"But it doesn't happen on Earth!" or "But it's a fantasy!"

[Penpilot]

I wonder what limits or requirements we might place on geological oddities, climate oddities, weather oddities?

Talking out of my butthole here a bit, but these things along with creatures are setting. So maybe living in a world we don't fully understand with oddities isn't exactly a foreign thing, because our world is full of amazing creatures and fantastic sights, so I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept a different world with equally amazing creatures and sights.

BUT, I think we're less accepting of characters doing things without foreshadowing because readers understand characters. They are characters, with motivations and abilities that have logical reasons behind them. So when we read about a character doing something unreasonable, it's a lot easier to say "Hey, that's BS. I wouldn't have done something like that."

In Star Wars Episode 4, everyone understands why Han shot first, but does anyone care for an explanation of how the force really works?

In the Star Wars prequels, how many people really care about the inner workings of the Senate, trade embargoes, etc.? And how many people would have really liked a well thought out reason why the f#ck Padme just died? OR why Anikin just went all darkside at the flip of a switch?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Are we far less likely to simply accept, without explanation or foreshadowing, a character doing something seemingly preposterous than we are to accept the existence of an odd creature? (That may dip into the Mary Sue problem. Or that might evoke the deus ex machina problem if the character also somehow manages to save the day by performing a preposterous action that hasn't been foreshadowed.)

I wonder what limits or requirements we might place on geological oddities, climate oddities, weather oddities?

In response to the first question: Definitely, because it's an accepted thing in fantasy to have

But, for the sake of a functional story, characters have to think and act in a way that's somewhat the same as they do in reality. That's the rule. Characters are such a fundamental point of reference for us. We understand the story through them. Also, we all ARE humans (I assume; genuinely sorry if I have failed to take into account any non-humans that might be reading this...) and human behavior, human traits...are very easily the most universal of all human experiences because we ARE HUMANS. That's why they're hard to handwave.

As for geology/climate/weather: I've heard that Mirkwood couldn't exist in real life because of the rain shadow cast by the Misty Mountains. It would be a desert. Does anyone care? No.

Your readers' only grounds to reject an idea as unrealistic or impossible are their own knowledge and experience. On a subject very few people understand, you can do quite a bit of handwaving. But, if it's something a lot of people have experience with, like childbirth, people will notice. And portraying it badly will break your credibility as an author.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

For me, how much I forgive does have a lot to do with how much I'm enjoying the book. How well the author's doing everything else.

I once read a book where a character jumped out of a third-story window and escaped unharmed. That was annoying (and it wasn't a fantasy story either). That wasn't the only thing that bent logic; there were so many plot points that depended on it. But I liked the book, so it didn't bother me.

HOWEVER, toward the end, when a character did something that seemed illogical given the circumstances...it ruined the book for me. When authors make characters act out of character to justify something, it ruins everything.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Talking out of my butthole here a bit, but these things along with creatures are setting. So maybe living in a world we don't fully understand with oddities isn't exactly a foreign thing, because our world is full of amazing creatures and fantastic sights, so I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept a different world with equally amazing creatures and sights.

BUT, I think we're less accepting of characters doing things without foreshadowing because readers understand characters. They are characters, with motivations and abilities that have logical reasons behind them. So when we read about a character doing something unreasonable, it's a lot easier to say "Hey, that's BS. I wouldn't have done something like that."

In Star Wars Episode 4, everyone understands why Han shot first, but does anyone care for an explanation of how the force really works?

In the Star Wars prequels, how many people really care about the inner workings of the Senate, trade embargoes, etc.? And how many people would have really liked a well thought out reason why the f#ck Padme just died? OR why Anikin just went all darkside at the flip of a switch?

In Star Wars, I don't care why all the planets are made of only one biome, how the space slug can live on that asteroid, how the Ewoks climb trees with those stubby fingers...What I do care about is why on earth did Padme, an apparently intelligent woman, fall for creepy Anakin? How did Obi-Wan not figure it out until the end of Ep. III? And yes, why did Padme die?

But, I'm probably going to attract all the prequel-haters this way, so, I'll stop.

There's nothing I hate worse than when authors hijack characters' autonomy to satisfy plot points...

 

[Deleted member 4265]

I wonder what limits or requirements we might place on geological oddities, climate oddities, weather oddities?

This is actually one of the reasons I've never read ASOIAF. Its not that I mind the seasons being unpredictable, but it does bother me that the plants and animals don't seem to have made any sort of adaptations to it (granted I'm not entirely sure what that would be). Maybe this doesn't bother a lot of people, but it irks me.

 

[FifthView]

On a subject very few people understand, you can do quite a bit of handwaving. But, if it's something a lot of people have experience with, like childbirth, people will notice. And portraying it badly will break your credibility as an author.

Today I read about Mary Gorgens. Waking up from pains, and giving birth 2 minutes after she told her husband the baby is coming.



I am not giving up on this.

But I think that the story we are telling is important. Will this fit? Can I do this in a believable way? Do I need this? Will worrying over it, trying to make it work, be more trouble than it's worth? Will including it without worrying about making it work break my story? And I think that considering these things in context with a story in development is far more important than following some preordained template.

