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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25206
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25206
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Some people will only read books if they are gritty and realistic. Some people will only read books if they are about horses. Some people will only read books if they are about dragons. No book is written for the whole world. Every book is written for a specific audience or audiences with specific tastes. You have to write the book that works for your intended audience.

What matters is that your audience accepts the world you create as self consistent -- that it obeys its own rules. Tolkien wrote a marvelous essay called _On Fairy Stories_ in which he described the author as creating a sub-created world. Fantasy is not about getting the reader to suspend their disbelief, but to believe in the reality of the sub-created world. We may disbelieve in rings of power and elves in our own world, but we are not suspending our disbelief when we enter middle earth. We simply believe in them as part of the sub-created world of middle earth. They key is not to break the spell. Pop the bubble of that sub-created world (by giving Aragorn a cell phone, for instance) and the whole sub-created world lies in ruins.

But I think it is also important to remember that the sub-created world is a bubble around a story. You don't have to answer questions about what elves do for a living or where orcs go on vacation. The story world does not have to make economic or geographical sense (the map of middle earth is geological nonsense, with its thin mountain ranges running in straight lines all over the place). The content of the bubble only has to make sense in story terms. If something nonsensical happens that affects the story, the bubble bursts. But outside of the logic of the story, things do not need to be explained or even explicable, as long as they all seem consistent with the nature of the sub-created world in which the story takes place.

If your story arc is about knights and minstrels and princesses then create a story world in which these characters live and which is self consistent. Don't introduce unhappy peasants and unjust rulers unless the story arc is about unhappy peasants and unjust rulers. They won't make your story more realistic, they will make your sub-created world less self-consistent, and therefore less believable.

Original score: 3