* FourthWall / NoFourthWall

* NecessaryWeasel: When the audience knows that the trope is unlikely / impossible / unrealistic, but is willing to accept it because it's just become part of the genre. Sure, FasterThanLightTravel is impossible, but if it means that SpaceOpera can take us to some creatively interesting parts of the universe quicker than several thousand human lifespans, we're willing to suck it up and go along with it.

* LampshadeHanging: If the characters also agree that something doesn't make sense, the audience will be relieved.

* LampshadeHanging:If the characters also agree that something doesn't make sense, the audience will be relieved.

* LampshadeHanging

* {{Conceit}}: There are some ideas in every story that just have to be accepted. For instance, if the story is about space explorers going to Mars for to meet with aleins, the conceit is that there is life on Mars.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality - Sometimes absolute realism can make a work or story boring, disgusting, downright impossible, or otherwise just doesn't work. Breaking from it in those instances, as long as it's not an AssPull and is internally consistent, actually makes your story better.
* The AnthropicPrinciple - Pretty much every story has some fundamental elements which, unrealistic or improbable as they may be, are vital for the story to function in the first place, so, like them or not, you don't really have a choice but to suck them up if you want to enjoy the story. Sure, it might be unlikely that the GreatDetective would just happen to be around to solve the incredibly byzantine murder that someone's committed close by, but if he or she wasn't there you wouldn't be able to enjoy watching him or her solve the mystery in the first place.
* ArtisticLicense - As above, sometimes the correct depiction of something wouldn't work for the story in some way (e.g. in a CopShow, having everyone do paperwork and eat and drink coffee 90 percent of the time would likely bore the audience, which is expecting drama and action). Generally doesn't break Willing Suspension of Disbelief unless the following applies:

* AssPull: THE biggest way you can break Willing Suspension Of Disbelief, as mentioned above. Some subtropes of it will do it almost 100 percent of the time, specifically the DeusExMachina and DiabolusExMachina. Generally, this trope and its subtropes needs to be approached carefully and handled masterfully in any form of media where they appear, to avoid pulling the audience out of their suspension.

* TheCoconutEffect
* {{Conceit}}

* {{Kayfabe}}

Any creative endeavor, certainly any written creative endeavor, is only successful to the extent that the audience offers this willing suspension as they read, listen, or watch. It's part of an unspoken contract: The writer provides the reader/viewer/player with a good story, and in return, they accept the reality of the story as presented, and accept that characters in the fictional universe act on their own accord.

An author's work, in other words, does not ''have'' to be realistic, only believable and [[MagicAIsMagicA internally consistent]] (even the last requirement [[BellisariosMaxim can be relieved to some extent]]). When the author pushes an audience beyond what they're willing to accept, the work fails in the eyes of [[BrokenBase that particular audience]]. As far as science fiction is concerned, viewers are usually willing to go along with [[TechnoBabble creative explanations]] which is why [[ArtisticLicensePhysics people don't criticize your wormhole travel system]] or [[AppliedPhlebotinum how a shrinking potion doesn't violate the laws of matter conservation]], but even in the more fantastical genres, suspension of disbelief can be broken when a work breaks its own established laws or asks the audience to put up with too many things that come off as contrived.

A common way of putting this is "You can ask an audience to believe the impossible, but not the improbable." For example, people will accept that [[AWizardDidIt the Grand Mage can teleport across the world]], or that [[StealthInSpace the spaceship has technology that makes it completely invisible]] without rendering its own sensors blind, but they won't accept that the ferocious carnivore [[AssPull just happened to have a heart attack and die]] right before it attacked the main character, or that [[HollywoodHacking the hacker guessed his enemy's password on the first try just by typing random letters]], at least without [[ChekhovsGun some prior detail]] [[JustifiedTrope justifying]] it or one of the Rules listed below coming into play. What is in RealLife impossible just has to be made the norm in the setting and kept consistent.

The MST3KMantra is an exhortation to reinstate your Willing Suspension Of Disbelief even if it's been broken, because "it's just a show". Similarly, BellisariosMaxim calls the audience to reinstate their [=WSOD=] by ''ignoring'' whatever {{Plot Hole}}s or other inconsistencies broke it, or that those things really ''aren't'' as important as the audience member(s) may think.

* ScienceFictionWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: In the world of the science fiction genre, things tend to be conveniently huge, or conveniently smaller than what they are in reality for the sake of keeping the suspension of disbelief going. A particularly common subtrope of this is the AsteroidThicket, a dense collection of extremely close asteroids that are somehow not merging together, despite the fact that at this sort of proximity they'd be well on the way to forming a new planet in real life.

An author's work, in other words, does not ''have'' to be realistic, only believable and [[MagicAIsMagicA internally consistent]] (even the last requirement [[BellisariosMaxim can be relieved to some extent]]). When the author pushes an audience beyond what they're willing to accept, the work fails in the eyes of [[BrokenBase that particular audience]]. As far as science fiction is concerned, viewers are usually willing to go along with [[TechnoBabble creative explanations]] which is why [[PhysicsGoof people don't criticize your wormhole travel system]] or [[AppliedPhlebotinum how a shrinking potion doesn't violate the laws of matter conservation]], but even in the more fantastical genres, suspension of disbelief can be broken when a work breaks its own established laws or asks the audience to put up with too many things that come off as contrived.

* MagicAIsMagicA: If you want to make the audience believe the impossible, you must make it consistent between iterations of said impossibility. For example, if it's established that a wizard can only summon beings weaker than itself, and then the newbie summons a full-blown EldritchAbomination, you might need to HandWave it or [[Foreshadowing establish before]] that they can pull that off.

* MagicAIsMagicA

* AssPull: THE biggest way you can break Willing Suspension Of Disbelief, as mentioned above. Some subtropes of it will do it almost 100 percent of the time, specifically the DeusExMachina and DiabolusExMachina.

* ScienceFictionWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale