There are, roughly speaking, three kinds of consistency that a viewer expects from a story:
- External Consistency: Consistency with the real world.
The fictional universe is Like Reality Unless Noted. Violations of external consistency are "unrealistic."
- Genre Consistency: Consistency with other fictional works.
The fictional universe should behave like other works in its genre, unless specifically noted otherwise. Any fictional concepts, characters, or settings borrowed from other works should behave as they do in those works. For example, a dragon is generally expected to be a flying reptilian creature that breathes fire. If your work takes place in an Expanded Universe, you're generally expected to be consistent with Canon.
- Internal Consistency: Consistency with itself.
Any rules, events, settings, or characters that have been established within the fictional work continue to exist and function as they did previously, unless otherwise indicated.
Consistency aids
Willing Suspension of Disbelief, while violations of consistency may be jolting and unexpected. The viewer would be quite surprised to learn that in your universe, Hitler was a circus performer, dragons are scared of fire, and that those two characters who previously knew each other no longer recognize each other. Generally, if a work is inconsistent, the viewer expects there to be a good reason for it. On the other hand, sometimes violations of consistency go unnoticed even if they're quite obvious, or may even be
expected; e.g.
The Coconut Effect violates
External Consistency.
Often, a feature in a work is consistent at one level and not at another; for example, maybe
your vampires glitter, which is not genre consistent with other works featuring vampires, but as long as they always do that, it
is internally consistent. If a work forgoes
External Consistency in favor of
Genre Consistency, you have
The Coconut Effect. If conversely a work forgoes
Genre Consistency in favor of
External Consistency, then you have
Reality Ensues.
Sometimes, as in the case of sequels, it can be unclear whether two works are distinct works or part of the same work, making the distinction between
Genre Consistency and
Internal Consistency a bit fuzzy.
An
Omnipresent Trope, since every work of fiction has
some kind of consistency (maybe except
Finnegans Wake).
No examples please — this is just a descriptive
Super Trope and index.
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Related tropes:
General
External Consistency
Lack of External Consistency
Excess of External Consistency
Genre Consistency
Lack of Genre Consistency
Excess of Genre Consistency
Internal Consistency
Lack of Internal Consistency
Excess of Internal Consistency
