Hey everyone! We’re here once again with another post for this week. I’m nearing my finals for this semester so I’m hoping that all of these posts will still be on time but I’m a little nervous about getting these done on time. Fingers crossed. But we’ve already reached halfway through this series so it should be good! So, without further ado…
Ten Writing Commandments: Avoid Plot Holes
Now this writing commandment seems really straight forward and rather simple. People talk about plot holes all the time. If you’re a good writer and a good reader you will know how annoying plot holes are. For those of you who are new to the writing community let me explain. A plot hole is not a pot hole but it does the same thing to your story that a pot hole does to your car. A plot hole is a seeming inconsistency in a story. It’s a hole in the otherwise continuous strand of your plot. These can be really annoying for readers. For writers, if you notice it, it seems to just be an annoying twitch in the back of your mind that doesn’t go away until you fix it. Readers notice 100% of plot holes and they notice them a lot faster and a lot more often than the writer does. In General plot holes annoy the reader more than they annoy the writer.
If you are a published writer than you know that the point of your writing is ultimately to entertain your reader. (At least if you want to sell any copies). If your story has a huge plot hole then your readers won’t enjoy the story because that plot hole that seemed minor to a writer is a lot bigger to your reader. Now, if you get published at a publishing company you are less likely to have plot holes. If you are self-published and you don’t go through several rounds of editing or have other read your story first, you will have plot holes. Even if you are published through a publisher sometimes those plot holes that they do catch cause you to have to rewrite whole papers. Best way to avoid this: avoid plot holes.
Now that you know WHY you should avoid plot holes let’s talk about HOW to avoid plot holes.
I believe that there are 3 types of plot holes. This isn’t a fact set in stone in the writing community or anything, its just something I’ve observed over more than a decade of writing. There are character plot holes, scenic plot holes, and setting plot holes. Let’s start with the easiest to avoid to the hardest according to my thoughts on the topic.
First, and I believe, easiest to avoid and/or fix are scenic plot holes. On master classes website they say that a scene is, “…a contained narrative unit that takes place within a larger narrative. Scenes are the building blocks of stories. Most stories are made up of a series of scenes that vary in setting and advance the plot.” A scene is a moment of writing. Scenic plot holes are seeming inconsistent holes in the narrative that occur between scenes during the scene transitions. Think of it this way,
I’ve been watching a very interesting play for about an hour and now there is an intermission. After the intermission I sit back down in my seat for the next scene. I sit down, I get comfortable, and I wait. The play begins back up but suddenly none of the characters I knew from the last half of the play are on stage and none of them are mentioned. I think to myself, maybe if I wait a little bit it will all make sense. Then, one hour later, at the conclusion of the play they throw in a couple lines that connect everything from the first half of the play and that was it. So, I leave the play just as confused as I was at the end of intermission. This is a scenic plot hole. There was a hole in my knowledge, of something I missed in the narrative between the last scene of the first half and the first scene of the second half.
Scene plot holes in writing are easy to fix because generally they are simply caused by really bad writing. Fix your writing and you fix the hole. In the case of the previous play mentioned this problem could have been solved in two different ways. Either they could have thrown in references earlier on in the story of the second half to the first half so that the reader knew there was still a connection between the two. OR the writer could have thrown in one more scene either at the end of the first half or the beginning of the second half that explained the transition from one story to another a lot better.
Second, setting plot holes. These types of plot holes are usually created inconsistencies between the physical laws of nature in the story and the actual events of the story itself. Two examples of this comes to mind.
The first example is of two characters travelling for some reason in the story. Two days after the beginning of their travelling they realize that they have travelled to a certain distance. But, here’s the catch, they have traveled further then they should’ve been able to in the time they were given. For example, in a book I wrote as a 12-year-old my two characters travel from France to Egypt overland in two days. THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! This is a setting plot hole.
The second example of a setting plot hole is that there is some sort of magic system in your world. This magic system has very explicit rules that you have stated for the reader at least once, if not multiple times. Suddenly one of your characters does something that defies those rules you have already taught your reader. Unless this is a point of your plot that is important and explained later, you now have an extreme setting plot hole.
One of the best ways to solve a setting plot hole is by changing the frame of reference. For example, in the first example. Change the time it takes them to travel to that place. If you think it’s so much a scenic plot hole for them to be travelling for 3 or 4 weeks and have nothing happen to them, add some new interesting plot points of things that happen to them while they are traveling. Or, if the location they are travelling to isn’t important, pick a place within that travel distance for the time you selected and change the destination.
In the case of the second example, you either make the character breaking that rule part of your magic system or you have to find some other way for that character to accomplish that task. Sometimes that requires your character to do something different that yields a slightly different result but that would still further the story in the direction you want. You can also change the rules of your magic system so that it allows that sort of action but that takes a lot of work and sometimes it doesn’t work out. But these are only the second hardest plot holes to fix, the next are the hardest and the most annoying.
The last kind of plot holes are character plot holes. Character plot holes themselves fall into two separate categories of character plot holes and both are really annoying, but one is easier to fix than another.
The first kind of character plot hole is the easiest to fix out of both kinds of character plot hole and that is small character inconsistencies. Whether this is a random character appearing and disappearing in a story line or small attributes of a character changing over the course of a story. Both of these kinds of plot holes are rather annoying for a reader and they will notice these ones right away. Say in chapter one your main female lead is described by the male lead as having shimmering auburn hair and then in chapter six that same male lead briefly mentions the female leads straight black hair. Reading this the reader will say, “Wait, didn’t she have auburn hair?” Suddenly they find it hard to trust the male lead and also the author because of a character inconsistency. Likewise if a character that is only semi important to the story pops in and out of the story without any reasons your reader will begin to wonder if the author was forgetting about that character because of the plot hole.
One of the best ways to fix this plot hole is to simply keep track of your characters. This sounds easier than it actually is. Characters can sometimes get lost in the loop and you don’t know where they are. I remedy this problem by not worrying too much about it when writing a first draft. Then when I’m finished I read all the way through it and write down the name of all the characters or a description if they don’t have a name and then I write a small timeline for each character to make sure they didn’t disappear and then for smaller characters I write a short description so I don’t loose details like their hair color or personality type.
The second type of character plot hole that occurs and annoys readers is the inconsistencies in character motivation. Sometimes a specific character does something and meanwhile all of the readers sit there and think, “wait, did the main lead just do what I think they just did?” Most of the time the answer will be yes. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that characters shouldn’t sometimes have unique plot twists in the story. However, all actions by the character should fit in with some sort of character motivation. When a character simply acts without following their own personal goals and values that is a plot hole. There is no reason for the character to act like that, so why would they? For me this is the most annoying plot hole of them all, as a reader and as a writer.
I have no concrete advice on how to solve this plot hole. If you find one let me know. The best advice I can give is to write a list of the characters values. Then write down the situation that has occurred and then write down all the possible solutions. Once you have all the possible solutions, write down the values you would need to have to take each solution and pick the one that fits best for you character. This works for me about 50% of the time. I’m not sure why it doesn’t work the other 50%. So good luck on that.
So that is the three different types of plot holes, scenic plot holes, setting plot holes, and character plot holes. I hope that this section has helped with your understanding of plot holes and how to avoid them. Nobody likes them. Next week will be post 7 of the ten writing commandments series. We’re slowly getting near the end of this series. It looks like the ending of this series will line right up with my finals so after this series I might take anywhere between a 2 week and 1 month break before the next update so I can recharge from finals and come up with some ideas for the next series. I hope you enjoyed this post. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the members account and follow me on social media. Don’t forget,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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