I am hoping to start a discussion about the willing suspension of disbelief in reading fanfiction and those stories that have elements that make readers think “that’s not right”, or “what was the author thinking?” or even just “WTF?.” I consider myself a reader and not a writer and my intent is not to discourage writers so I will try to be circumspect in describing my examples.
Sometimes SOD issues are with mundane matters, not the fantastic. There is a Buffy/Star Wars/Stargate Halloween multi-crossover story where the author uses a patent as a plot device to bring the Stargate characters into contact with the Buffy characters. The patent as described in the story would have been rejected and therefore in my opinion should not get the attention it gets in the story:
A.) You cannot patent part of an invention or an incomplete invention. The application as described is intentionally incomplete.
B.) The invention’s description matches the criteria USPTO uses to define a perpetual motion machine and no model was included. USPTO requires a working model to grant a patent for a perpetual motion machine.
Another suspension of disbelief issue can be when an author has a character act in a very different manner with very little explanation. There is a Harry Potter/The Mask crossover that has Hermione participating in the creation of what I interpret as a new social underclass at Hogwarts prior to her fifth year, less than a year after she created SPEW in canon. In story it is described as a prank enforced via a binding magical contract, but its effects (enforced nudity, forced gender change for wizards, the addition of a tail) all look to me to be meant as lowering the affected student’s status, dehumanizing them.
Another example of this is a Buffy/Stargate/multiple anime Halloween crossover that has General Hammond and other members of the SGC act in what should be for them be illogical and unprofessional manners.
They seemingly without reservation accept a speculative conclusion from an amateur civilian group using images sourced from a single newscast of a mysterious event - with no mention of alternate data sources being gathered, reviewed, and analyzed (Geophysical survey and weather satellite data, CCTV camera recordings that were stored outside the affected area, possible eyewitnesses via air, sea, or even highway traffic) in story.
Later in the story some of the affected Buffy characters visit the SGC. Hammond and others in my opinion inappropriately focus on Tara (who has become Mihoshi Kuramitsu.) Hammond assigns researching her to Rodney, who has taken over running the science and technology department after the in-story departure of Sam Carter. This is an improper waste of resources in my mind. Researching her required no advanced technical or scientific knowledge and needs no access to classified government information. The author seems to have this happen simply so Rodney can recognize and be disconcerted by other characters in a later chapter.
So, what do you all think? What ideas and plots cause this reaction for you? Do any of the above strike you as they do me? Let’s talk.
Kilroy
Kilroy Wrote:Sometimes SOD issues are with mundane matters, not the fantastic. There is a Buffy/Star Wars/Stargate Halloween multi-crossover story where the author uses a patent as a plot device to bring the Stargate characters into contact with the Buffy characters. The patent as described in the story would have been rejected and therefore in my opinion should not get the attention it gets in the story:
A.) You cannot patent part of an invention or an incomplete invention. The application as described is intentionally incomplete.
B.) The invention’s description matches the criteria USPTO uses to define a perpetual motion machine and no model was included. USPTO requires a working model to grant a patent for a perpetual motion machine.
That particular scene didn't trip my SOD for the patent issues--patent law's not something I have a lot of experience with--but it
did strike me as a serious and oddly out-of-character dick move for the protagonist to do. That sort of "for your own good" bullshit never sat quite right with me, and for a character who was trying to keep their powers a secret just filing a patent on a bit of superscience seems weird on the face of it. But I can't say it
broke my SOD, as that seems to have a higher than usual tensile strength.
I'm with you that when characters start behaving significantly off-model with no damned explanation it busts my SOD wide open. One recent example: I recently started reading a Harry Potter fic where Harry and Hermione start a full-on Reign of Terror style revolution from the last chapter of Deathly Hallows, without bothering to explain how they became bitter, hardened revolutionaries. Stopped reading pretty quickly after that.
Mr. Fnord
interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Far too many fic authors do not do the research and just write what seems cool. And most of them don't care. A few will actually get belligerent about it, like I as a reader am somehow indebted to them simply because they wrote something and have no right to point out flaws in what they wrote.
To answer your question directly, far too many fics ping my radar this way. Some I read anyway because the fun or the awesome overrules the reality, but most of them I give up on as soon as I see which way they're heading. Specific things that annoy me? Well, you can look at Skysaber's work for a good, concise collection. When he's on the ball, his stuff is fun as hell and often funny as hell. But far too often it spirals out of control and being a protagonist in one of his stories becomes a license to commit any atrocity while lecturing everyone in earshot about how it is the right and proper thing to do. That's when he doesn't just turn a passage -- or a
chapter -- into a lecture by the narrative voice about whatever religious, political or social issue he's wonking on at the moment.
