Not that I’m pointing fingers, mind you…

In your genre script, you don’t have to worry about explaining each and every little detail.

If it’s sci-fi, for example, we are willing to accept jetpacks. In fantasy, we are willing to accept spells. But please avoid contradicting reality too much. People are smarter than you think and when you blatantly contradict common sense, you’re gonna honk ’em off.

Seducing people into a willing suspension of disbelief is easy. They’re already willing to go there if they’re watching a sci-fi movie. Keeping them there is actually pretty easy, too. But once you contradict what they know, you’re hosed.

For example, if I had a sci-fi movie where people are flying around, there’s got to be some kind of reason for it, however far-fetched. They can be wearing itty-bitty jetpacks and the audience will buy it, but if they can just fly, it makes no sense.

Contradicting yourself is even more problematic.

For example, say you established that someone could, with proper training (“with proper training” is one of those tools, by the way, to allow us to accept that people can do extraordinary things), learn how to manipulate a mystical energy field and do really cool things and fight with laser swords and so forth. Then, two movies later, you declare it’s only possible because they are unusual and have lots of some sort of gizmo in their blood. That’s contradicting your own rules. That’s a killer.