Expectations of realism

TheRob1 · Sep 25, 2011

So, just a few minutes ago I was chatting with a friend. He was talking about a fantasy novel that he was reading by a certain (very popular) author.

I've heard mixed reviews of his work and have read a little, but didn't care of it.

I told my friend that I didn't like the author because I found several of the cultural constructs of his world to be implausible and because of several tropes he used that I find to be extremely tacky (and in a few cases really unrealistic). My friend jabbed with "the book has dragons in it" basically claiming that since the book is a fantasy there can be no expectation of realism from the story.

I disagree. I believe that in sci-fi and fantasy there are obviously areas where the suspension of disbelief are necessary (magic, FTL travel, monsters, stuff like that), but that we are allowed to have expectations of realism in other areas such as how the society deals with the reality of magic or what vampire society looks like (based on reasonable extrapolations).

What do you think?

Arcadia Divine · Sep 25, 2011

Imo, there has to some level of realism in Sci-fi and fantasy, but sci-fi more so. Books in those genres don't have to be totally realistic to be enjoyable. How enjoyable it is depends on the reader.

Orson Scott Card said that if 20 people read your book, you will get 20 different opinions.

Personally, I like a lot of realism in my sci-fi and fantasy. I like to have something to relate to in any way.

Btw, what author are you talking about?

RainShadow · Sep 25, 2011

I'm a big fan of realism in fantasy in terms of characterization, culture, internal consistency and the like. Not that occasionally stretching suspension of disbelief doesn't make for good times if done well, but in general if it feels fake (as opposed to just fantastical) it's hard to care what happens.

Dave Hardy · Sep 25, 2011

Well, I don't know anything about dragon behavior as such, but I do know about human behavior, logic, and general social dynamics.

There is basic plot-hole-level realism. Even if you are writing about dragons, the plot needs to make sense. Characters shouldn't do stupid things just because the plot needs them to.

Fictional societies don't need to be extrapolated to the last detail. But you want to avoid stuff that just doesn't make sense to the reader. I recall one old time SF tale where all the characters were talking about the "psychological power" the elite wielded over the masses. Funny, I always thought it was money and guns that propped up the elite.

There's room for mythic, symbolic sorts of rationales that characters and societies follow: a kung-fu student always avenges his master or whatever, Superman stands for truth, justice and the American way. But those are a limited set, with a certain basis in reality.

I'm all for fantasy, but there is such a thing as abusing the privilege. ;-)

Dave Hardy · Sep 25, 2011

RainShadow said:
I'm a big fan of realism in fantasy in terms of characterization, culture, internal consistency and the like. Not that occasionally stretching suspension of disbelief doesn't make for good times if done well, but in general if it feels fake (as opposed to just fantastical) it's hard to care what happens.

Well said!

MJNL · Sep 25, 2011

IMO, if your characters are people they have to act like people, which means their societies have to act like real societies (but that certainly doesn't mean they have to mirror a real one).

Overall, I give fantasy more leeway than sci-fi because it doesn't take place in the real world anyway. But that doesn't mean that suspension of disbelief isn't crucial, it is, but I think internal consistency goes a long way towards that.

And if it's sci-fi, the scientific basics have to be right, or it ruins the whole thing.

ETA: Yes, well said, RainShadow.

Arcadia Divine · Sep 25, 2011

Kudos to RainShadow

Elijah Sydney · Sep 25, 2011

For me, personally, when I read fantasy or SF, I want my disbelief suspended. I want to feel like dragons are real, that magic is real, or elves, or whatever science in SF. If it doesn’t feel real, then the suspension of disbelief is not working.

Though I think there are exceptions. Sometimes humorous works have a deliberate unreal feel to them. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy never struck me as a work that was aiming for realism, but it works very well.

JSDR · Sep 26, 2011

I have a high expectation of logic.

Dreambrewer · Sep 26, 2011

I have the expectation that a society could have arrived at the point it is in. Whether by magic and god-power or without it. If a city of 1 million people exists in the middle of the desert and they say they have no food(when there's no other people in the world), I want to know how they got to the situation. If the desert was always there, how did the population get into the size it is if there isn't any food? Suppose food rains from the sky every Tuesday, that's okay by me, I accept it. But if it isn't explained at all, and it feels like the society would crumble in a day if left alone, I feel quite vexed. Or if monsters live in the neighborhood and 40% of the people encounter life-threatening situations every day, it seems implausible that they would be alive after living there for years. I can buy anything so long as it is explained somehow, no matter how foolish the explanation may seem. If something isn't explained, I always assume that it doesn't differ from our world's reality.

BradCarsten · Sep 26, 2011

For any book or movie to pass by my internal critics unscathed it needs to be realistic within the rules of that world.
So The Matrix defined what those rules were, then stuck to them and I like that.
James bond on the other hand is a normal person, living in our world, with our rules and yet can dodge bullets. That's unrealistic and therefore fails the Ave test.

Soul · Sep 26, 2011

#AbsoluteWrite chat has had to put up with me asking for help finding skeletal information for various creatures and has had to listen about me trying to plan trips to see T-Rex, velociraptors, apatosauruses and other very immense skeletons.

Tigers, lions, leopards, smilodons, mastedons, mammoths, elephants, just to name a few.

What, you might ask am I writing about?

dragons with basis in the feline skeleton, though some points in bone build taken from elephants and dinosaurs, simply due to the immense amount of weight a dragon's skeleton must carry when on the ground NOT receiving lift from magic.

My dragons have long, catlike fore and hind limbs and can carry their bulk with grace and poise. They also possess opposable thumbs on the forelimbs and special 'plates' (not scales)

the social structure is a bit odd.

Long story short, you can't just be grasping at straws completely in a fantasy book. If your random aminal is 30 tons...make sure it's body can support that 30 tons.

