How Authors Use Internal Consistency to Create Suspension of Disbelief

Suspension of disbelief is a critical element in convincing readers to immerse themselves in fantasy worlds. One of the most important tools in building suspension of disbelief is internal consistency.

Real-world rules, like gravity, are so ubiquitous that we take them for granted. Why? Because we encounter them every day. And if someone wants to offend the law of gravity, say by stepping off the side of a building, they must have some system in place to account for it, such as a parachute.

Interestingly, even the parachute itself reinforces the law of gravity because, without it, the jumper would di, or injure themselves spectacularly.

But fantasy often involves worlds, magic systems, and characters that contradict the laws we take for granted or exist outside of them, and, readers still believe in these stories wholeheartedly.

 Why? Suspension of disbelief. 

Readers don’t require the laws of the real world, like gravity, to exist in fantasy stories to believe in them; they simply need the laws created to be consistent and, crucially, for the characters who exist within that world to believe in them too.

When explaining the rules of a fantasy world to readers through storytelling devices like exposition or dialogue, laying the groundwork for suspension of disbelief is crucial. 

But that isn't enough. 

Writers then have to create scenarios that prove the characters believe in these rules. Ignoring this step or, worse, allowing characters to do something that contradicts the rules created, breaks internal consistency. If done egregiously enough or often enough, the reader will not be able to suspend their disbelief enough to accept the fantasy world as real.

Let’s look at a terrible example that I just made up.

If I tell the reader that the characters in my world can fly, but only for fifteen seconds, and then allow characters to fly for thirty seconds without providing a believable short-cut that reinforces the rule, such as the parachute example above, readers will start to question whether the rule is true.

And if the rule is questionable, then so are the characters, the world, and everything else I want them to believe.

Soon they will not be able to fall back into the blissful state of suspension that takes them out of their mundane daily life and into a place where people fly, because the story doesn’t make sense, anymore.

It has no internal consistency.

When internal consistency is done badly, it tears readers out of the story and forces them to question the author before they can continue. When it is done well, the reader forgets they are reading and is transported to a place where impossible things are common.

I want to share two personal experiences with internal consistency, one where it was done badly, and another of how it can be done well.

According to the exposition of a fantasy novel I read, the main character was the most deadly and feared assassin and all the land, and had been arrested and imprisoned for her crimes. 

In fact, she was so deadly, she did things that should have been physically impossible.

Yet, none of the characters treated the assassin as if she were actually dangerous at all. They took almost no precautions for their own safety, brought her before royalty with little-to-no protection, and even gave her a room in the palace… where the royal family lives.

Even the main character’s internal thoughts were not consistent with a deadly assassin because they betrayed a decided lack of understanding of physical combat.

No matter how badly I wanted to believe this was the deadliest assassin in the world, I couldn’t. Because the characters didn’t seem to believe it. Internal consistency was broken, and that made it impossible to suspend disbelief for the rest of the story.

Contrast that with another fictional character: Hanibal Lecter. When we meet him, he is in full body restraints with even his face locked beneath a mask. People get quiet and uncomfortable when his name is mentioned. Clarice is visibly shaken during her interactions with him, even behind glass.

Every character treats Hannibal as if he is the most dangerous man alive, so the audience has no choice but to believe it, too.

So the formula is: create the rule, showcase the rule in action, and if you break the rule, use an internally consistent reason why that makes sense within the confines of the story.

Yes. You can break the rule. In fact, breaking the rule can create even more excitement and wonder, but you must set it up, foreshadow it, and make it internally consistent within the greater laws of your world or system.

If you do those things, you’ll create the kind of internal consistency that mirrors the real world and allows readers to exist in a state of suspended disbelief where literally anything is possible.