All right now I promise you, this is my very last post wrt my question about firewood, ropes and buckets.
Many works of fiction are guilty of the same sin: stockpiling blatant nonsense. Cartoons like Powerpuff Girls or Looney Tunes aside, where apparently intentionally the authors hold logic and common sense in a total disregard, I happened to watch many works where the absurdities were obvious even to me, yet I had a feeling that they were not that obvious to the authors. Such moments were not nice for me - I found them annoying, spoiling an otherwise interesting experience.
My ideal, perhaps a silly one, was a piece of fiction, fantastical work that no reader would feel the urge to scream "What a blatant nonsense!" at any point. And I've already felt such an urge numerous times, even wrt to works that were applauded "mature" like The Witcher the game.
Even though I'm mainly writing for my drawer, I decided to take an utmost care to ensure that my works are free from such nonsense. This means that I've devised two rules to follow:
1) The work must be coherent (duh). The logic and common sense must not be broken. 2) Whenever the rules are not explicitly overridden by incorporated fantasy/sci-fi elements the real-world rules should remain in force by default.
Admittedly, keeping these rules has proven much more difficult than I was predicting. I'm notoriously failing to keep them.
Point 2) has proven especially tricky, as I'm always hitting the issue of not having enough knowledge to judge whether some idea of mine is plausible or if it is just a blatant nonsense. I hoped Worldbuilding SE would help me here.
Apparently, I was wrong. I was told that my question was off-topic because it was about the real world rather than about some fictional world of mine. The hard part of point 2) is that such considerations will frequently lead to questions about the real world even if I'm incorporating fantastical elements in my work. And I do incorporate some fantastical elements; only none of these elements seem to me to override how fast will wood decay in open weather.
So, it would seem, even if some work is in the genre of fantasy, we can not always use Worldbuilding SE to ensure the plot is not broken.
And there is also literary realism. Here I can't think how could such an author use Worldbuilding SE if this rule is to be kept:
Historical events of or historical facts about the real world, except when provided as examples or comparisons in the construction of an imaginary world
"But using defaults from the real world is not wordbuilding! By definition, building a world means we're not using defaults from the real world! So unless you can outline how your world differs from the real world with regard to what you are asking about, your question is off-topic here and you should not ask it."
This is, at least, how I understand what I've been told.
I actually kind of disagree here. Even if the village was placed in a world where all laws are exactly the same as in the real word (which is not the case), a village is still its own little world. Building a village means building a world. Even if the village was lying in one of the real life countries, which again is not the case in my work.
So, questions if it is probable that the villagers will do X in the given conditions seem to me to be questions about World Building. And these are questions that every writer, whether he writes in the genre of literary realism or fantasy must be able to answer, or else his plot is broken.
Or if not, then I propose adding to the FAQ the following post:
My question is similar to what can be considered in the real world, can I ask it here?
No.
Worldbuilding means building a world different from the real world. So unless you can show how, in regard to your question, your world differs from the real world, you may not post it here.
To help you understand the issue, please consider the following three examples:
- Would villagers in my village keep their firewood outside?
In this question all rules from the real world take place by default, so it's off-topic here. Whether or not there are dragons in your world is irrelevant, unless you state that the firewood being stolen by dragons flying by is one of your concerns.
- A wizard has devised weather-proof firewood, would the villagers keep it outside?
The question is on-topic here, so you may ask it, though the answer seems to be a little obvious.
- What minimal changes to the laws of nature are required to make firewood being washed down by rain not a thing?
This is an excellent question, one of those we welcome with open hands.
Yes, this means that this site is not for authors writing in the realism genre. Sorry guys. Your questions are off-topic here.