Verisimilitude

ˌverɪsɪˈmɪlɪˌtud

noun

the appearance of being true or real

Verisimilitude comes from the Latin word 'verisimilitudo,' meaning 'likeness to truth.' It is often used in literature and art to describe the quality of seeming to be true or real, even if the events or characters depicted are fictional.

When he had landed on the roof of his building he sat for a time, weaving together in his mind a story thick with verisimilitude.

Dick, Philip K.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

On 30 October 1967 he wrote to Joy Hill at George Allen & Unwin, concerning a reader's query he had received about points in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings : 'Personally I have ceased to bother about these minor "discrepancies", since if the genealogies and calendars etc. lack verisimilitude it is in their general excessive accuracy: as compared with real annals or genealogies!

J. R. R. Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring

His account of his supposed emotions, from the discovery of the loss of the revolver onwards, was a triumph of verisimilitude.

Josephine Tey

The Man in the Queue

Plots in fiction should be wedded to the understanding of the reader, and be constructed in such a way that, reconciling impossibilities, smoothing over difficulties, keeping the mind on the alert, they may surprise, interest, divert, and entertain, so that wonder and delight joined may keep pace one with the other; all which he will fail to effect who shuns verisimilitude and truth to nature, wherein lies the perfection of writing.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Don Quixote