Subverting Your Own Rules Isn't Clever, It's Just Bad Writing

When you write a story you are establishing the rules for how your world works. If vampires are destroyed by sunlight in your story, for example, then that is a rule in your world. If werewolves can only be harmed by gold instead of silver, it's your book, your rules. If spells need to be spoken aloud, and there need to be precise gestures with an implement such as a wand, a staff, or a beringed hand, then those are some of the foundation of your setting.

 

Because when you give your audience rules about the physics of your fantastical, they find it a lot easier to swallow.

 

They don't have to be complicated, just consistent.

 

A lot of authors run into a situation where they think the cleverest thing they can do to surprise their readers is to take those established rules and chuck them out the window when it's appropriately dramatic. However, that isn't a way to surprise your audience, or make you look clever... instead, all you're doing is pulling the mask off the villain at the end of the mystery and revealing it's a character no one could have guessed because the reader had never heard of them until that very moment.

 

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Readers Don't Like Cheats

Imagine for a moment you're playing chess with someone. It's a tight game, and things are getting pretty tense. Then, just when it looks like they're about to find themselves in checkmate, they declare that their last knight can, in these special circumstances, move all the way across the board to put the other player in checkmate.

Is it dramatic? Absolutely. But it's in direct violation of the rules of the game, and the other player would be well within their rights to tell the person trying such a stupid thing that if they're going to be a sore loser then they simply won't play with them anymore.

We agreed on the rules when the game started.

The same thing happens when you agree on the rules of your world. If you tell your readers that iron is a necessary component of spells, and that's why battle wizards wield cold iron staves and swords, then you can probably get away with using blood as a magical implement given that there's iron in it. That's unexpected, but it still falls within the rules you've described for your setting, and how things are supposed to work.

On the other hand, say that you made a big deal about how a legendary cursed item can only be destroyed by someone willingly sacrificing their own lives. If a character makes that sacrifice, the audience knows the consequences. You told them up-front that if someone does this of their own free will, they die. Period. End of story. So if you pull a last-minute trump card out of your behind so a character can make the sacrifice, but not actually die, all you've done is cheapen the story, and undermine the impact and stakes you set up in the first place.

You've done something worse, though... you've harmed your reader's trust.

Readers will accept all kinds of silly ideas and ludicrous explanations. They will put up with hackneyed premises, tired tropes, and shallow motivations. But the second you lie to them about how the world they're reading about works, you're actively hurting your credibility as their storyteller.

To be clear, we're not talking about gray areas where the reader isn't sure what's happening, or an unreliable narrator situation. If someone says that "most" wizards need to use a wand, or it's "common practice" not to transfuse an orc's blood into a human, you haven't told your readers that these things must be done in a certain way. You've admitted they might be uncommon or unusual, but you haven't said these things are impossible. You've given yourself some wiggle room for legitimate surprises.

It's when you directly contradict yourself that your audience is going to get pissed. When you tell your audience that something can't be done, or doesn't happen, and then you go back on that. Because once you lie to your audience about one thing, they can't really trust you when it comes to new proclamations. Are elves really the only ones who can perform these rites, or are you going to change that up when it's plot convenient? Are those black matter blades wielded by the dark army really impossible to counter, or will your hero find a heretofore unknown mystery element that can parry them? Can the Chains of Antioch truly bind gods and devils alike, or are they going to be broken just because it makes things easier for you?

You need your audience to trust you if they're going to come on this journey. So if you're going to lay down a rule, apply it consistently throughout the story. Don't just discard it when it gets inconvenient, or you'll find your readers may not wait around for you to explain yourself.

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my short story collection The Rejects!

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