Writing: Rules and Guidelines - Avoiding plot holes · 1:27pm Jul 3rd, 2014
So, what is a plot hole?
Plot holes are what happens when a story contradicts itself.
This can come in a number of forms, and doesn't relate to just characterization, though that's often the biggest kind of plot hole. Let me define a few of what I consider to be major sources of pitfalls for writers.
1. World Building & Mechanics
World mechanics are the rules of the world. They define how things work, from the way the water is delivered to the faucet, to the way that magic works, even on up to the way that the government works.
2. Characterization
As I said, this is one of the biggest potential pitfalls a writer can face in terms of plot hole. Not only because characters are what make the story, but also because it's an easy one to flub because sometimes characters go through subtle changes that aren't always apparent on a quick glossing over.
3. Story
This is more of a combination of 1 & 2 than anything else, but putting characters in your world full of mechanics increases the complexity of the world that you've built. Systems that sounded good on paper by themselves suddenly feel clunky and unintuitive when you try to get a character to work within them, and it's easy to try and get around that by fudging either 1 or 2, and often both, and thus the story, while it has many interesting and compelling characters and fascinating worldbuilding to back it up, falls flat because 1 & 2 didn't mesh right.
How to fix this? Well, it's not going to be easy.
A lot of newer authors that I see on the site seem to shove world building and characterization into two separate categories, and develop them separately. The thing is, though, characters live in the world that you're trying to build. How the world works affects how they see the world, and how they see the world will change how they grow up within it, how they react to different stimuli, and how their mores and morals develop.
I'm not going to have a lot, if any, examples for this blog because it's a very high level concept, and creating examples would require creating an entire story world to show off. So, instead of an example, I'll just point at Mother of the Moon and its sequel The Moon is Made of Fluff. A lot of worldbuilding went into this world, but the characters are also products of that world and their circumstances. Celestia doesn't just not acknowledge that Luna is her daughter for no reason at all, there are reasons why she can't just openly accept her, and reasons why it's potentially risky to do so even in private.
Later, she's afraid to tell Luna because of what it might do to her. She doesn't just accept that it's the right thing to do. She worries about it, she fears what will happen, not just between her and Luna, but what will happen if word gets out to her enemies.
So that's my example. Read the story, if you haven't already, and let me know if you think I accomplished what I set out to do.
Let's take a look at those three, one at a time, in a little more depth.
World Building & Mechanics
This is the framework of your story. This is where everything happens. It's absolutely important to get this right and consistent throughout a story, otherwise your story may feel like the wild west, with little enforcement of the laws you've laid out, where characters can do pretty much anything they darn well please. That's not the way to do things. At least, it's not the way to do things well. A broken world is a broken story.
How to avoid that? Write down your rules. It doesn't have to be a spreadsheet, or even a detailed codification of laws. Unless your character gets in trouble with the law, then you don't need to do that. What matters is consistency. If your character performs a magic spell intended to do one specific thing, that spell should do that one specific thing. That specific thing might be a trigger for more things to happen, and that's fine, but a spell to create light shouldn't also start a fire, unless the light is bright or hot enough, or the character is focusing it somehow.
A general rule of thumb could be this: the rule of simplicity. The simpler your world rules are, the easier they are to remember how they work. You might need more of them to properly describe your world, but a dozen simple rules are easier to remember than one or two complex rules. And, if you really get down to it, the world is very simple, at a fine enough level of detail. It's when these simple rules interact that you get complexity.
There are also social rules, or social suggestions, that society works on. These things are important to know, because they are what shapes your character. Not knowing these rules leads to a character that feels out of place in the world. These 'rules' are often just guidelines that the majority follow because they make life easier. Not all agree with them, or want to follow them, and some don't. Those are the outcasts, and if writing a story about outcasts, it's important to know why they don't agree with those rules and guidelines.
Even if writing a story about ponies that agree with and follow those guidelines, it's important to know how that affects them if they come into conflict with them. Do they just go with the flow? Or do they risk becoming an outcast of thise guidelines are too untenable to bear?
Characterization
Character rules are far more fluid than world building & mechanical rules. You want them to change throughout the story, incrementally. You want there to be conflict that forces those rules to change. But even so, there has to be motivation to push for the change. In Mother of the Moon, Celestia's motivation is her own happiness, and that of her daughter. Powerful motivators. Opposing that motivation is the will and needs of the country she rules. More specifically, the Solarium, and what they might do to impede that rule.
Conflict is like that. There's the motivation for change, but also opposition to that change. Your goal as a writer is to sell that change to the reader. Make it believable, and make them want it as much as the character, if not moreso. If you can do that, then you have met your goal.
Your character has wants, and they also have needs. The wants are what makes a character a character and not just a 1 dimensional prop. The needs deepen the world. The wants come from a character's background, and its important to know where your character is coming from in order to understand how the world has shaped those wants.
