Fragmented / shattered planet.

[ChaoticanWriter]

So, obviously this requires quite a bit of magical surrealism, but just as with any story, fantasy must practice some degree of suspension of belief through magical + scientific logos.

My world takes place in a shattered / fragmented planet.

Imagine a world which is:

• Missing a significant portion of its mass, except there are massive floating continents (three of them) supended around an exposed core.
• The continents are craggy in places, with some chasms, but mostly normal with oceanic masses, biomes, and wildlife.
• Smaller masses of rock do make for "floating island" in the gaps between these continents, but mostly, these gaps bear the glow of the core, through several layers of atmosphere.
• Gravity works much the same way as a normal world, with some anomalies, and decreased gravity
• Tremors are not uncommon in some places. There is also a "tremor season".
• Perhaps (maybe) some ancient, colossal chains which bind one continent to another (also toyed with near indestructable elemental guardians which inhabit the chains, and prevent those from crossing)
• To add to the flavor, some areas on the planet bear hotspots,... geological, and magical

I won't sugar-coat it. The anti-logic speaks for itself. There is a ridiculous amout of science that it being violated, and of which science may justify the notion that life, let along civilization, would be impossible.

First point, "fantasy". Second point, all I am looking for are tool to inject some pseudo intelligent thought into how things persist, let alone thrive.

I've gained some cool insights on what to do, but I'm open to some creative suggestions AND some science-bashing. (chances are the science bashing may help inspire some ideas).

 

[CupofJoe]

Don't explain it.
Any explanation that goes much beyond " the will of the gods" or "magic" will be rubbished by people looking for logic.
There is an explanation for the floating islands of rock in the film Avatar [its a moon around a supermassive gas planet, so that is why they float] but no-one really cares...
You could probably get some sort of pseudo explanation if you mumble the words "quantum string lattice entanglement theory" and hope no-one notices before you shout "Shiny" and point at something pretty.

 

[Night Gardener]

If ALL the characters accept 'this is just the world we live in' there's no reason to *have* to explain it.
The characters live in the world you describe. The reader will have to take it or leave it. What would your characters be comparing their planet to, if this is the only planet they know of as a species? They wouldn't know how impossible it is, and probably won't offer comment.

If you introduce a character (from another planet) that takes a good look around and declares "wtfF is this planet? This is defying laws of physics! What sorcery is this?" well, you as an author will shoot yourself in the foot. Now, the character is asking questions for the reader. Valid, nagging questions.

The flip side would be, the characters once lived in a 'normal' world, something happened, and their scientists or magicians cannot find an explanation for the geologic phenomena you're describing. It's not normal, everybody knows (including the reader) that this is not normal, but there IS NO ANSWER.

Those are your choices, essentially. Ignore it as intrinsic to the reality of the WIP, open a can of worms and attempt to explain it scientifically or magically, or acknowledge there is no plausible explanation and nobody gets a singular satisfactory answer.

I can deal with "floating gasseous landmasses" before I can deal with exposure of the planet core, because gravity. And you know, science. Deep fishers miles into the crust? Yeh. Drilled or artifical canyons miles into the crust? I can suspend my disbelief. But not exposure to the inner layers and the actual core of a planet. Nope.

A highly violent tectonic planet? Sure. Architecture would have to adapt without question. I think the idea of 'tremor season' or aftershock season is great. You could have a daily morning weather forecast and a seismology forecast.

I would not offer an explanation, and leave it for speculation unless the 'why the planet is like this' becomes essential to the plot, i.e. the earth is going to finish flying apart into space unless X can be figured out.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

The Avatar explanation may also work for you. The floating islands float due to having the same magnetic field as the land below. Fields that are alike (north-north or south-south) repel each other. This keeps them I the air while gravity keeps them from escaping entirely. YES there are many issues that can be presented but as mentioned before as long as your characters feel this is acceptable it makes it easier for the reader to feel the same. After all, how can a yellow sun provide the correct energy to allow Superman to fly? What does light have to do with defying gravity? Try changing the focus form the how it happens to describing the effects and how it is used.