Pot...er...PLOT Holes by CB

There you are, on a beautiful spring day, snacks and a cold beverage nearby, cruising along, writing a lovely story that’s full of interesting characters, when, BAM!, you hit a Pot Hole … er, Plot Hole. The story bounces a foot off the road, lands back on the asphalt with a thud, and half your characters (and their luggage) go flying out of the story. Ugh. What a mess! Yet you continue to write, oblivious to the confusion you’ve left behind.

Time to call a repair crew to fix those Holes!

First, we need to know, what ARE Plot Holes?

Wikipedia tells us a Plot Hole is a gap or inconsistency that goes against the flow of logic that has been established by The Story’s Plot. Such inconsistencies include illogical or impossible events, or statements or events that contradict earlier statements or events.

On the other hand, just to be fair, certain genres allow or even require Plot Holes and readers’ Suspension of Disbelief (when readers choose to overlook any Plot Holes).  

To sum it up, a Plot Hole is missing information or an obvious mistake that takes away from the plausibility and integrity of The Plot -- and leaves readers scratching their heads.

1. Illogical Events. Example: The all-powerful villain is easily defeated.

2. Contradictions. Example: The hero is very loving in one scene, yet is unaccountably cruel in the next.

      3. Dropped Plot Lines or Characters. Example: The sidekick goes off in search of something, leaving the hero       behind, and is never heard from again.

      4. Unexplained Changes in Character or Setting. Example: A character begins the day in the city and is       inexplicably wandering around in the countryside by mid-morning.

      5. Continuity errors. Example: A character is said to have brown eyes in one scene and blue eyes in a later       scene.

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When are Plot Holes OKAY?

Sometimes, readers are willing to overlook Plot Holes for the sake of the story. After all, fiction is fiction. Imagination is a good thing. Under the right circumstances, Plot Holes might be okay.

Here are a few examples of when a Plot Hole is acceptable:

1. In Appropriate Genres. Within certain genres (e.g. fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.) Plot Holes are quite common. Some may even be Large Plot Holes whereby readers roll their eyes. Other Plot Holes can be overlooked simply because they make the story possible.

In science fiction, a Plot Hole is sometimes known as a Jellybean Moment. For example, in Harlan Ellison’s short story, “Repent, Harlequin!,” the climax involves using jellybeans to gum up the workings of the society. It’s only after the story has ended that the reader thinks, “Where the heck did he get the jellybeans?”

Another term for Plot Hole is Fridge (or Icebox) Logic, first used by Alfred Hitchcock when he made the movie “Vertigo.” The main character’s wife mysteriously, and impossibly, disappeared from the hotel that he last saw her in. (This, by the way, is the granddaddy of all the Plot Holes in this movie.) Hitchcock called it an “icebox” scene -- a Plot Hole that “hits you after you’ve gone home and start pulling cold chicken out of the icebox,” one that you don’t notice at the time because you were so caught up in the story.

2. With Unreliable Narrators. An unreliable narrator is a POV character who can’t be trusted to tell the story with accuracy. The spurned, alcoholic, and jobless character Rachel in Paula Hawkins’ novel, “The Girl on the Train,” is a good example. Unreliable Narrators allow readers to ignore Small Plot Holes.

3. With a Novel Series. If you are writing a series, you may find that you can explain a Plot Hole in a subsequent book. Readers may disregard a Plot Hole in an early book with the hope that this Plot Hole will get filled in.

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How does a writer FIND Plot Holes in his manuscript?

1. Know your story well. In fact, get to know your novel BEFORE you write. This way, you’re more likely to figure out what might BECOME Plot Holes before you write them into your story.

2. Examine your Plot. Take the time to look over your Plot Outline. Is it logical? Do the events line up? Does your hero play off the villain’s actions (and vice versa)? This, too, will help you catch Plot Holes even before you begin to write.

a. If you’d like to really crack down on your Plot, take time to write out a full five- to ten-page Plot Summary.

b. Examine characters’ actions from beginning to end. Look for any areas that seem implausible, inconsistent, or jumbled.

3. Create character sketches. This is a simple way to avoid inconsistencies in your characters’ appearances and actions. Keep these sketches handy as you write

4. Create a character checklist of every character, even minor ones. Be sure to write an ending for each character, then mark that character off your checklist. By doing so, you’ll save yourself from a lifetime of disgruntled fan mail asking what happened to so-and-so.

5. Know the laws of your story’s world. Whether you’re creating a fictional world or simply exploring a specific culture or lifestyle (e.g., royalty, secret organization, cult), know the rules, manners, governments, laws, norms, and other social constructs. If your novel has magic in it, make sure to lay out where it comes from and how it works.

Added by Bonnie: If your fictional society has as set term for a certain word, make sure they don’t stray from that. In other words, if that society uses say, “father” only to mean their leader, and not their male parent, then those characters would never refer to someone else’s male parent as a father, only as a dad. And I’m telling you, when you set out making up a new society, and come up with a gimmick like that, it sounds easier than it is!