More generally: OOC without explanation or character development always annoys me. "It doesn't work that way", 'it" being anything from nature to politics, is another red flag for me. Rants, lectures, a surfeit of expospeak and "As you know..." Outright errors of fact. Arbitrary changes to the setting made for the convenience of the writer ("I couldn't remember Hermione's middle name, so I made one up" is a classic real example I use in
my writer's guide). In-line author's notes. Errors in vocabulary or usage that make what the writer
wrote and what he
intended two wildly different things.
Oh, I could keep going, but I'll probably spill over into areas which are beyond the scope of your original question.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
My impression of the third example was similiar to the distinction between player knowledge and more limited character knowledge in a RPG campaign. The reader knows that the outlandish theory is correct, so the author has the characters accept it even without any logical reason for them to do so.
M Fnord Wrote:Kilroy Wrote:Sometimes SOD issues are with mundane matters, not the fantastic. There is a Buffy/Star Wars/Stargate Halloween multi-crossover story where the author uses a patent as a plot device to bring the Stargate characters into contact with the Buffy characters. The patent as described in the story would have been rejected and therefore in my opinion should not get the attention it gets in the story:
A.) You cannot patent part of an invention or an incomplete invention. The application as described is intentionally incomplete.
B.) The invention’s description matches the criteria USPTO uses to define a perpetual motion machine and no model was included. USPTO requires a working model to grant a patent for a perpetual motion machine.
That particular scene didn't trip my SOD for the patent issues--patent law's not something I have a lot of experience with--but it did strike me as a serious and oddly out-of-character dick move for the protagonist to do. That sort of "for your own good" bullshit never sat quite right with me, and for a character who was trying to keep their powers a secret just filing a patent on a bit of superscience seems weird on the face of it. But I can't say it broke my SOD, as that seems to have a higher than usual tensile strength.
It did seem to be a failure of strategic thinking. My question with that was also "How did Wolfram & Hart miss the patent?" when the engineer was researching the lightsaber that fell into their hands.
Kilroy Wrote:My impression of the third example was similiar to the distinction between player knowledge and more limited character knowledge in a RPG campaign. The reader knows that the outlandish theory is correct, so the author has the characters accept it even without any logical reason for them to do so.
As far as your third example goes, I think it's reasonable to expect the characters to roll with the situation (no matter how outlandish the situation is) whenever its expedient for the story and as long as the characters remain true to their established selves in the process. Getting to the meat of the story, whatever that is, is the important bit.
Personal example:
Candle in the Dark, the Fenspace/Battletech crossover, really doesn't waste a lot of time with the broader metaphysical implications of the crossover mechanic. It's very much a "well, that happened. Shit, what next?" sort of deal because no matter how ridiculous the setup is the wider brain-breaking philosophical issues take a back seat to what people
really want out of the crossover: fanboys breaking things.
Mr. Fnord
interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
I don't know the story, but I'd honestly believe just about anything coming out of the USPTO. They granted a patent on being a middleman in a financial transaction (but do it on a computer), so the sky is pretty much the limit despite what the statutes say. Besides, laws are changeable, and can be different in fictional worlds. Heck, in some universes, tomatoes are legally vegetables.
The thing that makes me lose suspension of disbelief the most is when I have to ask "are the characters honestly this stupid?" Are they so unsavvy about their genre that they continue to make stupid mistakes to generate repetitive plots? If the answer is "yes", as it is in Ranma 1/2, then by all means proceed. But if the Ph.D. character can't think of the solution to a simple problem that I thought of two chapters ago, I just can't believe. OOC with respect to the original source bugs me a little, but OOC internal to a story bugs me a lot.
The other thing that takes me out of a story are patently aphysical things being passed off as "science", like magical DNA fairies that make you the chosen one. But that's just another form of bad writing, and Bob listed a lot of those already.
-- ∇×V
There was one Harry Potter fic where pretty much most of all our favorite characters from a grim-dark version of the future all go Peggy Sue... and they decide going in to have a bit of fun with it... 'Marauders Style'.
Unfortunately, the author seemed to mix up 'Marauders Style' with 'Saturday Night Live - The Best Hits Ever' and thus came the bait-and-switch. You think you're getting a bit of stellar panksmanship that would make Raven, Coyote, Loki, and Eris all grin eagerly while at the same time srs business is happening? Nope, instead you get nothing but a continuous stream of in-your-face WTFness.
Also add in the utterly screwed up characterization of Snape (even by the standards of Crack Fic) and it was just complete and utter fail.
