Complaining about a "lack of realism" is frowned upon as unhelpful criticism. Except in this case.
There is no such thing as an "objective reality" in fiction. Be wary of the workshop mate or editor who complains about your story being unrealistic. If realism were a legitimate thing to ask for in fiction, we never would have had Tarzan, the Mad Hatter, or the clown from It. However, there is such a thing as a subjective reality, created by the author himself. Let me explain.
There is no such thing as an "objective reality"
in fiction. However, there is such a thing as a
subjective reality, created by the author himself.
The World is Yours To Build...but Stick to Your Own Rules
If you've done it right, your story will have a beautifully-illustrated world, and that world will have rules. For example, the setting of your story-world may be a far-flung planet with a force of gravity ten times that of the Earth's. Your reader will take that setting at face value because he knows he is reading a science-fiction piece. He wouldn't bat an eyelash at encountering golden trees or an alien overlord or two. He may, however, bristle if the skyscrapers on your planet were flimsily built or your characters weighed next to nothing—because those details go against the rule of the planet's great gravitational pull, thereby contradicting the subjective reality, a.k.a. the science, of your science-fictive world.
Or, your story may take place in an ostensibly real, present-day setting—say, a nudist colony in Malibu—and the setting will remain mundane (i.e. the world that we know) for the duration of the story. If the sky started raining uvulas of Swiss yodelers, hey, more power to you and to the story. But because it's set in the world that we know, the reader might legitimately ask for a reason behind the story's sudden weirdness. You may have perfectly sensible reasons for the raining uvulas: They may be an integral conceit in the arc of your story (say, they're a hallucination of a drug-addled protagonist), or you might be deliberately writing in the realm of the slightly uncanny. Either of these reasons is a legitimate answer to the reader's legitimate question. And if the answer appears in the story, either subtly or unsubtly, and by design, the reader will accept the uvulas as an organic part of your story, and not a reality infraction.
"Realistic" Characters
The complaint about "unrealistic characters" is one of the biggest workshop faux pas of all. It is impossible to define the objectively-realistic behavior of an overworked mother, a three-year-old savant, a drug dealer, a young bride, a gay teenager growing up in Newark. We are all different in big and small ways; we are not easily defined by a handful of traits. Besides, fiction concerns itself with revealing characterological layers, surprising the reader, and revealing the unexpected. With all that said, however, the reader may have a legitimate beef with your adherence to subjective reality if your character goes against the set of personality traits you've set up for her in the context of your story.
Let's go back to the nudist colony. Say your protagonist, Lillith, is the most hardcore nudist of all. If she shows up one day in a Chanel suit, and then goes on wearing that suit for the rest of the story, the reader will raise an eyebrow unless the reasons behind her actions are revealed or hinted at. As in the uvula example above, any out-of-character occurrences need to have purpose—a reason for being—or you risk pulling your reader out of the subjective reality of your story.
I once read a terrific book set in our present-day, earthbound environment, that moreover demonstrated an almost obsessive commitment to the practical details of the natural world. In other words, this story was as objectively realistic as it gets. At one point, however, the protagonist power-washed the rust off a cast-iron pan—and as a heavy user of cast iron, I knew a power wash was not a legitimate method for that dirty business. The small infraction against the story's subjective reality (which coincided with objective reality only because the author defined it as such) didn't matter as much as the impact it had on me, the reader. After hundreds of pages of living and breathing inside the realm of the story, I questioned the mechanics of the objects within the story for the first time. And all it took was the tiniest of details to yank me out. Thankfully, the brilliance of the novel sucked me right back in. Me? I'm not so brilliant, so I remain vigilant of my subjective reality at all times.
Stick to your own story rules.
Stick to your own story rules, and keep your readers cosseted in the world you've created. Remember, readers are on your side: We want to believe!
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