If you write fiction, especially fantasy or magical realism, and you want your work to be more believable, here’s a tip from Gabriel García Márquez:
“…if you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants in the sky, people will probably believe you.”
Márquez also relates a story that his grandmother used to tell—that after a certain electrician visited, he always left the house full of butterflies. Naturally, Márquez incorporated his grandmother’s story in his work. But his readers refused to believe him—until he added an extra flourish by describing the butterflies as yellow. Gabo called this a “journalistic trick”, which makes you wonder how often journalists use sleight of hand to distract us from the truth. The best novelists are accomplished magicians, and the best magicians learned their trade from their grandparents.
Source: Writers at Work, Sixth Series. George Plimpton, ed. Penguin, 1984.