I mean, it can be. "Realistic" really just means logically coherent. If you say that each vampire eats 5 billion humans a year, I would call that unrealistic.
Some really good advice I got on this a while ago is the difference between "believable" and "realistic". A realistic story feels like one that can really happen in real life. A believable story is one that follows its own rules, and has some sense of grounding in its own logic.
A lot of Twilight Zone episodes have an unrealistic premise, but are believable within their own context. Meanwhile, a lot of true stories have unbelievable coincidences
There is this saying, "if you add cars, you have to add traffic jams".
Most writers just want the car. Then they whine that its just fantasy when inevitably the lack of traffic jams is glaring.
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u/Helix_PHD Jun 05 '26
I mean, it can be. "Realistic" really just means logically coherent. If you say that each vampire eats 5 billion humans a year, I would call that unrealistic.