE YOU STILL HOLDING THE CAMERA?!?”

Characters have to be believable. They’ve got to be consistent—or at least consistently inconsistent. I can’t have them acting and reacting in whatever random way happens to move my plot along. My readers need to see motives they can understand. Natural-sounding dialogue. Relationships that are somehow relatable to the average person.

The reason this is important is because when my readers believe in my characters, they’ll believe in what happens to my characters. If I believe in Yakko and Yakko ends up turning into a werewolf, then—by extension—I have to believe in werewolves. If I believe in Dot and she runs into a dragon, oh holy crap, it’s a dragon!

Okay this is getting silly-long so one last tip. It’s silly to point out, but one thing that whittles away at suspension of disbelief really fast is getting facts wrong. If I tell you that WWII ended in 1964 (the same year the first war with Iran began) or that there’s only one T in Manhatan, your brain is going to automatically shift into denial mode for a moment. because you know these aren’t correct. It’s a little slip in that willing suspension of disbelief, and after too many slips…

Yes, there might be a reason my character thinks there was a war with Iran in 1964 (he’s an idiot) or that Manhatan only has one T (we’ve slipped into another universe). But this is yet another one of those I need to be careful/ every story is different things. If I let too many of these build up without an explanation, I’ll hit a point where it doesn’t matter if I have a reason for them or not, because my reader just can’t believe any of this anymore.

There’s also a flipside to this, one that takes a bit of empathy. I can also blow the reader’s willing suspension of disbelief by using completely accurate facts that are unbelievable. There are lots of websites and YouTube channels that’ll tell you about amazing true coincidences or billion-to-one events that actually happened. If I’m basing a chapter—or a whole story—around these things, it could cause problems.

I’ve mentioned this before, but years back I interviewed a filmmaker who’d just finished a documentary about the botched 2003 invasion of Iraq and the even bigger mess that came after it. One of the things he told me was how much material he’d left out of the film. There were so many incidents of complete and utter incompetence in the year after the invasion nobody would’ve believed them. Because they were just so goddamned unbelievable. He told me a few during the interview and I kept saying “What? What?!?”

Oh crap. Wait. One more thing. The for-real final tip, kind of going off that last bit. I’ve said this many, many times before but… being true doesn’t matter. Once it’s on the page, all anyone cares about is if it’s a good story about believable characters. Whether or not the events and characters are real is irrelevant. Too many folks see “true” as some sort of pass that means readers have to accept things. But if I’ve got a true story that’s just completely unbelievable… it means I’ve got a completely unbelievable story. Simple as that.

Y’see, Timmy, that’s what it all boils down to. When your suspension of disbelief is broken, even for a moment, it breaks the flow of my story. The more often the flow’s broken, the harder it becomes for my readers to be invested. And eventually it’s just easier for them to go sit on the couch and get caught up on Starfleet Academy or School Spirits or something.

So keep it believable. Or as believable as you can.

Next time I’d like to rant a little bit about ranting a little bit.

Until then, go write.

I know I said I was going to try to do two posts this week but Tuesday was second shot day which ate up a bit of time but I’m now fully vaccinated! With no real side effects. So go get your second shot so we can all hang out together and things can get back to normal. Well, normal but with some major social reforms that this pandemic has really highlighted as necessary changes.

Anyway…

Look! More questions, more answers! And this takes so much pressure off me, because I don’t have to think of topics…

So, last week, after I prattled on about prologues, JD asked…

“I’m wondering if you have any suggestions on how to judge my pacing? I know every story is different, but in general, are there any tricks or tools to better know when I’m “running out of time” to get back to action before I lose the interest of my (hypothetical future) readers? Not just during the world build, but throughout?”

This takes even more pressure off because this question already contains part of the answer. Not all of it, but, y’know… maybe 20-25%.

When we talk about pacing, the first important thing, as JD said, is to recognize that every author (and every story) is going to approach things differently. Some need to dive right in with the fist fights and explosions. Others may take the slow burn, ramping tension approach. Right off, we need to recognize that pacing isn’t something that’s going to hit a bunch of universal guidelines. I think I’ve mentioned once or thrice before (here and at the Writers Coffeehouse) that I’m verrrrrrrry leery whenever folks set down rules like “introduce your love interest on page 16, inciting incident on page 23,  your first conflict by page 42.” Following blanket rules like this either creates cookie-cutter, formula stories… or it just turns good stories into bad stories. Because they’re being forced to hit benchmarks that don’t apply to them.

I mean, my new book doesn’t even have a love interest. So does that mean everything else bumps up by one page, or…?

The second important thing is to always remember Lee Pace is the best pace. I mean, seriously, look at the range this guy has. Pushing Daisies to Guardians of the Galaxy? I don’t know about you, but I freaked out when I realized that was the same guy.

But, seriously, let’s look at a few rules of thumb. Things we could probably consider as loose guidelines if nothing else. Because again, every book’s going to be different.

