Suspension of disbelief

[STING]

One of the keys to the success of a work of fiction is supposed to be the reader's suspension of disbelief. But what happens if a book is "based on real events" or is a "fictionalised account" of something? A British author is credited with the opinion that such a book will be affected by "severance of the suspension of disbelief." If that's the case, how can any work of fiction whose author takes cues from real-life happenings ever succeed? Would this severance affect become any less if the author says the book is "prompted by real events" instead of "based on real events"?

 

[Ursa major]

I don't read newspaper articles (let alone ones on the Web) with an uncritical eye, so I doubt the mere addition of the text, Based on real events, would cause me to suspend disbelief more readily; neither would the text, Prompted by real events. Rather the opposite. In fact, I think those phrases, and "True Story" might induce in me a need for a closer examination of what is written. So to this extent, that "British author" is correct.

On the other hand, what is the problem?

Look at it this way: when I start reading fiction, I am already prepared to accept that what I'm reading did not and could not happen, i.e. I'm already willing to suspend my disbelief. Only if events seem illogical, and there is no possibility that a pseudo-logical explanation will be forthcoming, will I come to believe that at least part of what I'm reading is rubbish. (By pseudo-logical, I mean one that would work in the universe of the book, though not in our, real one.)

Looked at in that way, there is no problem. A fictional story should work in its fictional universe. A story purporting to be real should work in ours. (Not just with respect to, say, physics, but also the the laws of chance: so too many unlikely coincidences are going to be a problem.)

Okay, then, what if real-life but unlikely coincidences did happen? I think the appearance at the beginning of the book of something that suggests that evidence that the more implausible parts of the story are fully founded on fact might be referenced at the back of the book might keep me happy all the way to the last page. (Of course, if the promised evidence turns out to show nothing of the sort, I will not be happy.)


So the suspension of disbelief can be engendered, but in my case, a "promise" that such a suspension need only be temporary would greatly help.


If you still want to write something SFF (i.e. incapable of being possible in our universe), try "suggested by real events" or "inspired by real events".

 

[Sapheron]

Alternatively, you could go with 'more of this is true than you could believe' as seen as the beginning of the film 'The Men who Stare at Goats'. Not only did this reference it to real events, and not only was it still obviously a gag of sorts, but I do wonder if it might actually have made be more willing to suspend a greater proportion of belief. Perhaps it rang a bell in my head as a challenge; 'you do not have the imagination capable to accept these happenings'. Very odd.

If that's the case, how can any work of fiction whose author takes cues from real-life happenings ever succeed?

How can any book be written without taking cues from real life happenings, successful or not? If you wonder that crediting it to a particular real life event and then portraying it differently could be a bad thing, then why don't you simply not mention or credit the original event? There is no reason why you can't. On the other hand, if you do want to credit, a more vague form of it as Ursa suggested would be fine by me if I was reading.

Did that help? I get the odd feeling that there's a lot of ramble and not much said this time...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Ursa's "suggested by real events" or "inspired by real events," should do it for most readers. At least for those who are willing to suspend their disbelief to begin with, and who don't confine almost their reading to nonfiction because they don't want to waste their time reading anything that isn't true. You could never win those readers over except by writing something absolutely outrageous, insisting that it's the hidden story the people involved don't want you to know, thereby appealing to their desire to know something that other people don't.

In general, I would say that the further back in time the story is set, the less readers will expect you to record real life conversations and the more they will accept your extrapolations to fill in gaps in the historical record (unless, that is, they are historians or history buffs with a particular interest in that era, who will notice all of the little details that you unintentionally get wrong), so that you probably won't even have to add the disclaimer if you are writing about events that happened two or three centuries ago.

I am speaking of stories where you are generally sticking to the facts. If you are writing alternate history, it's a different matter entirely. Then you just make sure that you establish some of the major differences from our own timeline as early in the story as possible:

"I fear, sir, that we are having more trouble with our colonies in North America."

King Winston I looked up from his desk to see the very junior secretary who brought him the news standing just inside the door to his office at Buckingham Palace. Young Eddie Windsor was a promising lad from an old but impoverished family ...

And you leave it up to the information on the book jacket to explain the basic premise. That way readers will know what to expect, and they won't receive an unpleasant jolt when Franklin Roosevelt turns up scouting out locations for the next movie he's going to direct.