But sometimes you just have to roll the dice and let your beta readers or editor whack you over the head.


Edit: Incidentally, this is one of the problems with getting help brainstorming an idea. So much context is left out in those brainstorming posts. Sometimes it's not an idea that is bad, per se, but the fact that it doesn't fit within context or for the needs of the story. Even a great idea that could conceivably fit within the fantasy world might be bad for that particular point in a story.

 

[Reaver]

In Star Wars, I don't care why all the planets are made of only one biome, how the space slug can live on that asteroid, how the Ewoks climb trees with those stubby fingers...What I do care about is why on earth did Padme, an apparently intelligent woman, fall for creepy Anakin? How did Obi-Wan not figure it out until the end of Ep. III? And yes, why did Padme die?

Simple answer to these questions: Shitty writing. How about this: Why is there a kid-sized helmet in that Naboo fighter that Anakin "hides" in in Episode 1? Maybe all Naboo fighter pilots suffer from microcephaly. That must be the reason.

I could probably write a book pointing out all the plot holes in the prequels but why bother? They are three festering turds that cannot be unshat. I say let the flies buzz around and do their thing. Maybe someday someone will have the decency to bury them.

The funniest thing about Star Wars episodes 1-3 is that Lucas said that they're made for kids. You know, because kids love politics, convoluted plots and the implication of children being murdered. But hey, there's Jar Jar right?

 

[FifthView]

Talking out of my butthole here a bit, but these things along with creatures are setting. So maybe living in a world we don't fully understand with oddities isn't exactly a foreign thing, because our world is full of amazing creatures and fantastic sights, so I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept a different world with equally amazing creatures and sights.

BUT, I think we're less accepting of characters doing things without foreshadowing because readers understand characters. They are characters, with motivations and abilities that have logical reasons behind them. So when we read about a character doing something unreasonable, it's a lot easier to say "Hey, that's BS. I wouldn't have done something like that."

In Star Wars Episode 4, everyone understands why Han shot first, but does anyone care for an explanation of how the force really works?

In the Star Wars prequels, how many people really care about the inner workings of the Senate, trade embargoes, etc.? And how many people would have really liked a well thought out reason why the f#ck Padme just died? OR why Anikin just went all darkside at the flip of a switch?

For me the great deal breaker was Anakin flipping like that.

I think that a lot of these things having to do with characters can be reduced to the fact that they haven't earned it.

It's not really that Anakin couldn't have flipped for the reasons he flipped, but that way too many steps were omitted in the telling of his descent into the Dark Side. It was too easy. The same sort of thing could be said about characters performing miraculous feats that haven't been foreshadowed. They haven't earned the right to those feats.

So maybe it's a matter of execution rather than the idea being bad. Which probably brings us back to Helio's central point.

But another consideration:

Perhaps the effect that an event or object has on the story makes a large difference in whether we can accept the oddity without explanation.

So here's a problem I've always had with the Star Wars universe. All these out-of-the-way outposts will have a tavern that is absolutely full of strange alien beings, a great variety, with only 1-3 of each race. But to my way of thinking, the "realistic" approach would be to have the patrons be about 60% of whatever race is native to that world–or more. Now sure, you could say that these taverns cater to travelers so....but that's stretching it for me. But it doesn't matter. The story doesn't really hinge on the composition of the patrons of those places. It's like seeing an alien insect hovering around or some alien creature scurrying to hide behind a bush: I don't need to know its biology, how it can live, because it's not going to matter to the story. But what a main character can or cannot do? That's really important to the story.

 

[Reaver]

Here's an important part of the Star Wars story:

 

[FifthView]

Here's an important part of the Star Wars story

Maybe Obi Wan was lying. You know, to make Luke want to take up the saber.

 

[Reaver]

Talking out of my butthole here a bit...

If you could literally do this, even just a bit, you'd be wealthier than Bill Gates.

 

[FifthView]

This is actually one of the reasons I've never read ASOIAF. Its not that I mind the seasons being unpredictable, but it does bother me that the plants and animals don't seem to have made any sort of adaptations to it (granted I'm not entirely sure what that would be). Maybe this doesn't bother a lot of people, but it irks me.

That's something I've never noticed or thought about. But it's interesting that you have.

 

[Reaver]

Maybe Obi Wan was lying. You know, to make Luke want to take up the saber.

Of course Ben lied. He lied when he said Vader killed Luke's father and then when Luke confronts him in RotJ, being the total douchebag, Ben says:

"Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and "became" Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So, what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."

 

[La Volpe]

As for Fifth's point of us accepting magical creatures, but not inconsistent characters, I think Dragon is right. We expect the characters to be human and act like humans. That's a given (unless set up otherwise).

Introducing creatures (and weather oddities etc.) depends on how we present the world. If it's an Earth-like world, strange weather would probably catch our attention and become an inconsistency unless it's explained and added to the schema. Why? Because weather (and physics etc.) is standard throughout the world. Yes, there's tornadoes in one part and none in the other, but tornadoes generally act the same way (I think? Or at least, they all follow the same physical laws) anywhere they occur. So we expect them to act the same way in a Earth-like fantasy world.