Or if your people can grow to 12 ft tall, keep in mind the health problems associated with people who grow too tall, too fast. (I have a 9-12 ft race and they grow slowly, over about fifteen or twenty years. So their body has plenty of time to expand)

And pick a story and stick to it.

Anninyn · Sep 26, 2011

You can make whatever you want up as long as it seems real. As long as it seems plausible and believable that the world you're shown could exist.

Your friends argument is flawed. Regardless of the made up bits, books still have to have believable cultures and people and internal consistency, or you've gone past making stuff up and into lying for the sake of plot.

Shadow_Ferret · Sep 26, 2011

Story trumps all. If I get sucked into a really good story, I can pretty much over look everything.

ironmikezero · Sep 26, 2011

I agree with ave and Anninyn. If you create rules within your (fantasy, scifi, etc.) story, and you deviate or allow a character to break them without a plausible explanation, you'll have a serious credibility problem. At best, it'll confuse readers... at worst, you'll lose them completely.

Ardent Kat · Sep 26, 2011

It's purely a matter of taste. Some readers really crave realism; others enjoy less realistic escapism. There are books providing great material to both types of readers and neither is "wrong"; it's just the personal enjoyment of the author and readers.

Harry Potter had an absurd and internally inconsistent magic system (I thought) but that hasn't stopped all ages of readers from enjoying them.

TheRob1 · Sep 26, 2011

Just so you know, I specifically left the author my friend and I were discussing blank because I don't want to trash talk on him and I know that there are lot of people who both love and hate this guys work. In the end, no matter what I think I still have to admit that enough people like his work that he's making A LOT of money right now and I'm still sending off queries

Soul said:
#AbsoluteWrite chat has had to put up with me asking for help finding skeletal information for various creatures and has had to listen about me trying to plan trips to see T-Rex, velociraptors, apatosauruses and other very immense skeletons.

Tigers, lions, leopards, smilodons, mastedons, mammoths, elephants, just to name a few.

What, you might ask am I writing about?

dragons with basis in the feline skeleton, though some points in bone build taken from elephants and dinosaurs, simply due to the immense amount of weight a dragon's skeleton must carry when on the ground NOT receiving lift from magic.

My dragons have long, catlike fore and hind limbs and can carry their bulk with grace and poise. They also possess opposable thumbs on the forelimbs and special 'plates' (not scales)

the social structure is a bit odd.

Long story short, you can't just be grasping at straws completely in a fantasy book. If your random aminal is 30 tons...make sure it's body can support that 30 tons.

Or if your people can grow to 12 ft tall, keep in mind the health problems associated with people who grow too tall, too fast. (I have a 9-12 ft race and they grow slowly, over about fifteen or twenty years. So their body has plenty of time to expand)

And pick a story and stick to it.

The concept artists for DnD 3rd edition used feline anatomy for their dragons. so, if you're looking for something there's the old 3.0 monster manual.

MJNL · Sep 26, 2011

I know what you mean, TheRob1. There's a certain author I'm on the fence about, because he has awesome magic-inventing skills, but insists on including a lot of politics which he clearly doesn't know enough about to make realistic. That means half of each book I'm wizzing through, thinking it's awesome, and the other half I'm slogging through, wondering how the book got published with parts so bad.

DeleyanLee · Sep 26, 2011

If I'm pulled out of the story because I want to know how the desert city eats, then there's bigger problems in the book than that bit of worldbuilding.

But as far as the realism--as long as it's consistent within the scope of that world and fits within the story, then I'm good. Unless it's some form of Urban Fantasy or Contemporary SF, then I don't expect it to be like this world. I don't expect Fantasy/alien races to have abide by what's true for humans--if it did, then they'd be human and not Fantasy/alien races. *shrug*

geardrops · Sep 26, 2011

TheRob1 said:
I told my friend that I didn't like the author because I found several of the cultural constructs of his world to be implausible and because of several tropes he used that I find to be extremely tacky (and in a few cases really unrealistic). My friend jabbed with "the book has dragons in it" basically claiming that since the book is a fantasy there can be no expectation of realism from the story.

Sounds to me like you have two issues: realism (first thing I bolded), and perhaps a bit of fail (second thing I bolded).

The realism is fine for you to be picky about, and fine for your friend to not be picky about. I've gotten into massive arguments about Jedi robes and lightsabres and the Jedi structure as presented in Old Republic stuff, but at the end of the day, I like a good lightsabre fight. I can watch medical dramas with unrealistic medicine because I am not a doctor, but I cannot bear what passes for hacking because I am a techie.

But the fail, well, I'm firmly on your side. If people are using tropes that are "tacky" (which I'm translating to mean racist/sexist/etc-ist) then that's not cool and should be pointed out. It's one thing if the characters are on a long journey and cooking stew in the middle of the woods. It's another if all your good people are white and all your bad people are black.

Realism? Whatevs, you're both right. But fail is bleh. (If I'm reading the OP right

)

bearilou · Sep 27, 2011

The Big Lie

Once this concept was explained, the light of dawning shined upon me.

Like many who have said above, the story has to have internal consistency to be believable. Some readers are far more accepting of how the author sets up the internal consistency of their worlds than others.

Jon Sprunk · Sep 27, 2011

Realism is hard to nail down. What smacks of "unrealistic" or illogical to one person may be completely acceptible to someone else. I think writers should take pains to be internally consistent and technically proficient within their genre, but you know the old adage about trying to please everyone...

Phaeal · Sep 27, 2011

I believe it was in Christopher Derrick's Reader's Report that I read something like this:

You can make me believe in space ships and dragons, but I will never believe that when summoned to a meeting with Queen Victoria, Gladstone slapped her on the back, gave her a cigar, and told her a dirty joke.

Expectations of realism

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