Quote:
Originally Posted by FizzyWater
Don't know where, but I'd heard that a novel can have one basic issue that requires the reader to suspend disbelief:
...the anal-retentive CEO and the ex-hippy free spirit can fall in love and complete each other (rather than pick each other to pieces)
...humanity will be able to find a propulsion system that allows them to travel the distant reaches of the galaxy (rather than the ship arriving generations after it left)
...good always triumphs over evil (rather than the tyrant getting to keep all the money, women, and power)
But if you try to pile on one improbable thing after another, sooner or later the reader's going to throw the book against the wall with a heart-felt, "Oh, come on!"
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I don't think there is anything magical about only one. For me a fiction book can describe a set of parameters that must be internally consistent. A science fiction book can set up a whole set of world events but once set up then science in that framework must be consistent and obey the rules.
A fantasy can describe a whole gambit of rules describing a world much different or not much different than the one we have but then must be internally consistent and have a degree of logic. A science fantasy is only slightly more constrained.
Each kind of fiction has its own set of consistencies but in all cases the author is free to set up a "what if" scenario and proceed from there.
Dale