Don't get me wrong. The gags were freakin' hilarious. A discussion on gender and penises where Dumbledore happens to walk by and drops the casual-as-you-please non-sequitur "I have one, too!" nearly sent me out of my chair. But otherwise... just terrible.
In fact, I think the entire thing that bugged me the most was that we were promised plot in not only the fic summary, but the first chapter as well... and then the author goes, "lulwhat? Plot? We don't a plot! We have lulz and lulz of lulz! LULZ!"
Kilroy Wrote:Another suspension of disbelief issue can be when an author has a character act in a very different manner with very little explanation.
This one annoys me to no end as well, but (as anyone who's read my fanfics can confirm) I'm more interested in characterization than in combat.
I have no problem with new characters (excepting blatant Mary Sues), if they're needed for a story. I do have a problem with turning an existing character into something he, she, or it isn't, even if that's what's needed for a story. On second thought, change "even if" to "especially if" - playing with characterizations that much is something I consider to be a sign that the story belongs in a different universe altogether, possibly an original universe.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:Kilroy wrote:
I am hoping to start a discussion about the willing suspension of disbelief in reading fanfiction and those stories that have elements that make readers think “that’s not right”, or “what was the author thinking?” or even just “WTF?.” I consider myself a reader and not a writer and my intent is not to discourage writers so I will try to be circumspect in describing my examples.
Sometimes SOD issues are with mundane matters, not the fantastic.
Reminds me of a Harry Potter fic where Harry is sent to a parallel dimension where everyone is gender flipped. What bothered me (and a bunch of other readers) was the author's eventual explanation that this was so because the Y chromosome worked differently in the new universe. A later author's note revealed that they were bewildered by the reaction, wondering why everyone was okay with all of the magic people having magic powers, but had our SoD broken by genetics not working as expected.
----------------------------------------------------
"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV
... Why would you use that for an explanation there? Alternate dimensions get a pass because Magic, but Genetics Simply Do Not Work That Way.
Which is one of my SoD things, now I think about it. Every time I see a story, be it fanfic, book, show or game, treat Evolution like it's a series of clear, carefully planned stages, I want to punch someone. It's worse when they treat it as happening to a single person.
Pokemon gets a pass on the grounds it's clearly using the word to mean something entirely different.
Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
Arbitrary changes to the setting made for the convenience of the writer ("I couldn't remember Hermione's middle name, so I made one up" is a classic real example I use in my writer's guide). In-line author's notes. Errors in vocabulary or usage that make what the writer wrote and what he intended two wildly different things.
So, I read your writer's guide, and I have some comments I'd like to make. Should I message you or start another thread, maybe in General Chatter, to make them?
@Matrix Dragon: Except that sex determination
does work that way for birds. Of course, to be consistent, the author would have to genderbend every mammal in the fic, including Hermione's cat and the centaurs, and not just the humans. Failing to do that would break
my SOD. Buckbeak the hippogriff could count as either a mammal or a bird, depending on how the author wants to handle it.
Quote:Inquisitive Raven wrote:
So, I read your writer's guide, and I have some comments I'd like to make. Should I message you or start another thread, maybe in General Chatter, to make them?
Hm. I had a thread around here somewhere, a while back, for comments, but I can't seem to find it right now. Just start one... and yeah, General Chatter seems to be the best place for it. I suspect that if you put it Bob's Other Writing/Fan -- the only other place vaguely appropriate -- no one would ever see it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
The Winchester brothers would not refer to the storage compartment at the rear of the Impala as the "boot." Harry Potter characters would not use "pissed" to mean "angry" or "upset" and they definitely wouldn't use the phrase "pissed off." I've seen both. Ironically, the Potter example was a BTVS crossover, and the phrase was never used by or applied to the main BTVS character, the only character who could be expected to use "pissed" in that way. Yeah, the third person narrative voice used the phrase.
Anyway, authors not paying attention to the way characters talk can really yank me out of a narrative.
Inquisitive Raven Wrote:The Winchester brothers would not refer to the storage compartment at the rear of the Impala as the "boot." Harry Potter characters would not use "pissed" to mean "angry" or "upset" and they definitely wouldn't use the phrase "pissed off." I've seen both. Ironically, the Potter example was a BTVS crossover, and the phrase was never used by or applied to the main BTVS character, the only character who could be expected to use "pissed" in that way. Yeah, the third person narrative voice used the phrase.
Anyway, authors not paying attention to the way characters talk can really yank me out of a narrative.