6. Keep notes while editing. Make a list of any Plot Holes you uncover. Begin planning your Plot Hole Repair. On your Plot Hole list, note changes you make since the changes may create new Plot Holes. Then do a second read-through to look for any new damage you might have caused.

7. Utilize beta-readers. They read through your manuscript (most often free of charge) before it’s published and then offer feedback on inconsistencies, contradictions, et al. Sending your novel out to a few beta-readers is enormously helpful because they will catch the little mistakes that you are far too subjective to see.

Side note from Bonnie: Not always. Case in point: after a half dozen critiques, and my twin Konnie reading my manuscript at least a half dozen times on top of that, let alone how many times I’d gone over the manuscript, I spotted a glaring error in terminology. In fact, the very one I describe above. At least I finally caught it.

8. Trust your editor. If you land a book deal, your publishing house will assign you an editor who will read through your manuscript. If you self-publish, hire a freelance editor. You will receive professional advice, and the editor will notice any Plot Holes that still need repair.

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How do you FIX Plot Holes?

Uh oh! A character pushed the Plot into a Hole! Chances are, that’s the character best suited to get the Plot out of the Hole. Ask yourself these questions: Who has the ability to cause this Plot Event to happen in a believable way? Who has something to gain from it? Lose from it? Who might be hurt by it? Who are the people connected to it? How might their actions have influenced it?

 

If there are no characters tied to this event, you might need to add someone to make it all work. Go to earlier scenes where you can introduce needed Plot-Hole-Filling characters and work them into the storyline. 

1. Use the proper groundwork to set it up: Small Plot Holes often just need filling. A line or two earlier in the story might be enough to tie the Plot Hole into the rest of the Plot. 

2. Add a backstory to explain or make the Plot Hole credible: For example, if you’ve never shown the protagonist is an expert pool player, suddenly having them get out of a problem by winning a life and death game of eight ball will feel contrived and out of the blue. But if the protagonist has a pool table in his house, or a custom cue hanging in his apartment, it slips in a hint to the readers that the protagonist plays pool. 

3. Give a character motivations to act a certain way: Let your readers know why the character decided to do whatever it is, and make sure those reasons are at least hinted at prior to the event. 

4. Add trigger events or a catalyst: A sudden flood that keeps the protagonist from getting home will be quite the coincidence if you never mention rain or flood warnings, or even that the setting was anywhere near water. 

And when you’ve finally filled all the Plot Holes, your readers can safely ride along with nary a bump.

Carol Baldridge (cb) is a retired librarian. She has been a regular in the chatroom for some time, and has recently started helping with topic chats. You can visit her cats...er...her blog at http://ceebeeskittykorner.blogspot.com/ 

The Hidden Killers of Your Writing

by John B. Rosenman

We all do it. We’re all guilty. To a greater or lesser extent, we’re all infected by the same disease, and the same sneaky little devils slip right past our guard and into our writing.

What are these sneaky little devils? Why, they’re bad habits, subliminal stuttering. Or to put it more plainly, they’re overused words and phrases, patterns of language and expression. To be a bit dramatic, they are hidden killers of our writing.

Am I going too far? I don’t think so. At their best, overused words, phrases, italics, ellipses, exclamation points and their like are invisible irritants and defects that deplete our prose and diminish the reader’s pleasure in what we’ve written. There is a repetitive annoying sameness to our style. Yes, some repetition is good and can enhance our writing, but often we need to experiment with different ways of expression rather than fall back on old habits which are all the more insidious because we are usually unaware of them.

One of my wicked but excellent editors has a habit of highlighting in different colors the words I overuse. Some of them are THAT, BUT, THEN, AND THEN, SUDDENLY, JUST, ABOUT, LIKE, HAD. I don’t think phrases plague me too much, though I’m not free from their contagion, but I know I do tend to overuse the ellipsis. I dot dot dot too much!

Fortunately, today we have computers and other devices, and we can troubleshoot and repair many of these faults with the FIND and the FIND and REPLACE feature. Try it out yourself if you haven’t done so already. Type in certain words and phrases and see how many times they are highlighted. If your manuscript is two hundred pages long and your software says you use “suddenly” seventeen times, you may not have a problem. However, if you use “suddenly” a hundred and seventeen times, you probably do. If you notice you use a certain phrase twice or three times on the same page, such as “Rising to his feet,” or “Turning his [or her] head,” then check it out. If you have your characters rising to their feet or turning their heads too often, you may need to revise their actions.

On the screen, colored highlights are pretty; however, whatever their hue, they might be red flags. We need to consider them closely and objectively and ask ourselves if a lot of work is needed to revise and replace repetitive words. As a writer, I’ve found I’ve had to seek synonyms and new ways of expression.

Often, however, the best remedy is simple deletion. Just ask yourself, in this particular situation, do I really need to use that word or phrase again? It can be challenging and enlightening, even fun and rewarding to eliminate and avoid words you overuse, to make your writing tighter, cleaner, and more effective. Go on an adverb hunt. Stalk the dangerous adverb which sucks verbs dry. (“Suddenly,” mentioned before, is an adverb.) Excuse the repetition here, but these overused words are often invisible to the writer but not to the reader, and they do weaken and drain our writing in various ways. The writer should rigorously seek them out and prune them.

