3 weeks ago
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There are few things that pull me out of a story faster than a plot hole.
Actually, there are two things: plot holes and characters doing things they would never do. You know the kind of scene. A character suddenly makes a ridiculous choice simply because the author needs the plot to move in a certain direction. Or a supposedly intelligent character overlooks something obvious. Or an event occurs that feels so contrived you can almost see the author’s hand reaching into the story.
When that happens, the fictional world shatters for me.
One example that has always stayed with me is The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans. Near the end of the novel, Tom Booker, the gifted horse trainer who has helped heal both Grace and her horse, Pilgrim, falls deeply in love with Annie Graves. Annie eventually decides she wants a future with Tom. But … rather than allow her to choose between him and her estranged husband, Tom deliberately confronts a dangerous wild stallion, essentially engineering circumstances that result in his death.
Seriously? I don’t know how the publisher thought that worked. And when Robert Redford produced the movie version, he was smart enough to know viewers would have panned the film if he kept that. Instead, he created a perfectly believable ending (worth watching).
Whether readers view the act as noble, tragic, or romantic, many found it difficult to reconcile with the character the novel had spent hundreds of pages establishing. Here’s the reason: Tom is portrayed throughout the story as wise, emotionally intelligent, patient, and deeply respectful of others. Yet in the climax, he effectively makes Annie’s choice for her by removing himself from the equation. For many readers, the ending feels less like an inevitable outcome and more like a contrivance designed to create a bittersweet conclusion.
That illustrates an important principle of storytelling: readers don’t necessarily reject the improbable. They reject what feels wrong.
Believability is not about realism. It’s about emotional and narrative truth. Readers will happily accept dragons, time travel, magical powers, alien invasions, and impossible coincidences. What they won’t accept are events that violate the internal logic of the story or the established nature of the characters.
So how do you make readers believe the improbable?
- Ground Everything in Emotional Truth
The more extraordinary the external event, the more authentic the emotional response must be. Readers may never have discovered a portal to another dimension or survived a zombie apocalypse, but they understand fear, grief, hope, love, shame, and desperation. Those emotions create the bridge between the reader and the impossible event.
Consider The Martian by Andy Weir. The premise is highly unlikely: an astronaut is accidentally left behind on Mars and must survive alone for years without hardly any food. Yet readers buy into the story because Mark Watney’s reactions feel genuine. His humor, frustration, determination, and loneliness make the impossible situation feel real (and the science is very well researched and plausible). When emotional truth is strong, readers stop questioning the premise.
- Build a Chain of Cause and Effect
One mistake writers make is jumping directly to the improbable event. Instead, create a chain of escalating consequences in which each development naturally grows out of the one before it.
Think of it as the “Yes, But” method. Yes, this happened, but because of that, something else happened. And because of that, another consequence followed. Each step feels reasonable, even if the final destination would have seemed absurd at the beginning of the story.
Readers are far more willing to accept an unlikely outcome when they can see how each event logically led to the next. Momentum creates believability.
- Establish the Rules Early
Readers need to understand the rules of your fictional world. If magic exists, establish it early. If advanced technology exists, establish it early. If supernatural events are possible, readers need to know that before they become essential to solving the plot.
Problems arise when writers introduce new rules only when they need them. This is one reason readers often complain about deus ex machina endings. The solution appears from nowhere because the groundwork wasn’t laid beforehand.
No matter how strange your world may be, readers will accept almost anything if the rules remain consistent. Consistency matters far more than realism.
- Ground the Extraordinary in Consequences
A character discovers a magical artifact, but it comes with a terrible cost. A detective finds the crucial clue but now becomes the killer’s next target. A hero gains tremendous power but loses something equally valuable in return.
The improbable becomes believable when it carries consequences. Readers instinctively distrust stories in which miraculous solutions arrive without creating new problems.
- Keep the Story Moving
Readers analyze less when they are emotionally invested. One reason thrillers often succeed despite highly improbable plots is pacing. The story moves so quickly that readers focus on what happens next rather than stopping to scrutinize every detail.
This doesn’t mean you should distract readers with nonstop action. It means maintaining narrative momentum. Questions lead to answers. Answers generate new questions. Conflict drives the story forward.
When readers are fully engaged in the outcome, they become much more willing to accept unusual circumstances.
- Make Character Flaws Cause the Problem
One of the best ways to make unlikely events feel earned is to connect them directly to character flaws. A stubborn character refuses help. An arrogant character underestimates an opponent. A greedy character takes an unnecessary risk. A fearful character hides the truth.
The resulting disaster no longer feels random because it emerged naturally from the character’s established behavior. Readers may not believe coincidence, but they readily believe human weakness.
- Challenge Every Unbelievable Moment
Here’s an exercise I’ve used during revision. Ask yourself: What is the single-most improbable thing that happens in my novel? Then make a list of every reason readers might not believe it.
Not one or two reasons. Ten reasons. Twenty if necessary.
When I was writing Conundrum, one scene worried me. My protagonist, Lisa, rushes to her brother’s office after learning he plans to take his own life. She arrives and ultimately talks him down. The scene felt dangerously close to a plot convenience, so I started listing objections like these:
A determined person usually isn’t persuaded by a single conversation. Someone in severe emotional distress may not even listen. Words don’t cure depression. She wouldn’t necessarily arrive at exactly the right moment. He wouldn’t instantly feel better. She wouldn’t magically know the perfect thing to say. Simply discovering a truth doesn’t erase a mental illness.
The more objections I listed, the clearer the weaknesses became.
Then I addressed them one by one. For every objection, I asked, “Usually that’s true—but in this case, why is it different?” If I couldn’t come up with a convincing answer, I knew I had a story problem. But I believe I made the scene work well because I addressed these potential problems.
That’s a difficult exercise because sometimes it reveals flaws in the premise, scene, or plot. But that’s exactly why it’s valuable. Sometimes the solution isn’t better prose. Sometimes the solution is changing the story itself.
One other super helpful thing to do in a situation in which your reader might question the believability is to have the POV character himself ask the questions and show doubt. In other words, have the character voice the reader’s doubts either out loud or in his head.
For example, I might have Lisa think, It’s stupid to think that I’ll be able to save my brother with words. And, situationally, she might think, I can’t believe I got here in time. Fate or some higher power must be on my side, because usually my timing sucks. Or maybe my brother, in his heart of hearts, hesitated because he really wanted me to stop him from killing himself.
Play around with your character’s thoughts regarding these potential issues and see if they can help make the action more believable.
Final Thoughts
Believability is one of the most important elements in fiction, and, ironically, it has very little to do with realism. Readers will believe almost anything if the story remains emotionally authentic, internally consistent, and true to character. They will accept dragons, miracles, impossible coincidences, and astonishing plot twists.
What they won’t accept is a story that breaks its own promises.
When readers stop believing, it’s usually not because the event was too improbable. It’s because the author failed to make it feel inevitable. The goal is not realism for its own sake. The goal is creating a story in which even the most extraordinary events feel as though they could not have happened any other way.
That’s believability.
Featured Photo by Markus Laanisto on Unsplash
The post 7 Ways to Make Readers Believe the Improbable in Fiction appeared first on C. S. Lakin.