Maybe the writer wrote the fanfic while he was pissed... if so, he should have sobered up first.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:Inquisitive Raven wrote:
The Winchester brothers would not refer to the storage compartment at the rear of the Impala as the "boot." Harry Potter characters would not use "pissed" to mean "angry" or "upset" and they definitely wouldn't use the phrase "pissed off." I've seen both. Ironically, the Potter example was a BTVS crossover, and the phrase was never used by or applied to the main BTVS character, the only character who could be expected to use "pissed" in that way. Yeah, the third person narrative voice used the phrase.
All manner of misused words in the mouth of a non-character narrative voice will bounce me completely out of my SOD. And the wrong slang/informal speech for the culture will do it just as fast. Your Harry Potter example is very typical of what sets me off -- I'm very familiar with what British speech patterns of all social levels sound like, and Potter kids talking like Americans is a fail as far as I'm concerned. In addition to the "Harry Potter advice" section of my writer's guide, I've also been working up a general Britspeak guide for these situations -- 18K and counting -- but it's not ready for primetime yet.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
I like time travel stories, but when the character or description doesn't take it into account the changes that occur with traveling in time, the story is ruined for me and I stop reading.
For example a several years back I came across this fan fic where Ranma and his extended "family" were tossed by a spell 300 plus years into the past and nothing CHANGED in the story.
The first 5 chapters were set in modern 1990's Japan and then in chapter 5 the "family", while on a picnic were tossed back 300 some years and once chapter 6 was finished and the "family" had acquired a period home. Nothing actually changed in the story description for example Kasumi "TURNED ON THE STOVE" and "TURNED ON THE LIGHTS" when she was at a door entering a room. This type of thing wasn't just happening with one character or parts of a chapter it was threaded through every part of the chapter.
From Chapter 7 on the story was supposed to be set in the late 16th and early 17th century Japan and none of the characters modern or period were given descriptions that would let you think they were living in the past with all the profound changes in skills, knowledge, technology and politics that have occurred in 300 years..
There was a little window dressing such as mentioning dirt roads, horses, candles or lanterns, but the implementations and descriptions just made for a jarring 4th wall breaking train wreck.
The writer mentioned large numbers of Chickens, pigs, horses and other farm animals in the roads with no mention or reaction from the modern peoples to the manure or smell. The roads described in martial arts fight segments were describe as having sidewalks and being hard surfaced. From chapter 7 on the story was technically well written, but so badly broken with such things as running with a stick candle in one hand and a sword in the other, Ice cream and other modern frozen foods were eaten during the summer with no mention of being extraordinary to the people of the period. Dirt roads were mentioned, but dust, manure or mud wasn't mentioned and these roads "shattered" after a rain when a martial artist was slammed into them. Wagons were "driven" down the roads and left "parked" for days in front of the homes. I had been emailing the writer rather consistently since the second or third chapter had been posted to her web page and sending the praise for the rather good writing and standard error checking, but when I mentioned the time travel problems and gave her reference pages with actual descriptions of 16th century cities and the limitations of the periods technology or descriptions of how bad dirt roads and streets filled with animal dropping really were I was told rather impolitely that she was a history major and how dare me try and correct her.
She never replied to me again, which was rather sad, she had given me a idea for time travel story method that imparted a magic to the traveler that gave the time traveler an ability to magically mimic modern technology, with period tools and settings.. A crude candle when turned and pointed like a flashlight suddenly puts out a focused beam of light like a flashlight and a simple brushing of the hands on the wall as they enter a room lights or puts out the candles on the tables or oil antern hanging on the wall. Picking up a short stick and "striking" it against a hard surface is enough to put a flame on the tip and other countless habitual actions produce "modern" results. Guiding horses hooked to a wagon by making the motions used for driving a modern car.
I never managed to fully read a chapter past chapter 8 and the writer stopped writing on it after 10 or 12 chapters, leaving Ranma and friends in a very strange 17th century.
hmelton
One thing that broke my suspension of disbelief recently was a scene in a story set in London (UK) in winter.
It mentioned that the snow was a meter deep. (For anyone who doesn't know London, that's about as likely as running into a pride of lions in the street.)
Another thing is when the character's actions are too obviously being driven by the needs of the plot. When there's no discernable reason for someone to have done what he just did except to move the plot along.
hmelton Wrote:I like time travel stories, but when the character or description doesn't take it into account the changes that occur with traveling in time, the story is ruined for me and I stop reading.
Oh yes. The reverse of this pretty much occurred in
Scooby Gamers when they went from Sunnydale to Brockton Bay and had working televisions and Internet access immediately.
