Why do some people hate fantasy and science fiction with a vengeance while others adore it? Is it simply a ‘pineapple on pizza’ thing? A matter of taste? Or is there something more profound at work?

I suspect it comes down to a concept that gets thrown around in all sorts of contexts: the suspension of disbelief. The term was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 and was originally about how modern readers can pretend to themselves while reading fiction to accept the reality of the supernatural. It’s a matter of, for a specific time span, deliberately putting aside what you would consider irrational in real life for the sake of the reading experience. You accept its reality so that you can immerse yourself in the story rather than skirt across the surface. Why would you do this? Coleridge argued that giving yourself over to the author’s vision of the world long enough to appreciate the work ‘awakens the mind’. We can see things we’ve never seen before, feel things we’ve never felt, and experience worlds we’ve never visited.

So, originally suspension of disbelief was about the supernatural or fantastic in fiction. At its heart it’s a theory of how we read the genres we now call science fiction, fantasy and horror. In modern times the concept has been extended to include what we do when we read any fiction. Even the most realistic fiction is an artificial construction made to appear real. In order to get any emotional response when we read any story, we need to allow our minds to accept the reality of it. And the idea behind suspension of disbelief has further been extended to movies, theatre, cartoons and mental health.

There are clearly two sides to this phenomenon. The writer needs to be skilled enough to produce a work that makes the suspension possible. If a work is self-contradictory or confusing, the implausibilities and unrealities will block the experience. Coleridge would say the writer needs to be able to infuse the work with a ‘human interest and a semblance of truth’.

The reader, on the other hand, needs to be open to the experience. The question is, how ‘willing’ is this suspension? Why do some readers choose to and others don’t? Is it an innate ability, or is it something that can be enhanced? Judging by the number of people who loathe speculative fiction, and even the number of people who say they dislike fiction of any kind, this inclination isn’t universal. I suspect it’s a little like meditation or mindfulness. Some people have a greater natural inclination to it, but it’s possible to train yourself to do it. Other people have no interest in it at all.

If you’re reading this, you’re most likely to be willing to suspend. So get ready for your minds to be opened!

I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach.

[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge]

All the best from the cloud!

Dirk Strasser