Is It Impossible to Tell a Story Without Fantasy?

Writers deal with Suspension of Disbelief, or “Willing Suspension of Disbelief” as Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term, when they create characters, settings, or situations which are outside hard reality… and most of what we write, even when we think of it as hard reality, is shot through with strings of imagination and unreality. As writers, it kind of “comes with the suit.”

Image: abdul-lagerfield.blogspot.com

While it is perhaps easier to make the distinction, to find examples of this in movies or TV, the willingness of an audience to accept a black and white movie or TV show for instance, we sometimes write without realizing that in our work we have changed the world.

The use of an omnicient narrator easily illustrates the concept.

If we’re honest—and honestly look—we find our stories are filled with plot holes, inconsistencies, characters, settings and notions that do not fit the physical world we live in.

No matter what style we choose for our writing, for most of us, for those who wish to entertain as well as enlighten, we are by nature creatures with one foot in the world of fantasy.

Am I suggesting that we stay away from inconsistencies, characters, settings and notions that do not fit the physical world? Absolutely not. It is our mainstay, the air we breathe as writers. What is important is that we have our hands on the controls. What is important is that we control the fantasy—even those parts that we contrive to exist only in the mind of the reader.

By the way, it is arguable that even supposedly factual writing will contain much in the way of opinion, and that opinion is based upon dogma, culture, personal prejudice and belief systems. While this doesn’t usually invalidate the work, it should remind us that most of what we write about is based on what we believe is so.