Yea, I immediately noticed that in "Scooby Gamers" fanfic. In the same pattern is moving a legend to a more modern setting without actually taking into account the improvement of inventions. I'm sorry, but Zorro was barely believable with muzzle loading weapon, it just isn't believable when most of his enemies have revolvers and other repeating weapons.
Even relatively modern comic book characters can really run into problems especially when they move the origin story forward in time and essentially retell all the stories in a ?modern? setting. I"ve seen this fail especially badly in Superman fanfics, where Clark currently acting as Superman and putting out a fire in California has "Clark's" cell phone in his cape and when it's "ultrasonic" ring tone goes off he ducks into a cloud at 15,000 feet and takes the call as Clark. How long do they think Superman's secret identity will last when Clark's cell phone is constantly pinging cell phone towers all across the United States at what can only be hypersonic speeds.
hmelton
Clark's phone is actually in Metropolis, and the call is relayed to him via Kryptonian technology or (If it's a setting where the Justice League is well established) perhaps a Wayne Industries satelite.
"Clark's phone is actually in Metropolis, and the call is relayed to him
via Kryptonian technology or (If it's a setting where the Justice League
is well established) perhaps a Wayne Industries satelite."
Yea Matrix Dragon's idea quoted above is how we decided to handle it in the "Superman Unbound" and "Superman Unleashed" fanfic universes, but I was referring to several superman Fanfics where Superman was carrying around his unmodified consumer grade civilian cell phone. They all made me go "huh" and stop reading breaking the story, at least for a little while.
I've also came across a short and funny Lois and Clark Fanfic that highlighted the problem by using it to build a fanfic around Clark's local telephone company working desperately, without his knowledge to keep his cell phone from revealing to others he is Superman.
hmelton
Ha, that fic's a funny idea alright.
When it comes to technology, or the lack thereof at times, I think the real difficult part isn't just adjusting it to fit the setting, but doing it in a way that doesn't turn into a pointless infodump. I mean, I'm a fan of the Honor Harrington books, but several pages of explanation on a minor side topic is going too far in the other direction
You have to find the middle ground.
Okay,I'll start with one of mine. I read a story recently that about halfway through took a turn for the post-singularity type stuff. Leaving aside the part where the world was more unique and interesting before that happened... do you seriously expect me to believe something based on the premise of computers and machinery that are perfectly reliable forever?* Why don't you have quantum mechanics that work the way they do because subatomic particles are made up of colonies of tiny unicorns? It'd make about as much sense.
*Exacerbated in this particular case by a particular case where something didn't work completely right when one group of people did it, but *did* work completely right a different time.
Kilroy Wrote:In story it is described as a prank enforced via a binding magical contract, but its effects (enforced nudity, forced gender change for wizards, the addition of a tail) all look to me to be meant as lowering the affected student’s status, dehumanizing them.
I don't think that would even reach the SoD filter for me. I'd hit something like that and go "Author, you seem to have some fetishes. I don't think I'm interested in hanging around for them. Bye." (Admittedly, I've sat through a lot of Jack Chalker books, but this sounds... much less subtle.)
Bob Schroeck Wrote:Well, you can look at Skysaber's work for a good, concise collection. When he's on the ball, his stuff is fun as hell and often funny as hell. But far too often it spirals out of control and being a protagonist in one of his stories becomes a license to commit any atrocity while lecturing everyone in earshot about how it is the right and proper thing to do.
Always seemed to me like it was always when his characters ran out of actual goals to pursue that things really started to go crazy. (Kind of makes it amazing how often CXD didn't go off the rails, given that "the main character can't pursue his actual goals right now" was a recurring thing.)
Though a lot of the stuff you posted isn't something that feels like a suspension of disbelief issue to me, rather than just generic crap.
Matrix Dragon Wrote:... Why would you use that for an explanation there? Alternate dimensions get a pass because Magic, but Genetics Simply Do Not Work That Way.
It really didn't seem like a thing that needed explaining at all and I'm not sure why they bothered. But at least it's just an author's note that can be completely ignored without affecting the story.
There's a Negima fanfic with a similar premise, except that the author isn't reversing the way gender roles work in that universe, just the genders of the characters. In one AN he noted that realistically, flipping the genders of historically everyone ever would not give that result, but that it was pretty much necessary given the ideas he was trying to explore in the story, which struck me as fair enough.
-Morgan.
Quote:Though a lot of the stuff you posted isn't something that feels like a suspension of disbelief issue to me, rather than just generic crap.
Well, I guess I have a wider definition of what constitutes a violation of suspension.
Anything that damages the transparency of the narrative, by which I mean drawing attention to the fact that it
is a story, is an SOD issue to me. And that includes anything where I stop and go, "no, that's
wrong" for any reason.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.