We tend to talk about plot holes as if they’re an author’s worst nightmare. If they’re anything like we see them described on Instagram and Twitter, these story-destroying monsters sneak in and tear things apart indiscriminately, leading to hours of painstaking and painful revision.
They don’t have to be so scary. Yes, they undermine your writing, and yes, they need to be fixed. But with a deep breath and a little critical analysis, plot holes may not be quite the monsters we make them out to be. Instead, they may just be oversights, logical leaps, or hard-to-believe conveniences that we can sort out with a little creativity and thought.
Let’s take a look at what these plot holes are made of, and see if we can break them down into something a little less intimidating.
Note: Like so much about writing, different people will have different (and yet definitive, always definitive) lists of the most common types of plot holes. This blog post explores my top five, but if you’re struggling with one you don’t see here, feel free to comment below or contact me to discuss!
1. Factual Errors
We’ll start with the most straightforward type of plot hole—and this one is so straightforward I wouldn’t really even call it a hole. Maybe just a divot.
Factual errors refer to anything that is straight up wrong. Is your novel set in 1990 but the characters are sending text messages? The first text message wasn’t sent until 1992, and the first texting phone didn’t come out until 1997, so that would be a plot hole.
How to fix factual errors? Research! A quick Google search of how characters might’ve gotten in touch with each other quickly in 1990 will probably lead you to beepers for urgent messages or—gasp—landline phones for less time-sensitive conversations.
Depending on how embedded your anachronism (or other factual error) is in your story, fixing it could be as simple as swapping out some language here and there, or it may require some more serious reweaving.
(For a look at how factual errors play into fantasy stories where, theoretically, anything goes, check out my take on Starbucks in Westeros.)
2. Deus Ex Machina
Once upon a time, in the days when the big summer blockbusters were Greek and Roman tragedies, it was common for a god to be delivered on stage by a crane-like machine to determine a play’s final outcome, bestowing consequences and resolutions from out of the sky.
Today, we call that a plot hole.
More specifically, we call it Deus Ex Machina (God from a machine), and it refers to a sudden, all-too-convenient and inexplicable coincidence that provides a neat and tidy solution to a complex scenario. (Read more about it here.)
This kind of plot hole can include a character suddenly developing a brand new skill remembering some handy piece of trivia they never knew they knew, or suddenly defying the laws of physics to get out of a jam.
Finding a little Deus Ex Machina in your story? There are a couple possibilities.
It may be that whatever your character has just done—using magic in a crazy new way, walking on water, etc.—only seems impossible to the readers because they aren’t privy to all the extensive world-building work you did before you write your novel, when in reality, it’s completely within the laws of your world. If that’s the case, all you’ll need to do to fill in that plot hole is incorporate a little more of that world-building onto the page. If readers understand upfront that whatever your character is going to do to solve the problem is within the realm of possibility—or, at least, plausibility—they’ll be far more apt to believe it when it happens.
If the saving grace is a little bit too coincidental—sudden fluency in French, for example—then the key is to drop in clues earlier to any random situational details or hidden talents at the beginning of the story. Laying the groundwork for the ending early on, while readers are accepting coincidences as the inciting incidents and background information for the story, means that, when you pull a feather out of your hat at the end of the story, even the most surprised readers will be able to look back and think, I could’ve seen that coming.
In short, to flip-flop Anton Checkhov’s classic writing tip, “If a gun’s going to go off in act three, we’d better see it on the wall in act one.”
3. Continuity Errors & Implausible Choices
Continuity errors occur when a novel posits one thing early on and then contradicts it later. If a character has blue eyes on page three and green eyes on page 206, that’s a continuity error (albeit a very easy one to solve). Others are trickier. My favorite? If Stephenie Meyer established early on that vampires don’t have blood or basic biological functions and aren’t technically alive…then how did Edward Cullen manage to get Bella pregnant?
(To be fair, she has answered this question on her website, but TBH, it feels like she made that answer up pretty quickly once she realized the Breaking Dawn movie would reignite the barrage of exactly that question. And besides, I’m of the belief that a novel should work without the author popping in to explain what she really meant.)
A good way to get out ahead of these kinds of errors is keeping lists as you write—character and setting descriptions, laws of vampire biology, etc.—and refer to it as you’re introducing or resolving conflict to be sure you aren’t suddenly sending your protagonist to a nonexistent room in his house or letting your antagonist make choices that don’t work in her world.
Find a continuity error after you’ve written? If it’s as easy as making the room the right shape again, great. If it’s a little more complicated, again, you have a couple of options:
Change the rules earlier in the novel.
Have the characters learn along with the readers why whatever just happened was possible. (As a doctor, perhaps Carlisle Cullen had some insights? Or, if hybrids are a known entity, maybe the Volturi understand that biology?)
4. Unresolved Storylines
Unresolved storylines are the loose ends we’re referring to whenever we finish a story and think, “But wait, whatever happened to…?”
Especially in a story with several subplots, it can be easy to lose track of questions that need to be answered or threads that need to be tied up before the story ends. It can help, as you write, to keep track of big questions and individual threads in a separate document, outlining their progress and checking them off once they’re resolved.
When you find a loose end or unresolved storyline in your draft, you may just need to weave in its resolution. But before you do that, ask yourself if there’s a reason you forgot about it in the first place. Does this storyline really add to the novel, or is it an unnecessary complication? If it doesn’t need to be there, then the solution may just be to take it out.
(Having trouble cutting that storyline you love so much? Read my take on killing your darlings.)
5. Inexplicable Character Choices
Have you ever watched a character make a choice that completely didn’t fit her personality and found yourself taken out of the story as a result? Why would she do that? That’s so not her!
That’s the last kind of plot hole I see fairly frequently: characters making plot-driving choices that don’t fit the development we’ve seen throughout the novel (or TV series—looking at you, Robin Scherbatsky suddenly wanting to talk about love in the HIMYF season 1 finale, and with a young stranger, no less). Now, I’m not saying characters need to be static or can’t change. In fact, they must change. But readers need to be able to follow that change and believe in it.
When you encounter a character-based plot hole, fixing it may simply look like adjusting that character’s choice. But it often looks similar to fixing a deus ex machina. If a side character suddenly flies into a rage that throws the plot into a left turn, let us see flickers of anger beforehand. If a normally passive protagonist suddenly does a complete 180 and not only stands up for what she wants but walks all over the other guy in the process, first of all, GET IT, GIRL. But secondly, be sure there’s a moment preceding that in which we see the character stand up for herself in a small way, or even practicing summoning her strength in the mirror. That way, we know she has it in her.
In short, if you find a character doing something irrational—something that appears contrary to their nature—find a way to plant that seed earlier on so that, like with the “god from the machine,” readers can say, oh yeah, I could’ve seen that coming.
(Need help with character development? Check out my workbook, The Indie Author’s Guide to Creating Captivating Characters.)
What plot holes are you struggling with in your writing these days? Share in the comments below, or send me an email!