Suspension of disbelief, or things that make you go huh?

[ECSNorway]

Matrix Dragon wrote:

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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.

This. I got into a huge argument with some people on SV over the last episode of my own fanfic on this. They wanted more detail about the worldbuilding and why Nanoha wasn't just going "Maximum blastage" on the bad guys. And I felt that what they were asking for would be little more than an infodump.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[deadpan29]

A story that had intriguing and original ideas that kept bringing me back, but turned into a perfect storm of things to break my SoD: Succession.
This is a Worm continuation fic that carries on after the end of the story but has nothing to do with Taylor.  Instead a powerful parahuman who ruled one of the many versions of Earth is looking for a successor to receive her power. The world building and exploration of the secondary characters it focused on was good, but there were two things that made me "go huh?"

1) There was a big build up to a comet passing close to Earth, and when it finally happened the author managed to get almost everything about a comet getting that close and how people would react to it wrong.  Relative velocities, scale of distance, events outside of an atmosphere, events inside of an atmosphere, how incredibly rare this occurrence is, etc.

2) The antagonist of this piece kept doing things that made absolutely no sense in light of her stated goals.

The author eventually decided that the complaints had merit, the story wasn't salvageable, and moved on.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Acyl]

So, here's a question. How much research or knowledge do you actually need to do, in order to make a premise work? How much do you actually need to get right?I mean, looking back at the thread, things that have been flagged as suspension-of-disbelief breaking ... include stuff like genetics or whatever not working that way, British kids talking in American English, historical anachronisms...

Well, yeah, I guess a lot of that could be annoying. Lord knows I've quit reading certain fanfics or even professionally published work for that reason.

But, without pointing fingers - and I refuse to say exactly whom I'm referring to - there's at least a couple people in this thread who did stuff in their writing that tripped my radar for 'getting it wrong'. And you didn't change it when I pointed it out. 

Specifically, with regards to Asian name selection and general use of languages being a little Google Translate-y and left of centre. 

So, clearly it wasn't important enough. I mean, I guess the people in question must have figured, hey, it doesn't really matter, you know? Besides Acyl, who the hell is gonna point it out, or even realise something's screwy? And you know? That's a fair assessment. Realistically, it probably didn't matter.

So where do you draw the line?
-- Acyl

[Morganite]

I think I'm going to start with your last question and say "Wherever it feels right to you."

Because it's not like we're talking about an objective standard here. There are some common trends and patterns, certainly. Lots of people are thrown off when things from their own lives or jobs are shown wrong, for instance. But there's a lot of variation too. Some people can accept a lot more variation in culture things (even if it's their own). I personally reach a point where too many convenient coincidences will throw me off a work, although it's not exactly just about number.

Hell, I can think to an RP where I used a name for my character that was, by my own standards, wrong. It's not something I was entirely happy about, but doing the 'right' thing in that case would have thrown me off mentally to a degree that, well, it really wasn't worth trying to do anything about it.

No one's going to be perfect, so you've pretty much got to decide what your own tolerances are.

-Morgan.

[Matrix Dragon]

I don't think I was the one you called out regarding names... I can believe it on the American English/English English problem though. :lol

For me, I tend not to be a 'this one thing made me stop reading' sort of person. Even my loathing of the 'Evolution Don't Work That Way' problem I mentioned on the last page isn't the sort of thing that'll make me stop reading instantly. But it does affect my opinion of the work slightly. The big problem is, the point where you draw the line is different for every person, including the writer. There are things they'll look at and think it's not a problem, only to find that a lot of their readers hold a very different opinion.

[deadpan29]

Going back to my example: Getting the facts on the comet flyby were annoying, but wouldn't have killed the story for me. The bit where neither the "villain" nor the "heroes" (both being shades of gray in a Worm fic) seemed able to put together or execute a coherent plan is was wrecked the story.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Kilroy]

One of the reasons I enjoyed  Mhalachai's Physics of the Spin, a Stargate Atlantis/Gilmore Girls crossover, was that it seemed to include a realistic description for Rory's getting a security clearance so she could work at the SGC. Other authors seem to ignore this sort of hurdle (stargatesg1fan1's Beginning a New Path particularrly annoyed me for how easily Harry & co. got hired.)