 

[Luc Valentine]

If you wrote a faithful account of a real world event complete with actual coincidences, no one would believe it really happened. I would paraphrase "truth is stranger than fiction" as "fact is stranger than fiction" precisely because fiction is better suited at conveying truth than nonfiction.

 

[MstrTal]

The Novel "Fires on the Plain" by Shohei Ooka is a fairly good example of a book "Inspired by true events."

While fiction the author drew inspiration for it from his time in service in the Pacific Theater during the final days of WW2. It is a wonderful book that has won many awards and acclaim over the years and has been translated from Shohei's native Japanese a number of times. While reading it I had no trouble suspending belief even though I was reading it for a class on Modern Japanese History and I know that many of the details and accounts listed through out the narrative did in fact occur to varying degrees.

I was left wondering however if the events that happened to Shohei's protagonist reflected the authors own true life experiences or if they where merely events he witnessed or heard about 1st and 2nd hand. Did Shohei himself murder a woman one moonlit night? Did he survive the American mortar attack on the hospital? Did he consume the "monkey meat" and struggle with a theological conflict. Where these literary devices solely fictitious so that he could in some way convey the desperation and defeat of the average Japanese soldier and his compatriots during those last hellish days when they where cut off and abandoned by their command and their home?

So even if fiction draws inspiration or is based upon a true life event or something of historic significance it can still serve to draw in the reader and separate them for a time from reality. It can also be a wonderful tool to engage the reader and work their brain. So long as its not presented as academic truth even we die-hard history buffs/historians love a good story.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

See, this is why I don't like to write pieces taking place in our current real universe. I might involve Earth from time to time, but, my writing has its own separate universe where things work just a little differently.



I just think it would be too much work to ever try to write something based on real events. That's not to say there aren't plenty of interesting events in our history, just nothing I can really be bothered to try to research and remember.

 

[Caledfwlch]

See, this is why I don't like to write pieces taking place in our current real universe. I might involve Earth from time to time, but, my writing has its own separate universe where things work just a little differently.



I just think it would be too much work to ever try to write something based on real events. That's not to say there aren't plenty of interesting events in our history, just nothing I can really be bothered to try to research and remember.

Harry Turtledove's giant "American Empire" alt history series.

Some of his other work like "Guns of the South" worked perfectly for me, time travelling South African Racists from the Future travel to the Confederacy and give them blueprints for manufacturing simplified AK47 Assault Rifles, using contemporary materials.

But American Empire, I just couldnt quite suspend belief. The premise is, the South won the civil war, now there are 2 "Americas" and World War One lumbers up with a massive change, later followed by a Second World War.

And basically, what he did, is he took every significant event of WW2, and what led to it, and he relocated it faithfully to the United States, and that just did not work for me, not to mention other issues. Instead of death camps for jewish people in Germany and Poland, we have death camps for african americans in the Confederacy. The whole point of changing an important event in history is the future from that point is then yours to play with, strictly adhering to the timeline and events of real history, just moved to a different country just seems a waste of imagination

One issue that did not gel for me: The new World War One.

The "Central Powers" A vastly smaller USA, Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Bulgaria, Armed Socialst African American groups, operating as 5th columnists in the Confederacy.

On the "Entente" side
The Confederate States of America, The British Empire inc the Dominion of Canada, The French Republic, The Russian Empire (no revolution), Belgium, Portugal, Serbia, Imperial Japan, China, Mexico, Argentina, Mormon Rebels in the USA.

WW1 ends with the Entente forces comprehensively and utterly smashed by the Central Powers. The United States, hammers the CSA to shreds (believable) whist also destroying the Canadian and Imperial Forces in Canada, and occupying the whole of Canada at the same time (now come on....)

And that did not work for me at all. The sheer size of the British Empire, and the forces it could call on, the European side of events is pretty much as real life, and that still left one of the largest, awe inspiring Navy's in all of History, the Royal Navy, and its Colonial allies, Royal Australian, Royal New Zealand, Royal Canadian, and so on to control, and remain the dominant naval force everywhere, from the Atlantic to the Pacific In naval terms, iirc, WW1 was fairly low key in Europe, the Kaiser's navy was nothing in comparison to the British Empires.

I can go for a German victory in western europe, but losing Canada? The British Empire, with that incredibly powerful Navy, that dominates every ocean agreeing to give up half its colonies to the US? Naaah