Bag of Bones and suspension of disbelief

Suspension of disbelief… what and why

When I was in college, I considered myself an avid reader even though I probably only read something like 3-5 books for leisure per year at the time. Of course, those tended to be 800 page tomes, since, as previously mentioned, I was a big Stephen King fan. And though one might measure their love of reading by number of titles or pages consumed, I think the essential characteristic of an avid fiction reader is a willingness to suspend disbelief. That is, to choose belief. To make a temporary peace with the impossible or the unlikely in order to experience something amazing. To take a journey of “What if?”

For instance, what if the secret of a haunted lake house demands reckoning before any healing can begin?

A gift for someone very special…

In 1999, I received Bag of Bones–in hard cover!–as a gift. I was thrilled as I opened the cover. I found it inscribed, “To the best boss ever!”

On first glance, I thought this was a joke… but the handwriting wasn’t right… and neither was the name.

If you can believe it, the book had been purchased as a gift for someone else… and inscribed… and returned… and purchased again… and given to me.

We had a good laugh over it.

Bag of Bones by Stephen King. What a battered hardback showed me about suspension of disbelief

Regifted again, in a manner of speaking

Years later, I was talking books with a co-worker who raved about Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. We agreed to lend each other recommended reads, and I brought her Bag of Bones.

So. I read Winter Solstice. And I really, really hated it. I mean, I’m sorry if you liked that book. Not my cuppa, wow.

And it might fall again to suspension of disbelief. Nothing impossible happens in Winter Solstice, yet the book left me feeling hollow. I can believe in Bag of Bones and its angry ghost long enough to find a dark and dangerous road to healing, but ordinary people in holiday romances cannot convince me that love is so cheap.

Which leads to the ultimate what-if, the reason we readers hold out our hands expectantly and let authors lead us on a journey through disbelief. What if, at the heart of a good story well-told, you’ll always find something true?

Tweetable: For fiction readers, suspension of disbelief begins with asking what-if and ends with the expectation of finding something true.

Although Winter Solstice wasn’t that book for me, I returned it to my co-worker and thanked her. She hadn’t gotten around to reading Bag of Bones yet, but she was looking forward to it.

Time passed.

Then one day, she told me, apologizing like crazy, that she had spilled Skin-So-Soft all over the book and ruined it (although I’m sure it smelled nice). She promised to replace it. For what it’s worth, I believed her.

More time passed.

And then, unfortunately, her employment with the company ended, and I never saw her again.

Suspending disbelief, arriving at reality

Even more years later, I was in a used bookshop nearby where they sell hardbacks for $4.00, and I spotted Bag of Bones. And since it always chafed just a little that I’d lost my copy, and because I couldn’t beat the price, I snagged it.

It was only a little worse for wear. Looked like it’d had something spilled on it at some point.

Nah… Couldn’t be, I thought.

I believed it, though. As you’ve seen by now, the reservoir of wonder in my heart runs deep, and in that moment, I went from looking for something cheap–a secondhand book–to wanting something amazing. I opened the front cover, fully expecting to see “To the best boss ever!” written inside.

What if it was the same exact copy?

I can’t say I know what I wanted from that real-life moment of suspended disbelief. A hint of the remarkable, certainly. But that’s easily confused with coincidence, and as skilled storytellers know, a coincidence is a cheat.

I glanced inside the book, then quickly snapped it shut and carried the book to the register, feeling a little foolish and a little relieved, because if you ask me, dark and dangerous roads to healing shouldn’t end where they begin.

Thankfully, the page inside the front cover was as blank as you’d want your untold story to be.

Thanks for reading! I’ll have my monthly update for you on June 27th–talk to you then!

There’s still time!

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