Here’s one embarrassing personal stat: in examining the first draft of a novel I recently wrote, I found I had used the word “that” (perhaps my most overused word) 966 times in 86,400 words. I believe “that that” use of “that” is too much.

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Okay, let’s try to make this a little interesting. Next Wednesday we’ll have a contest featuring a small unedited section from the first draft of my SF romantic action-adventure novel Inspector of the Cross, published by MuseItUp Publishing. (It is available here )


I’ll be offering THREE prizes to three different individuals. The person who wins third place gets their choice of one of my eBooks at MuseItUp’s site. Just go there, peruse the eight books I’ve published, and decide which books you want to win. Second place gets his or her choice of two, and first place (if she’s a female), gets a date with the author. No, just joking. First place gets his or her choice of three of my eBooks.

I’ll post all the rules right here next Wednesday. Be ready!

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John B Rosenman has published nearly twenty books, including SF action-adventure novels such as Beyond Those Distant Stars and Speaker of the Shakk (Mundania Press), A Senseless Act of Beauty (Crossroad Press), and Alien Dreams (Drollerie Press and Crossroad Press). Shorter books include A Mingling of Souls and Music Man (XoXo Publishing), Here Be Dragons (Eternal Press), The Voice of Many Waters (Blue Leaf Publications), Green in Our Souls (Damnation Books), and Bagonoun’s Wonderful Songbird and Childhood’s Day (Gypsy Shadow Publishing). Visit his website or blog to learn more.

Ten Tips for Writing for Anthologies

Ten Tips for Writing for Anthologies
By Karina Fabian and Kim Richards
From the Home Office of The Zombie Cookbook, www.zombiecookbook.net

1. Read the Guidelines! Study the Guidelines! Love the Guidelines! BE the Guidelines! Anthologies are often very specific in theme, scope and word count. The closer you get to meeting their needs, the more likely you will be accepted. For example, for The Zombie Cookbook, (www.zombiecookbook.net ), Damnation Books (www.damnationbooks.com ) wanted anything to do with cooking zombies or cooking and zombies. This meant any zombie story which didn't involve cooking or food in some way, was rejected based upon that.

2. From Kim: "The best advice I ever got for writing for an anthology was this: jot down ten story ideas and then write number eleven. The reason being the first ten will get you through all the stereotypes and overdone ideas. By the time you get to eleven, you're opening up to new ideas and creativity. Unique is a plus."

3. From Karina: Know who you are writing for! I had some folks send me a story for the Catholic sci-fi, Infinite Space, Infinite God II that started with a diatribe about how priests abuse kids. I never got to the story before tossing it. It should have been clear to anyone who'd looked at the website that we support the Catholic Church. (Incidentally, ISIG I (www.isigsf.com ) did have a story that treated the topic with realism but also with perspective. It was accepted.)

4. Don't wait until the last minute to submit something, especially if you're writing it specifically to submit to this anthology.

5. As with any manuscript, you want to send out your best. For stories written just for the anthology, the temptation is to rush through it to meet the deadline. It still needs to grow through the revision and editing process. Send it through your critique group and revise. Anthologies have only a few slots to fill and will have a lot of stories wanting in. Your piece needs to be at its strongest to stand out above the crowd.

6. There're two schools of thought about submitting to anthologies: the first is to write your stories and should an anthology open up where one you have saved on the hard drive fits in, then submit it. The other is to write a story just for that anthology. Both have positives and negatives. For saved stories, there's a temptation to just send off what you have without giving it a good editing first. Too many authors will send stories they can't sell to anthologies and then get upset when it doesn't sell to the anthology either. They aren't a dumping ground for your weak stuff. Maybe there's a reason it hasn't sold before now. It also might not actually fit the theme they're looking for. Look hard at your story and be sure. A little tweaking can't hurt.

7. If you're going to write for an anthology, especially one that pays a portion of the royalties, be willing to do some marketing if you're accepted. Go on a virtual book tour, send out some press releases, tell all your social groups. You're helping yourself and the other contributors--and you'll make yourself shine in the eyes of the publisher.

8. Anthologies need editing, too. Work with the editor. Also be sure to give the editor the other info you need--like your bio--by deadline. In this case, procrastination doesn't just hurt you, but all the other contributors who were accepted.

9. Remember that, with few exceptions, anthologies are not big money makers. Publishers usually do it for love, fun, promotion or charity. Writers join for fun, publicity, and sometimes charity.

10. From Karina: If you had fun with your story, consider doing more with those characters. Mercedes Lackey did many adventures of Tarma and Kethry, including some novels, after writing a story about them for Sword and Sorceress. My DragonEye, PI, (www.dragoneyepi.net ) series of books and novels started from a story I wrote for Firestorm of Dragons. (www.firestormofdragons.com )