Some wants even transcend and become needs. It's usually when the source of a thing is cut off for a character, such as affection. If there's no affection in a character's life, then where does their motivation come from? Why should they keep going, except to seek affection? This becomes a need if a character is cut off from the world they knew, and the ponies that fulfilled that want. Needs are powerful, powerful motivators, but they can be misused.
Story
Story is the confluence of character and world. It's important to develop the two in conjunction. World building might suggest story ideas, and characterization might also, but when developing them together, story ideas will leap out as points of conflict. Where a character's mores and morals come into conflict with the world.
But, even there, it's easy to break immersion and break the characterization of not only the characters, but also of the world. This is done when an author has a story idea, and starts to write the story before understanding how it will fit into the world. This can be done intentionally to make a wacky comedy, but in a serious fic, both story and character should be thought out in advance, or at least adapted once the writing is started.
I do this. I have a story idea, and I write out a concept first chapter to see how the character idea and world interact. A lot of times it feels clunky, so I shelve it for a while and come back to it later with a fresher perspective and a bit more writing wisdom than I did before. A lot of times, the final story looks very little like the original concept chapter, but still has the same basic idea behind it.
Mother of the Moon, for instance, started out with a guard who acted a bit too friendly towards Luna. I asked the question... "Why?" That question led me into a whole new AU, that I planned, plotted and characterized a lot before I published the first chapter. I had most of chapter 2 completed by then as well, and I knew what was going to happen in chapter 3. The story worked in my head by the time I published the first chapter. There were reasons for the characters to do what they did, and the world had pushed them into awkward positions because of the past.
So what can this do for you?
Plan. Know your story world before you publish. Make sure you know what's going to happen at the end of the story and why it must be that way. Ask yourself a lot of why questions while writing it. Ask yourself a lot of what if questions before you start. If you can answer those questions, and the answers make sense, then you have a story.
This is my argument for planning over organics. The planning itself can, and should be organic, however. Your story should grow from a seed of an idea, but once it's grown, it needs to be trimmed and cared for, and tended to reach its fullest potential.
Thanks for reading, everyone.
Have any questions or comments, leave them below.
As always, thanks for following.
Toodles!
I think I'm good at avoiding plot holes, but my worlds could be too simple to screw up. I think I'll be rereading this one as I work on some multi-chapter stories in the next couple of months. Thanks for writing it.
I'm terrible.
My initial thought on the title had NOTHING to do with what this
plot... I mean blog is about.Nice write up though!
2254029 How to avoid plot holes.
Step 1 Don't go for the girls ass
2254142
Indeed.
2254166 See by doing this you avoid the hole.
But, if you want da ass, then tell them to get a buttplug or something
I think one of the things that helps is if one thinks of planning as organic. After all, it's just assuming rigidity that makes it seem worse. Organic should always be done in conjunction with some planning anyway, I think. It's one thing to stumble across a great detail, a small flash of inspiration while writing, and another to stumble across a great plot. The latter is less often the case. Unless you're just slapping words onto the page, you must have had some kind of scene in mind to get started at all. I think most people usually have a goal in mind too, but they don't always sit down and tinker that into being a plot, mentally or in typing.
But then everyone has various levels of planning anyway. Depending on the amount of fresh material I'm creating for a story, I might have notes that I've been making. Other stories don't require as much detail.
I'm not sure I'm really saying anything at this point. It's a good post and I agree that planning is a major step towards removing plot holes.
2255611
I also agree that planning should be organic. The crafting of a story from an organically grown plan makes for a more beautiful story. And, as the story progresses while being written, the later portions of the plan that haven't been grown to yet should be adjusted accordingly to more readily support the weight of the story underneath it.
2255623
Exactly. Planning is just to keep all your thoughts organized. Everything can be adjusted for the sake of a better story, and should be, if everything is weighed and decided on ahead of time. No one follows their original plan to the letter, but having any necessary notes and rough outlines jotted down gives focus. The more complex the story, the more planning and notes are needed. Obviously a 1K one-shot probably won't get more than some mental pondering, but even that is still planning.
Organic is what happens when you start laying out the details into the framework of the story. Usually stuff like dialog is what I'd call mostly organic, for instance. The content of the conversation usually gets planned, but the actual phrases, word choices, and odd grammar tends to be on the fly, based on knowledge of the characters.
Trying to write a story that's longer requires more thought for it to hold together. People who start writing a long story, without a plot in mind, don't tend to finish said story, IMHO. It's one thing if the plot changes, because of unexpected complications or a better direction turning up part-way. It's another thing to think that you can get up to 15K and over with absolutely nothing happening, then keep going and continue to keep a reader's attention. Slice of Life and a bunch of short stories in a compilation can be some exceptions, but they still follow that same logic. If the story never seems to be going anywhere, people lose interest. Hell, people lose interest for less than that.