: Re: How to tell readers that I know my story is factually incorrect? Sometimes, it so happens that I do some research for a story and find that a major plot point could never work in real life.

@Courtney562

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Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

(Mark Twain, allegedly)

If your licence (or licences) from the truth really troubles your conscience, leave your explanation/justification for a note at the end of the novel. This way you won't break the flow for the reader, and you'll leave your explanation for a time (at the end of the novel) when the reader is keener on suspending their suspension of disbelief. My two cents.

The writers of the TV series "Breaking Bad" (or was it "Better call Saul"?) drive another excellent point when they make a character say:

I once told a woman I was Kevin Costner, and it worked because I
believed it.

In other words: if you don't believe your own story, it's not going to work.

Another way of addressing the issue could be to be playfully unapologetic about it.

The novel The Baron in the Trees by Italian writer Italo Calvino is an excellent example of how unlikely situations can be delivered in a believable way without ever having to give explanations to the reader or making the reader feel cheated. The novel is the story of a kid that climbs up a tree after a fight with his noble family and decides to never climb down. He spends an entire life of adventures in the trees. The novel is set in Italy in the XVI century and it is dense of historically accurate references. Everything that happens, no matter how unlikely, is consistent with the time and place in which the events are set. One can tell that Calvino did not have to sit down and "do the research" to do so. He knew those time and places well enough to play with them comfortably in the first place. More importantly, he was immersed in the reality that he was weaving, he believed it, and in turn so does the reader (or perhaps I am just gullible).

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