I wrote a while ago about breaking your own rules, where the audience isn't given the expectation for some crucial elements of your world or story. Here, however, I'm talking about an altogether sillier version - breaking rules that you have specifically enunciated to the reader.

Inspired once again by Doctor Who - the second half of the Weeping Angels. Amy, for retcon-reasons we won't go into, has to keep her eyes shut and navigate a forest with Angels in it. Angels are a perculiar kind of alien that, as explained by Ten in Blink, don't exist when they're being observed - as soon as they're seen by any living thing, they turn to stone. When Amy inevitably encounters the Angels, she has to 'walk as if she can see', to fool the Angels into thinking she can see them, so they won't kill her. When she (of course) gives her blindness away, the Angels attack. It's a gripping piece of television, and the image of the Angel's clawed hand reaching out in the darkness inspired me to eat my breakfast with my back to a wall this morning before sunrise. But the very idea of her 'fooling' the Angels runs counter to the whole setup. It relies on them not being aware when they are or are not being observed, which is absurd for a creature that does not exist, or at the very least can not move when anything's looking at it, doubly so when the Angels are trying to run away from something at the time.

They broke their own rules to add some suspense to a section (or, perhaps, to make an otherwise insta-kill situation survivable for Amy). And that's usually when rules are broken - when the story needs some life injected into it, when the overarching drama has hit a low point but it's too soon for the next buildup. Not a major climax, but something to keep the pace while we're getting there. A throwaway-problem that's a logical extension of the make-things-as-bad-as-possible-for-a-character notion, easily forgotten about once solved. And it's far too easy to do just that - forget about them, and the giant gaping hole they just put in your story.

Breaking rules that way destroys the trust your reader had in them in the first place. You remind them it's a story, a creation, and that its creator is fallible. If you can pull the logic of your universe on and off like a hat, they have no reason to believe you when the danger is serious.

In some ways, it's unavoidable. You have a monster that must be looked at, and a person who can't open their eyes - of course, the one must be inflicted on the other, or your audience will feel like you pulled your punch. The issue is how you go about rescuing your character from this certain death without hand-waving away what makes your monster terrible.

Series bibles can help an author, here - an easy reference for whatever situation or creature you're dealing with, and whether you're skating on the edge of its logic if you need to create this kind of situation. Reading through your story with a skeptic's eye is another method - though one that requires brutal self-honesty, which is difficult, and a decent whack of time between writing and reading, which isn't always possible. If this is something you think you're prone to, consider cultivating an overly-logical beta-reader. The kind of person to enjoys finding flaws in arguments and faults in logic. Put your brave hat on, and ask them to find the holes for you, then you go find a way to fix them.

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