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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/37366
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Seems like a broad question, but hear me out. A while ago, I asked [how you could verify information](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/35723/how-do-you-verify-information), which was mostly reserved about things that actually exist and/or happen in the real world. This question is reserved for things that absolutely don't exist or happen in the real world at all, and I want to know how you account for these. Example:

The main character in my story is a young woman in her mid-twenties. A lot of bizarre things happen in the story, which make the MC question her own sanity and her own memories. Memory erasure (or suppression, rather) is a thing in this world (as the MC finds out over the story) and over time, it becomes clear that the MC is missing part of her life. Her body also feels weird and alien to her in the beginning and she simply can't explain why.

Turns out she was missing two years from her life and actually went through a whole pregnancy without realizing it. The two years were relatively normal, the pregnancy was also normal, she simply doesn't remember it happening. In her mind, the two year gap is simply "bridged" by a hazy day, so the latest day she can remember **before** the mind erasure and the earliest day she can remember **after** the mind erasure seem to have taken place back to back.

Obviously, it's not a realistic setup, but I want to portray her reactions as realistically as possible given this unrealistic setup, and I want to hint at it in a way that makes sense. I asked questions like:

- How would a woman in such a situation feel? How would she notice the difference in her body when the memory gap was closed relatively seamlessly?
- What signs could there be to make her realize something is missing, or that her body changed massively in a time period she can't even remember?

That's it for my example. The real question is, what do you do in these cases, were research is pretty much impossible? How can you handle an unrealistic setup in a realistic way, when you don't know what the real world consequences would be if the unrealistic setup was possible in the real world?

Original score: 12