There is an unwritten contract between a reader and a writer of fiction.
The reader picks up a writer’s offering. If the first words are “Once upon a time,” or “It was a sultry, summer afternoon,” or “Call me Ishmael,” the reader doesn’t protest and toss the writing away. No, the reader says, “Tell me more.” The reader knows it’s a story but is agreeing to the writer’s presentation of time and place and character.
The technical term for this is “willing suspension of disbelief.”
That willingness to believe—to allow the writer leeway with the truth—must be met by the writer’s promise of “verisimilitude.”
Simply, the writer promises the appearance of reality, the likeness to truth. All the stories that we write, all the fiction—fantasy, horror, crime, romance, historical fiction—has to be believable. Cinderella has to be believable. Hannibal Lector has to be believable. R2D2 has to be believable. Jurassic Park has to be believable.
Suppose that I write a romance where handsome young man meets beautiful young woman. Her parents love him; his parents love her. Their friends love them both. They have perfect jobs and lives that mesh seamlessly. They share the same religious and political views. They both like French vanilla iced coffee, red wine, and an occasional margarita. Are you bored yet? Are you still reading? Those of you that I could entice to read a romance would have quit by now. I have failed to present what we know to be true about relationships: “The course of true love never did run smooth.” I have broken the contract. The reader tosses my romance—my hard work—aside.
So long as we include elements that our readers find believable, we can enhance, distort, maneuver other elements and still maintain our verisimilitude. Fulfilling our contract with the reader is our responsibility and our reward.
P.S. The poet gets more leeway. The poet gets to make the reader work for meaning, for reality. The grand payoff for the poet is the reader or readers who really get it. The downside: poetry doesn’t often make Star Wars status.
- The Contract - March 6, 2026