Does a good story have to be believable?

Question

I've been trying to write some fictional stories and I keep getting criticized too much because it's "impossible". I mean isn't it ok to suspend some of your disbelief and just be entertained from the story no matter how impossible it is.

The thing the people keep attacking me is that this adventurer leads an army and this is a middle aged army. They go into a giant battle with another army. Everyone in the army except for the two generals, battle to the death. After the battle, what is left is only the two generals because the people from both sides fought strongly for their belief in glory. The people claim that it is way to impossible and is stupid and should not even be written.

Answer 1

As an avid reader, I would say that the hallmark of a good fiction writer (fantasy especially) is the knack of being able to make the impossible seem utterly believable.

A good way to illustrate this is to think of your dreams. You don't believe them, do you? Of course not! If you dream you are being chased and you suddenly decide to grow wings and fly away THAT is unbelievable because it is too convenient and has no basis in anything that is even remotely believable.

If, however, you write a story about someone escaping from a genetics lab where mad scientists have been splicing the genes of humans with those of birds, and the central character suddenly sprouts feathers and flies off, it MIGHT seem MORE believeable.

Actually, it's just as proposterous as the first version, but if, as a writer, you do the job properly, you should manage to make it seem less so to your readers because it isn't a sudden convenient solution and you've grounded it in some species of reality first.

LATER ...

Okay, I've just returned and read your "additional details". Having not read your battle scene it's impossible to be certain, but my worry would be that it does seem an unlikely coincidence that out of hundreds/thousands only the two generals are left. It COULD happen ... but it's your job to make the readers believe it.

The problem might be that the battle scene is too short, or that you simply 'tell' the reader that they all fought each other until only two were left. Telling isn't enough! You would need to build up a few convincing scenes that 'show' how each of the two generals manages to dodge death whilst others fail. If, and ONLY IF you can portray them as being believable characters behaving convincingly, then you might just convince your readers.

Here's what I recommend. Get onto Amazon, and treat yourself to a book called "Cry of the Icemark". It's the story of a 14 year-old girl who leads her entire country into war, and enroles armies of vampires and giant wildcats to help. The whole concept sounds pretty unbelievable, eh? But the author makes it seem totally possible! I think that reading something that really DOES what you're trying to do will help you more than anything!

http://www.amazon.com/Cry-Icemark-Paperback-Stuart-Hill/dp/043968627X/sr=8-1/qid=1163991049/ref=sr_1_1/104-6685224-8864769?ie=UTF8&s=books

Answer 2

Suspending disbelief is a big part of fiction, for sure. However, there are limitations, even on Fantasy stories.

When teachers, or other people say they want it to be "believable", they want you to make sure it all seems like it actually could happen. For example, feel free to write about 3-armed mermaids from Zebulon 6, but don't write things like "Fishface suddenly hopped up on land and swordfought a seagull while Tom Cruise and Katey fired mortars at them while sharing an ice-mocha. Fishface gave birth to a raging stallion horse, and galloped off into the forest with a squirrel named Horace."

Just don't be completely ridiculous, unless it is very important to the plot.

Answer 3

To write a good story you have to have what are called "sympathetic characters," this does not mean nice, even a bad guy can qualify. Then you make a contract with the reader to "suspend his disbelief," in order to tell your story. How much disbelief will the reader suspend? If you have eighty cents, and tell me "let us suppose this is a dollar," that is close enough. If you only have a penny and try the same trick you better be one hell of a story teller to keep my interest!

Answer 4

Nope. Everything must have a way to fuel itself, excrete and recreate itself. In other words, mouths, anus and genitalia or equivalents. If one thing is affected by gravity, then everything else is too, or you had better have a very believable reason why not.
Our minds look for reason and balance. If you don't provide it in your story then it doesn't feel right. We spend too much time trying to figure out why it isn't making sense and then the story is no fun.
Put a little more time into crafting a story that has reality supporting the fantasy and your work will be received more eagerly.

Answer 5

No. I've been caught up in a storyteller telling Norse myths by a fire, without a thought that they were true.

Lilliput, or Middle Earth or, as has been mentioned, Animal Farm.


Where impossible is bad in a story is when it jars with the rest of the tale. A character acting out of character with no explanation, for example. Serendipity dragged in just for the plot, or a gaping plot hole ignored.

Internal consistency is one of the things that assists suspension of disbelief.

Answer 6

Watership Down is one of my favorite books and it's full of improbabilities. The rabbits in the story have a language, a story-teller, a psychic, a religion, and an enemy warren of rabbits who have a communist police force of sorts.
All unlikely and probably impossible, but it's written in a way that the reader finds themselves pushing reality aside to believe in the story.

A good story does not focus on what is realistic, but how the unrealistic can be believable.

Answer 7

It usually isn't the content of the story that critics label as "impossible." Usually the problem lies with the choices the characters make. If they do things that are very uncharacteristic of the way they've been set up or are far too dim/sharp, you'll get a reaction like that.

However, if the story's been set up in a very realistic fashion and then ended with something fantastic, it could very well kill it.

Answer 8

Tell them that mere mortal men can not predict was is 'possible.' Only God can do that. If someone tells you your story is 'impossible', tell them they have no imagination! It's only a story.....geez. You are having the wrong people proof read your material. Stop that! ;) And the best of luck to you.

Answer 9

One of my favorite stories is Charlotte Perkins' "The Yellow Wallpaper." This story is written from a demented woman's perspective, making the narrator untrustable.

The entire story, as good as it is, is unbelievable, because we don't know if we can fully trust the narrator.

Still, it's one of my favorites, so, no, a story doesn't have to be believable in order to be good.

Hope this helps!

Answer 10

The key here is not in just writing something to be entertaining but write something for the sake of the lesson it reveals.