Luc Reid - Don't Worry: The Characters Don't Believe It Either

John D. Brown, author of the forthcoming fantasy trilogy that begins with Servant of a Dark God (Tor Books, probably summer of 2009), maintainer of a blog of bizarre and enjoyable miscellania, and a writer who's very accomplished at finding powerful ideas for improving writing, pointed out a technique for believability in writing that I never thought of when writing my essay on believable fiction: having someone question the thing that's unbelievable. By having a character who questions something that readers might find it hard to believe, the reader's disbelief can often be forestalled. Maybe this is just the "for the love of criminy, man, the ghost was just right there in front of you!" effect, or maybe it's the reassurance that in the world of the story, most of the usual rules apply and people will notice when they don't. In any case, it works, and it adds to your writer's arsenal.