Nope, Not Buying It: How Do We Maintain Believability in Our Writing?- By Janice Hardy…

on Fiction University:

You don’t want your readers to think, “Yeah, right, that’ll never happen.”

My brother-in-law is a nurse, and he can’t watch medical TV shows. It annoys the snot of out him how wrong so many of the details are. My husband is the same way with anything computer related, and I notice the screw-ups in publishing and graphic design. Odds are you have your own area of expertise, and you notice when a show, movie, or book gets it wrong.

The number of authors who goofed by putting a safety on a Glock is pretty high. And readers catch those goofs.

All stories in all genres get bonked on the head when they lack credibility. Readers don’t believe a character would act a certain way, or they doubt a situation would ever happen, they find details that are flat-out wrong, or they call BS about how something is handled.

Once you blow your credibility with a reader, it’s really hard to earn back their trust. 

If they know (or even think, since sometimes readers are wrong, but they don’t know that) you’ve made a mistake, they start doubting everything else in the story. If they’re rolling their eyes every chapter, they’re not going to make it very far into the book.

Let’s look at some ways you can make sure readers “Don’t stop believing” in your story

Continue reading HERE

2 thoughts on “Nope, Not Buying It: How Do We Maintain Believability in Our Writing?- By Janice Hardy…

  1. I was at a writing workshop where we critiqued each other’s work.
    One author got the gears because almost everyone thought it was great writing and detail, but it was not believable.
    He raised his T-shirt, showed a huge scar on his stomach and back, and said, “Based on a true story.” Everyone was gobsmacked.
    If you indicate something is based on a true story, I wonder if it gives you more leeway in suspending disbelief.

    Liked by 2 people

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