Having different creatures in a fantasy world is more natural, I'd think, since we're used to really weird animals, and more importantly, new areas having new animals in them. So when we're presented with a new world, we expect new creatures and new plants, because that's what we're used to.

That being said, anything new can be introduced as long as you update the reader's schema to include them.

---

What I do care about is

The prequels did a lot of things wrong, but these three didn't really bother me.

why on earth did Padme, an apparently intelligent woman, fall for creepy Anakin?

What do you mean? Intelligent women fall for creepy and/or 'bad' men ALL THE TIME. It's not weird at all. And frankly, Anakin wasn't 'creepy' at the start. Ergo, after she fell in love with him, she'd ignore his creepy new traits because love-goggles.

How did Obi-Wan not figure it out until the end of Ep. III?

This was actually something that felt really realistic to me. Obi-Wan raised Anakin from a boy, trained him and loved him like he was his brother. Of course he ignored things that would have led him to the conclusion that Anakin is turning to the dark side. He didn't want to believe it, so he subconsciously ignored the things that led him to a conclusion he didn't want to be true.

We all do that. It's basically confirmation bias.

And yes, why did Padme die?

Eh, because plot? Yeah, this wasn't explained and didn't really make sense but it didn't bother me.

 

[Penpilot]

If you could literally do this, even just a bit, you'd be wealthier than Bill Gates.

Yeah, me, the bearded woman, and all the geeks in the sideshow would be wealthier than all the sheikhs.

 

[glutton]

Eh, because plot? Yeah, this wasn't explained and didn't really make sense but it didn't bother me.

From a more meta standpoint, she was too likable and important a character in the previous movies to be discarded without much fanfare just like that.

 

[bdcharles]

Thoughts on this? How do you guys show your worlds are "not Earth" without hand-holding or getting too deep into exposition?

Ah, this is a great question! I think setup is key, but as you say, excessive infodumping can kill a story. So a good way, in my view, is to just give things a little precedent, almost a throwaway vignette - so let's say a character overhears someone say "Yeah, I got whipped, but, you know, the second skin really helps" it adds a term, second skin, to the schema, so we have a frame of reference for it not hurting, if we refer to it later. The trick then is to not make it either too centre-staged when its sole purpose is simply to render the later instance (of the whipping or whatever) more meaningful, but also not to make it so minor that readers don't internalise it and are just as lost when the whipping does actually occur. Maybe a second mention is useful in those cases, just to cement it in readers mind's.

I suppose an additional challenge is to ensure that the first occurrence of the fantasy thing - whipping in this case - needs to be relevant and not totally random, so it has to be sort of smoothed into some actual plot-centric goings on or other worldy-buildy Eg:

An unseen hand pulled back the stout oaken door and Boben stepped over the warped threshold into a hundred unrelated conversations.

- My arm hurts, it really hurts when I swing it -
- Yeah, I got whipped, but the second skin really helps, they didn't know -
- So don't do it then, what the hell's the matter with you? -
- Mama? Mama said that you had told her that I was going to the war at the coast -

He laid his elbow on the bar. "Give me a ruby porter - in an earthenware jug!" he barked at the innkeeper.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Who says they haven't adapted? Adaptations (if any) would be subtle to make sure they survive, and why would tight 3rd POV ever point out such a thing? Plants are extremely effective at surviving wild weather incidents with longevity of seeds, dormancy, and how they are spread, and if animals hadn't adapted they would be dead. Plants would have few issues with long winters or an ice age. Several years of winter really isn't that huge of a deal for many northern animals (on the basis of cold), for those it is a big deal, they move south or die. The bigger issue is food supply, but that's a move south scenario.

This is actually one of the reasons I've never read ASOIAF. Its not that I mind the seasons being unpredictable, but it does bother me that the plants and animals don't seem to have made any sort of adaptations to it (granted I'm not entirely sure what that would be). Maybe this doesn't bother a lot of people, but it irks me.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah, I'm NOT talking about using a pre-ordained template. Please don't think that's what this is about. What I'm talking about is execution. If you want to use a precipitous birth, please, by all means, do! Use a precipitous birth attended by midwife bluebirds if you want to, but understand that you will have to do a bit of set up before that scene to make it plausible to the reader.

I've had more time to think about this and I think that:

- When introducing something new, you can do whatever you like. If you are introducing a new planet, or a new setting, or a magical forest, or a new species the reader has no schema for, then you can do whatever you like. It is open ended. The reader won't question it as much.

- If you are introducing something fairly common and mundane, like a whipping, birth, or making pancakes, and you want to shake it up a bit (like introducing midwife bluebirds, or a whip that doesn't hurt) then set up is needed.

 

[Heliotrope]

*Note:

The difference too, FV, is that because you have second hand experience with precipitous birth, and you have spent some time recently researching it for background knowledge, you would be able to pull it off in a realistic way. If you were to interview your grandma, or read some articles, you would be able to add in small details that make it feel more "plausible" and make the character feel more "alive".

You've done your due diligence.