Okay, so here's the scene: Sally and Jude are running from the minions of evil Emperor Zeo on his battleship after being caught stealing the Emperor's favorite weapon: THE LASERZAPPER 3000. You're totally invested in this story. YES YOU ARE. Jude is shot in the leg. Sally is carrying him on her back while fending off the evil minions with her laser gun, but she can't run for very much longer. They're both going to die and become minion snacks. Then suddenly, Sally has a brilliant idea. Opening up the nearest garbage shoot, she throws Jude inside and follows suit, slides down the aluminum shaft and is shot out into space, landing on the back of a flying space peacock.
That's right. A FLYING SPACE PEACOCK.
WHAT THE ****!? You've been reading this 2983 page novel for WEEKS and this is
the first time you've EVER heard of a flying space peacock!
I'm not dissing the peacock. I'm sure that, given the circumstances, they could be a very viable mode of transportation in a desperate situation such as Sally's. In fact, the writer (MUAHAHA) soon explains that Sally actually had a magic ring belonging to her great grandmother that, when rubbed, calls for the aid of the peacocks from plant XR2938.
Oh okay, well then, I take back my WTF.
NO. YOU SHOULDN'T.
Unfortunately, I've been running into this problem VERY OFTEN as of late with manuscripts and published books and short stories, mainly those resting in the science fiction or futuristic dystopian genre. Just because it's set in the future doesn't mean I assume food is taken in the form of a capsule, so when mean old stepdad chokes on his food pill and croaks, mark my words, I will again say WTF. Or when sweet Peter, Anna's true love, is dying of a lasergun shot to the chest, and Anna pulls out a heart-healer injector from her back pocket that I've never heard of before and saves her true love, I will say WTF. When Amy and Paul are front runners in an epic car chase that has led into the ocean, but it's okay because futuristics cars can drive underwater, I WILL SAY WHAT THE ****.
Yes, as writers, we have all heard to trust our reader. But trust is definitely different than assumption. Lay out the important concepts like space peacocks and food pills and heart injectors and underwater Mercedes early on in the story, so when your reader finally reaches the scene where that concept becomes the saving (or dying in the case of the mean stepdad) resource, your readers will just go with it!
This message brought to you by a sad little writer whose readers have been stricken with the WTF Factor more times than she's proud of.
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