Realiness
2 o'clock, June 2, 2006
This came up in the aftermath to the Strange Horizons Tea Party, and it looks like Hannah’s now using it as a critical term of art, so:
- Realiness is to realism what truthiness is to truth. Only realiness is a good thing.
- Realiness is what’s left after you suspend all the disbelief you’re supposed to suspend.
- Realiness is what makes Air (or Have Not Have) more plausible than The World is Flat, even though Air is science fiction (arguably, even, fantasy) and The World is Flat is alleged not to be fiction of any kind.
Make sense? Like, I accept that a thirty-story lizard is attacking the city, but I don’t accept that the “greatest investigative reporter of all time” can be this dumb. Yes, Godzilla is just as implausible — well, almost as implausible — as Buck Williams, but Godzilla is a speculative element and Buck Williams is just not a believable character. Godzilla lacks realism, but Buck Williams lacks realiness.
Better definitions? Better examples? Anyone remember what we were actually talking about when it came up?
I was scared (Scary Editor Moles!) that I wouldn't be using the term correctly.
Then I remembered that it was coined at the con and that I could just accuse anyone who disagreed with me of having been drunk at the time.
Win!