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The standard is an editor's account of the 'average spectator' in 1916.","status":"active","body":{"text":"Sargent (ch. XII 'Plausibility') says an incident can be explained, prepared for and correctly coloured and still fail because the average spectator will not accept it as a likely thing. His test is acceptance, not truth: 'possible' is not 'probable', and a possible but improbable incident is worse than a fantastic one that is offered as imagination. So he tells writers to prefer a story that sounds true to one that is true, and to drop true events that are too strange. The exemption is a declared fantasy. His examples (Capitol dome, policeman and aeroplane, sea serpent, Verne) illustrate these claims; none is tested. The standard is an editor's account of the 'average spectator' in 1916.\n\nCurator qualifications: Plausibility-as-acceptance verified; cross-chapter pointers (XXII, LIV) confirmed in the correct chapters. 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XII 'Plausibility') says an incident can be explained, prepared for and correctly coloured and still fail because the average spectator will not accept it as a likely thing. His test is acceptance, not truth: 'possible' is not 'probable', and a possible but improbable incident is worse than a fantastic one that is offered as imagination. So he tells writers to prefer a story that sounds true to one that is true, and to drop true events that are too strange. The exemption is a declared fantasy. His examples (Capitol dome, policeman and aeroplane, sea serpent, Verne) illustrate these claims; none is tested. The standard is an editor's account of the 'average spectator' in 1916.\n\nCurator qualifications: Plausibility-as-acceptance verified; cross-chapter pointers (XXII, LIV) confirmed in the correct chapters. 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