โ[We] are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-makerโs art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called โwilling suspension of disbeliefโ. But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful โsub-creatorโ. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is โtrueโ: it accords with the laws off that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we can use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more of less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed.โ
๐๐โ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia โ ๐๐
September 17, 2021 at 2:56 PM
โ[We] are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-makerโs art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called โwilling suspension of disbeliefโ. But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful โsub-creatorโ. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is โtrueโ: it accords with the laws off that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we can use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more of less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed.โ
– J. R. R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories
WishfulToki
September 17, 2021 at 5:44 PM
Every fantasy writer should read Tolkien’s essay On Fairy Stories💜 Or every writer.
๐๐โ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia โ ๐๐
September 18, 2021 at 3:26 AM
Yes and yes, but also every consumer of stories imo, should read it also.