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jackContrary to popular rumour, my love for mechanistic magic systems isn't all-consuming. I love stories where people exploit the system, stories about ideas -- old school science fiction about the possibilities of technology that hadn't been realised; everything by Greg Egan and Ted Chiang; HPMOR; much of the magic and plots in Brandon Sanderson's books. Ender's Game.
But I also love stories which work as stories. And I love the one good idea that suddenly works, even, or maybe especially, in magic systems which are more magical and less mechanistic.
But I think a lot of the fun of the story is lost when the reader doesn't have the knowledge to know what matters and what doesn't. Most stories have some things which are supposed to not be known to the reader, at least in theory. And most have some things which ARE supposed to be known to the reader.
A story where the hero is rushing to prevent something, and the audience know it won't work the way she intended, or don't know if it will work the way she intends, is told in a different way to a story where audience know what she's trying would work, but don't know whether she will be able to achieve it.
But if you screw up your worldbuilding, your audience won't know which. It's supposed to be obvious because "that's what the physics says" or "because they discussed that on p87" or "that's just how this sort of story works"? OK, fine, if that's ALWAYS right. If your book is ALWAYS consistent with the physics, and has examples to show it, then fine. If not, your audience doesn't know to trust you and probably won't. Likewise, they discussed it -- are the characters usually right about this sort of thing, or are they USUALLY undermined by some deus ex machina?
It's not important to be consistent with the real world, it's important to be consistent with your audience's expecations. Which in many ways is a lot harder. Being "slightly more consistent with the real world than your audience expects from similar books" is a good way of doing that, but not the only way.
To steal an example from John Scalzi, if the climax of you film involves a character dying in a tragic way by falling into lava, that's a bad moment to suddenly introduce a whole bunch of new rules no-one saw until now. I think even Scalzi would lose his suspension of disbelief if the character fell into lava and turned into purple mosquitos. But to everyone who's spend 5 minutes thinking about the density of rock, "falling into lava and sinking" is just as ridiculous. And yes, most people don't know that, so the story is fine for them. But Scalzi's point was that the moment of "suspension of disbelief" is arbitrary and varies between people. And my point is, that's sort of true, but more, that moment is determined by the consistency and trust the film has built up to that point, and the genre conventions of previous similar films.
Sometimes that's really unfair, because you want your book to be judged without those expecations. But there's not much you can do about it, except work to undo them or accept people familiar with them won't get your book as much.
This is why I keep caring about films which blatantly break worldbuilding they've previous established. If there's skyscrapers in your fictional Washington DC, that's stupidly untrue but doesn't break your story -- it's not realistic, but everyone will understand it's the sort of thing you get in cities. But if a tiny seaside village has lots of random skyscrapers, people will expect it to be a plot point because it's the opposite of what they expect.
In fact, I love magical magic systems. In some ways they're easier because they can do anything. But in many ways they're harder, because what's possible has to be determined by "what feels like it would be possible" which can be personal and hard to establish -- it needs a combination of shared expectation, and subtle world-building that doesn't invite people to pick at it.
But this is why I hate it if people say you shouldn't care about this sort of plot hole. I'm not saying you should care. But if you accidentally know that (for instance) different websites are run by different computers and no single program can alter them all, it's really hard to enjoy a plot based on the opposite assumption, because you literally don't know what's going to be possible and what isn't...
But I also love stories which work as stories. And I love the one good idea that suddenly works, even, or maybe especially, in magic systems which are more magical and less mechanistic.
But I think a lot of the fun of the story is lost when the reader doesn't have the knowledge to know what matters and what doesn't. Most stories have some things which are supposed to not be known to the reader, at least in theory. And most have some things which ARE supposed to be known to the reader.
A story where the hero is rushing to prevent something, and the audience know it won't work the way she intended, or don't know if it will work the way she intends, is told in a different way to a story where audience know what she's trying would work, but don't know whether she will be able to achieve it.
But if you screw up your worldbuilding, your audience won't know which. It's supposed to be obvious because "that's what the physics says" or "because they discussed that on p87" or "that's just how this sort of story works"? OK, fine, if that's ALWAYS right. If your book is ALWAYS consistent with the physics, and has examples to show it, then fine. If not, your audience doesn't know to trust you and probably won't. Likewise, they discussed it -- are the characters usually right about this sort of thing, or are they USUALLY undermined by some deus ex machina?
It's not important to be consistent with the real world, it's important to be consistent with your audience's expecations. Which in many ways is a lot harder. Being "slightly more consistent with the real world than your audience expects from similar books" is a good way of doing that, but not the only way.
To steal an example from John Scalzi, if the climax of you film involves a character dying in a tragic way by falling into lava, that's a bad moment to suddenly introduce a whole bunch of new rules no-one saw until now. I think even Scalzi would lose his suspension of disbelief if the character fell into lava and turned into purple mosquitos. But to everyone who's spend 5 minutes thinking about the density of rock, "falling into lava and sinking" is just as ridiculous. And yes, most people don't know that, so the story is fine for them. But Scalzi's point was that the moment of "suspension of disbelief" is arbitrary and varies between people. And my point is, that's sort of true, but more, that moment is determined by the consistency and trust the film has built up to that point, and the genre conventions of previous similar films.
Sometimes that's really unfair, because you want your book to be judged without those expecations. But there's not much you can do about it, except work to undo them or accept people familiar with them won't get your book as much.
This is why I keep caring about films which blatantly break worldbuilding they've previous established. If there's skyscrapers in your fictional Washington DC, that's stupidly untrue but doesn't break your story -- it's not realistic, but everyone will understand it's the sort of thing you get in cities. But if a tiny seaside village has lots of random skyscrapers, people will expect it to be a plot point because it's the opposite of what they expect.
In fact, I love magical magic systems. In some ways they're easier because they can do anything. But in many ways they're harder, because what's possible has to be determined by "what feels like it would be possible" which can be personal and hard to establish -- it needs a combination of shared expectation, and subtle world-building that doesn't invite people to pick at it.
But this is why I hate it if people say you shouldn't care about this sort of plot hole. I'm not saying you should care. But if you accidentally know that (for instance) different websites are run by different computers and no single program can alter them all, it's really hard to enjoy a plot based on the opposite assumption, because you literally don't know what's going to be possible and what isn't...