Verisimilitude is one of the most powerful devices at the author’s disposal. The ability to create a world that feels real can separate a good story from a great one. Readers are much more easily drawn into a world with systems and rules they already comprehend, and characters that feel real are characters who can evoke an emotional response.
In genre writing, though, “realness” can be tricky. The real world is boring! That’s why we want to escape it, right? It’s so tempting to give up on realism altogether, to create what is called a “Secondary World”, that is, one with its own rules and laws, one where magic replaces technology, maybe–a world where even the basic laws of physics require lengthy exposition. Such worlds can be incredible escapes, but they often fail to resonate with readers looking for meaning and humanity.
Good genre authors know how to walk the line, to create a world that is neither too real, nor entirely secondary–one with real and potent connections to the Earth we currently inhabit, but still including elements of the fantastic, of the alien, of the monstrous. They create a “heightened” reality where you can usually count on real world rules–and when they’re broken, it’s for a good reason.
This one-and-a-half world looks a lot like ours. It’s probably still called Earth, and it probably doesn’t include faster than light travel or commonplace magic. If there are monsters in this world they tend to hide in the shadows. If there are aliens, they may not show themselves at all–instead choosing to influence Earth through fleeting psychic contact with chosen humans who, should they choose to share their received wisdom, are unlikely to be widely believed.
Yet it isn’t exactly our world. Things that happen there are very slightly larger than life. More dramatic, more emotionally powerful. People obsess over breakups years after you and I would have moved on. They are capable of acts of incredibly heroics that, in the real world, would put real people in the hospital or the morgue. The rules here are never ignored–but they can be bent, when it makes a story more interesting.
Though every one-and-a-half world will have its own exceptions to real world rules, here are a few suggestions to get you thinking about how your own story can benefit from lurking on the threshold:
1. In the 1.5 world, magic exists, but it’s subtle. An actual wizard who could turn lead into gold or pull unlimited rabbits from a hat would change everything. The world we know would be transformed overnight–it would quickly become unrecognizable. In a 1.5 world magic can exist but only if it can be easily mistaken for stagecraft and sleight of hand–or if its effects are temporary, contingent, and subjective. Psychic powers just feel more realistic than your classic staff of fireballs.
2. There are very few safety codes there. You’re probably no more than a few dozen yards, right now, from a gas main. Your house has enough electricity in it to kill you a dozen times over. The only reason explosions are not an everyday event in your life is that teams of very dedicated engineers have worked for decades to make your life safe. The 1.5 world would be a terrible place to live, but it makes for dramatic stories. Anything that could reasonably explode probably will, and houses burn down all the time. Guns are much more accurate, and yet bullets can, under certain circumstances, be dodged. They’re also highly selective–one bullet will almost always kill a villain, while a hero can take five or six torso hits and still have enough strength to avenge their dead partner.
3. Conversations are much shorter. Mostly because people in the 1.5 world are far more likely to tell the truth. Think about all the conversations you had today–how often did you actually speak your mind, or express your true emotions and preferences? Dialogue in the 1.5 world is pithier, wittier, and much more concise than in the real world. Important characters never stumble over their words and they always have a joke at the ready. They’re still riddled with self-doubt and indecision; they just don’t sound like it.
4. Technobabble is kept to a minimum. In science fiction it’s way too easy to invoke futuristic technology to solve a problem. “I know it looked like I was decapitated, but the nanites in my blood built a collagen scaffolding and regrew my damaged tissues in a matter of moments!” You can always adjust the fundamental field harmonic to overcome the inverted triangle problem and rectify a plasma field at fourteen terawatts. At least, you can if you’re okay with your technology being indistinguishable from magic–and thereby breaking your hoped-for verisimilitude. In the 1.5 world you need to at least have a rough idea as to what all of your technospeak means–and you need to find a way to make sure the reader understands it, too. That means being able to explain your technology to someone who failed physics in high school. The tech level in the 1.5 world is–at most–ten years ahead of ours. Hand waving and invoking alien technology will always feel like cop outs in a world where smartphones are still the height of human achievement.
There’s nothing wrong with stories set in secondary worlds. Some of the classics of genre fiction take place in universes completely unconnected to the here and now. Yet think about how many of those stories really feel character-driven, how many of them you still have an emotional connection with years later. Try visiting the 1.5 world some time, and see if your story doesn’t immediately feel more resonant, real meaningful.
DAVID WELLINGTON 