Suspension of Disbelief

You walk into a small, square dungeon. In that small, square dungeon, you see four walls, each made of some weird kind of shiny green stone. Against each of the four walls, there is a shelf. Three of the shelves are empty, but one has an old, torn cardboard box with "Return to sender" printed diagonally on the side. You wonder who the sender was, where the box was being sent to before being returned. Curiosity getting the better of you, you decide to open the box, completely ignoring the fact that you're in a very small, creepy enclosed space and you can't remember why you're there or where you came from. You have opened the box, and inside there is only one thing: A small piece of paper. On the paper, written in blood, are the words "Suspension of disbelief".

Fiction only works because of a little thing called "Suspension of Disbelief". Yes, it was written in blood. Shut up, I ran out of ink. In film, there is a metaphorical "contract" between the director and the audience. When an audience enters a cinema, they're basically saying "Ok, I'll believe your crack-pot scenarios and unbelievable circumstances for the next two hours if YOU promise to make the film in such a way that my mind can make it believable."
For example, if I were to make a film about a cemetery, and made the cemetery out of cardboard, then showed you the film and it's just pieces of cardboard with something written on them*, your mind would immediately go "Ok, that's TOTALLY a real graveyard." (Note the sarcasm), and you wouldn't believe it. However, if I filmed a real graveyard, it would be much more believable. See where I'm coming from?

Your mind lies to you. See below.

Same thing works for stage. The characters and scenarios are ridiculous and often exaggerated (Melodrama especially), but when we enter the theatre we want to be entertained, so our mind lies and we believe the story. The actors make it believable, as does the set, script, director etc. etc.

This applies to storybooks, too. First paragraph of this post, you imagined yourself in that dungeon. Your mind lies to you to entertain. That never happened. You're not in a dungeon with walls made of greenstone. You're at a computer, maybe on a small device, reading a blog. You know why you're there, and you know where you came from. Or maybe you don't, and if this is the case you may want to find someone who does, otherwise you might get into a spot of trouble.There is no box, but you know exactly what the box looks like, don't you? In your "mind's eye", you saw a box, tattered and old, probably dusty, with writing on it. How big was the box? What colour was it? Was it the normal cardboard colour, or was it painted? Your mind fills in the details that the author leaves out.

Film only works because of Suspension of Disbelief.

The special effects must be believable, otherwise you just think "Are you kidding me? That's so fake!" and either laugh hysterically at the low quality of the effects, or ask for your money back, or maybe both.

YOUR MIND LIES TO YOU.

Look at this picture.

Which building is the farthest away?

Well, it's a two-dimensional picture. No building is closer than another, but your mind lies to you to make it look like they are different distances away from you. Optical illusions are examples of your mind lying to you.

-Belle

*"Here lies John Bun,

He was killed by a gun.

His name was not Bun, but Wood,

But Wood would not rhyme with gun,

But Bun would."