vendredi 28 avril 2017

Suspension of disbelief in storytelling

Introducing fantastical elements into a story is full of difficulties. Especially if this story is rooted, as far as it can be, in a world the audience recognises. So I'm not talking about Star Wars here, in which the universe is literally set in a galaxy far far away, and proudly declares itself to be so.

From your experience, what has been the most effective technique the storyteller must utilise to introduce a fantastical element without a suspension of disbelief from the audience?

I'd be interested to know if you share my opinion that it can only be achieved if it is introduced straight away into the story. Take Children of Men for example.

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Straight away, it throws you in with the news reports:

'Day 1000 of the siege of Seattle'
'British borders will remain closed'
'The world was shocked today by the death of.. the youngest person on the planet'

That is a brilliant opening, in which you instantly know what that world is about within a few minutes. What adds to its effectiveness is the very BBC like news reporting, which everyone can relate to, and it sheers off the unbelievability of women and men being infertile.

Similarly, the opening of Jose Saramago's novels. Blindness for example, where a virus of blindness spreads through an unknown city:

The amber light came on. Two of the cars ahead accelerated before the red light appeared. At the pedestrian crossing the sign of a green man lit up. The people who were waiting began to cross the road, stepping on the white stripes painted on the black surface of the asphalt, there is nothing less like a zebra, however, that is what it is called. The motorists kept an impatient foot on the clutch, leaving their cars at the ready, advancing, retreating like nervous horses that can sense the whiplash about to be inflicted. The pedestrians have just finished crossing but the sign allowing the cars to go will be delayed for some seconds, some people maintain that this delay, while apparently so insignificant, has only to be multiplied by the thousands of traffic lights that exist in the city and by the successive changes of their three colours to produce one of the most serious causes of traffic jams or bottlenecks, to use the more current term.

The green light came on at last, the cars moved off briskly, but then it became clear that not all of them were equally quick off the mark. The car at the head of the middle lane has stopped, there must be some mechanical fault, a loose accelerator pedal, a gear lever that has stuck, problem with the suspension, jammed brakes, breakdown in the electric circuit, unless he has simply run out of gas, it would not be the first time such a thing has happened. The next group of pedestrians to gather at the crossing see the driver of the stationary car wave his arms behind the windshield, while the cars behind him frantically sound their horns. Some drivers have already got out of their cars, prepared to push the stranded vehicle to a spot where it will not hold up the traffic, they beat furiously on the closed windows, the man inside turns his head in their direction, first to one side then the other, he is clearly shouting something, to judge by the movements of his mouth he appears to be repeating some words, not one word but three, as turns out to be the case when someone finally manages to open the door, I am blind.


Again, with the very mundane description of the traffic, the car, the traffic, everyday things, it makes what follows so much more believable.

Or more simply, the opening of Death With Interruptions, a story in which people inexplicably stop dying:

THE FOLLOWING DAY, NO ONE DIED.

So, what do you think? I think to achieve effective suspension of disbelief, it needs to be introduced in the very first scene, and has to be conveyed in a way that is downplayed and attached to what we can relate to.


via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2oQI5fr

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