I think the best thing to remember is that pacing is a structure issue. Specifically, dramatic structure. I’ve talked about dramatic structure a few times before, so I won’t bore you with it again now. The important thing to remember for this discussion is that it’s always a slope. Sometimes that slope goes up, sometimes it goes down. But what it should never do is amble along on a flat line. Because a flat line means… well, you know. Dead.

Any chapter (or broad swath of my book, if I’m being clever and not doing chapters) should have a clear up or down on that slope. It doesn’t have to be a huge slope, but if I’m starting and ending at the same level of character growth, of overall tension, it probably means I’m doing something wrong. A chapter (I’m just going to keep using chapter as our nice, simple, unit-of-book-construction) should lean things one way or another, whether it’s holy crap you found the lost sword Dyrnwyn or just no, Jules, I’m not just going to give you some of my Doritos. Things need to move higher or slip downwards.

Probably worth mentioning… sometimes in our stories we plant things that don’t pay off until later. Character details. Worldbuilding. Set-ups for twists or other cool reveals. Such things are fantastic, of course, but they still need to work within my overall dramatic structure. It can’t be a situation where a chapter will be interesting in retrospect—it has to be interesting now, on the reader’s first time through.

Granted, this doesn’t mean it has to be interesting for the same reasons. It’s a wonderful skill to be able to pull that sort of sleight of hand, to make my readers look at this and be totally enjoying it, only to later realize that was the thing they should’ve been watching. But it still needs to be a chapter that moves things one way or another on that slope.

Because, again… the worst thing my chapter can do is flatline.

The sort of parallel to this—should be obvious but I’ll say it anyway—is that something needs to happen in every chapter (just to be clear, still using chapter as our basic, large-scale building block). In the same way we want to start with someone’s life changing, on some level or another, we want to keep having things happen. That’s what a good story is—the plot driving someone’s arc and their arc, in turn, is driving the plot. And driving implies we’re going somewhere, not sitting in a parking lot with the engine running.

Again, this doesn’t need to be huge movement. Every chapter doesn’t need huge leaps forward from the plot or broad swaths of character development that completely changes how we look at someone (that’ll usually ring a bit false anyway). Because every story is different and they’re going to move at a different pace depending on where we are in said story.

But they should always be moving. At some speed. In some direction.

How about this. Remember back in the A2Q when I made up a rough outline for a werewolf novel? Let’s take a look at those first few chapters I planned out and how they’re paced.

–Start with Phoebe and  Luna at home.  Both getting ready to go out for the evening, but Luna’s heading out to another party and Phoebe’s going hunting. So they’re looking for things, asking who borrowed what, warning each other to be safe, and so on.

(You can see a more fleshed out version of this here)

This is a slow opening, yeah, but there’s stuff happening. Both characters are doing things, I’m establishing relationships, doing some worldbuilding, which will should build some interest. And things are actually progressing. Both of them are getting closer to their goal of being ready to head out for the night.

–Phoebe’s out hunting and encounters the super-werewolf (although she doesn’t know it’s super yet). She puts a silver crossbow bolt in it and it’s going to ignore it and run off. This will also give her a chance to grumble about losing a silver bolt because they’re expensive. She can track it for a while, find the bolt… but no body.

Now we’re moving at a faster pace. A lot more action, and it’s action moving the story forward as it introduces a bit of an unexpected mystery and what looks to be a greater challenge. The first part got my reader intrigued, so now hopefully this gets them a bit more hooked with a sample of what’s to come.

–The next morning Phoebe goes to the lodge and we meet Luc and talk about hunting last night, if he saw anything noteworthy. Maybe some one-sided flirting?

Intro. Andrea, the Warden of the lodge. She’s willing to entertain the ‘super-werewolf” idea, and will pay an extra $2500 bounty for proof.

Things slow down here, but logically so—it’s daylight, the hunt’s over. Also, structure-wise, we can’t keep things ramped up to nine for the entire book or it’ll make getting to ten seem a lot less interesting. And when everything hits ten on the tension-ometer, I want it to mean something.

Plus, there’s some more worldbuilding, a possible love interest/rival/both, and a new goal for my heroine. It’s a lot of talking, but there’s some physical action taking place and it’s all nudging things along in the plot. Creeping forward, inching the tension up a bit with this new goal (and the implied possibility of not achieving it).

See where I’m going here? The pacing speeds up and slows down, but the big thing is that there’s always a pace. The story’s always moving. I mentioned something a while back that’s very true here–stories are like sharks. If they stop moving they’ll die.

(the shark thing’s not entirely true? Depends on the type of shark? Huh. Learn something every day…)

Again, every story is going to be different, so please don’t look at this as me saying “go slow, then fast, then slow again.” Your story is your story. It’s going to have its own pacing requirements that need to line up with what you want your story to do.

But hopefully this has given you a few things to look for.

Next time, I might finally get to clowns. Or maybe I’ll talk about plotting. That was a question I got a while back that’s still owed an answer. And questions get answers.

Until then, go write.