Writers Tips

Plot Holes

A serious plot hole can kill your story. Once you have written your piece, you should attempt to go back through it with an open mind and question motives and settings to make sure that there are no gaping flaws.

There is a novel by young writer Christopher Paolini entitled Eragon that in my eyes fails because the settings have not been properly thought out. In one section of the novel, the hero has been cast into an underground prison and is being fed poison. The hero quickly works out that his food is poisoned and disposes of it through a very conveniently placed window that looks out onto a street above. Eventually, the hero’s buddy bribes his way (again very conveniently) into the jail and the two break free.

First of all, the reader is forced to ask himself why the hero’s buddy cannot pass him a weapon and unpoisoned food through the window. Especially since the hero is also conveniently just about the best human swordsman that ever was. Additionally, the hero is ranked highly on the evil overlords most wanted list and even though all of this henchmen are terrified of encountering his wrath some dumb guard is still willing to accept a crummy bribe at the very jail where the hero is being held captive.

If you are going to build conveniences such as those mentioned above into your setting, then you need to be one hundred percent sure that they are both believable and do not facilitate a simpler action path for your characters to take other than the one you have written for them.