Last month we worked with a client that had a rough manuscript. It was her first book and she was entirely self-taught—just like me. As a kindred spirit I found myself going above and beyond to help her publish a great book, and our assistance spanned much further than the editing project itself.
In one email correspondence, she raised a problem with her core plot around the midpoint. The characters had just reached their first significant barrier and the original plan had gone out the window. They met at a tavern and had hashed out a new plan to deal with the barrier they hadn’t foreseen earlier. We worked with her on developing the scene and had approved it for publication. To us, everything seemed fine. But, she came back with some critical feedback: isn’t there a plot hole here?
Naturally, this made me nervous. As the developmental editor, I strive to give A+ work to all my clients and missing a plot hole would be a strike on the quality of my work.
That is what I thought.
Which isn’t strictly correct. This speaks to the collaboration between editor and writer. Even if we have a three-person team reviewing your manuscript, we’re still human and we can’t fathom every possible angle of the story that you’ve spent months or years writing.
Since our client was paying attention, she pointed it out, and she was exactly right. It was an obscure issue and in our assessment, it wouldn’t have been caught by the vast majority of readers. But, she was exacting and wanted to be consistent across her entire manuscript.
We loved that; encouraging and assisting her in tackling the problem. Very quickly, it became apparent that it would not be one or two adjustments to address this issue organically. It would have entailed a significant rewrite and a continuity pass to ensure that there’s no stale information.
This had become a significant task, warranting a project of its own, or several weeks of non-stop work for the client. She was quite discouraged.
Thankfully, I remembered a trick I picked up from my own readings, and one I’d applied to my own writings.
When it comes to plot holes, dialogue is your friend. If you look at them like holes in the walls of a home, dialogue is your spackle.
If you look at them like holes in the walls of a home, dialogue is your spackle.
If you uncover a plot hole after writing the scene—or maybe the whole manuscript—all you have to do is come up with a plausible answer, and deliver it in dialogue. Sounds too simple to be true? I understand.
Take this as an example
You have two characters, in a low fantasy setting. Char1 and Char2. Char1 needs to steal an artifact in a museum and Char2 has agreed to help. Char1 develops a convoluted plan where Char2 must pretend to be attending the museum as a customer, she must stumble into the arms of a staff curator, seduce the employee, and convince him to have her in the building during after hours. Then she must knock the curator out with her magic, steal the artifact, and escape.
You can understand how this would be a significant amount of the writing, and how much a problem this would be if you had to retroactively replace or remove this chunk of the story. In this hypothetical, you realize after the fact that it would have been much simpler and plausible to dig underneath or break in through the roof. In this world, dwarves are present and they’re proficient diggers; there are also tamed creatures that many people use to fly, and one could have been easily rented for the job.
So how do you fix this problem?
Imagine your reader goes over this sequence and says “why don’t they just hire a dwarf?” or “griffins are everywhere, surely it’s easier to use one to land on the roof. Then rope in and steal the artifact.”
Then have your characters ask those exact same questions, and give the response.
How it looks as prose
Char2 frowned. “Fine. Well, how do we get in now?”
“How do you get in, you mean.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Me?”
“You.”
“Why me?”
Char1 looked her up and down, then raised his brow. “You’re going to make me say it?”
Her arms folded, covering some of herself with a fresh scowl. “You’re a pig.”
“You did so well last time!”
“That was an emergency!”
Throwing his hands up, Char1 paced around the table. “This is an emergency!”
“And what do you want me to do? Just waltz in there and flirt with everyone working there?”
He chuckled. “Exactly that, yes. You get access after hours for some discretionary time, and then take him out.”
“Take him out?”
Char1 waved a hand dismissively. “Knock him unconscious, do the thing.”
“Then?” She asked, rubbing circles into her temples.
“Steal the artifact. Escape.”
“Just like that?”
“Tell them you got lost. Stuck in the privy.”
Her brow raised. “Stuck in the privy?”
“Make something up, then, if you’re so smart.”
Char2 sighed. “Seems like there’s a lot of holes in the plan. Can’t we just dig underneath?”
“Do you know anything about tunnelling?”
“I don’t need to.” She waved a hand around the bustling tavern. “Half the men in here are scrupulous dwarves. Something like this would be a crawl in the mud for them.”
Char1 shook his head. “Can’t. The warding guild backs the museum, they’ll have ground wards for tunnelling.”
“Okay, how about above? We hire a griffin, it lands on the roof. Cut the glass, rappel down. Steal the artifact, climb back up.”
“Wards again. Flying wards are all along the perimeter. Something about wild griffins stealing from their roof garden.”
A heavy silence slipped between them, eventually broken with an excruciating sigh from Char2.
“I’m really going to have to do this, won’t I?”
He smiled weakly. “This is why I love you.”
“Quiet, you.”
In conclusion
No one likes finding plot holes. However, it’s not the end of the world. There’s a simple solution. Execute it plainly, and the reader can’t tell the difference. Execute it well, and it’ll elevate your writing.
In the example above, I used the two characters bouncing off each other to generate interpersonal conflict. Even as they hash out the plot organically, building conflict into the dialogue is adding flavour to the sauce.
Try it for yourself and experience the difference.