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Essentially it means that they obey their own internal rules and logic. If it's established that dwarves live 200 years, there can't be one who is arbitrarily 500 years old. There has to be an expl...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T12:00:31Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19172 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T04:40:04Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19172 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Essentially it means that they obey their own internal rules and logic. If it's established that dwarves live 200 years, there can't be one who is _arbitrarily_ 500 years old. There has to be an explanation: he carried the One Ring, Aulë gave him extra years, etc. A mage can't just endlessly cast spell after spell without having a source of magical energy (just as a person can't run endlessly or regenerate a limb). Starships need inertial dampeners so that when a ship comes out of warp, everyone isn't flung against the forward viewscreen and reduced to chunky salsa. The reader is suspending a certain disbelief by accepting that there are such things as fairies, dwarves, elves, wizards, FTL travel, aliens who can reproduce with beings from another planet, and so on. The writer must make sure to establish consistent, logical rules about how the universe works, and then obey those rules. That gives the fantasy the strength of reality.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2015-09-29T14:57:22Z (about 9 years ago)
Original score: 7