Why Plot Flaws Happen – It’s About Problem Solving Part 2

Part 1 looked at the reason why plot holes occur, but how do you go about fixing them?  How do you close those holes, or glue together the edges of narrative where inconsistencies appear? How do you repair all those inconsistencies, without creating even bigger ones?

Solving the Problem

The key here is to identify what the plot hole is in relation to the story and recognise the cause of the problem. If you can understand the cause, then most plot problems are relatively easy to fix. With the cause known, you can then work towards a solution without creating further problems; otherwise you’ll create a ripple effect. And you also have to ensure that it’s a satisfactory and plausible solution.

Most minor plot holes are easy to fix. Usually they need a few lines of explanatory narrative, an addition of a short scene or two or maybe you have a character say something to another character by way of explanation, something that doesn’t sound like contrived exposition.

Complex plot flaws, on the other hand, need more thought and analysis to rectify. This is where writers sometimes have to turn into problem solvers. Sometimes the best way to fix these problems is to write them down and visualise them by using mind maps, simple line sketches or even elaborate flow charts. Everyone is different – it’s whatever works best for you. So if you work better just listing things, then do so. If bubble or mind maps work better, use them. It’s entirely up to you how you work out the solutions.

By putting them down on paper, it makes it easier for writers to analyse the problem and work through ideas, to see where scenes may have to be rewritten, or even cut, or where some scenes need to be added or changed etc.

To summarise:

• Identify the problem
• Recognise the cause of problem
• Find a plausible solution to the problem
• Does the solution cause a further problem in the story? If so, rethink the solution until it no longer affects the rest of the plot line.
• Is the solution satisfactory and plausible

Avoid the Problem

It can’t be stressed enough that to avoid tumbling from the invisible path that writers create for themselves, it’s wise to plan out your plot, from start to finish, together with a chapter outline. This should cover key incidents/scenes, subplots, story arc, themes and turning points etc. The idea behind plotting is to make them as water-tight as possible, so anything that seems strange or implausible might cause the plot to wobble.

It’s also important that you make sure you know the characters inside out. Know everything about them. That way, you will know if your hero is blonde and brown eyed, not brown haired and blue eyed, or that the bad guy has a permanent limp because of a car accident (and not one that vanishes halfway through the story).

Enough can’t be said about doing your research. The more information you have, the fewer mistakes you’ll make, and therefore the fewer inconsistencies you’ll create.

The complete read-through of your novel is also important. It allows you to read it like a reader, not a writer. Leave the manuscript for a week or so and then read it through. Some things will jump out at you; things you will notice, such as the background of a character changing halfway through the story, or that a chestnut coloured horse turns into a black one over the course of six chapters.

A more complex one would be that the main character has hidden a box containing something important early on in the story, but towards the end of the novel, there is no mention of the box. What’s happened to it? How will it affect the story, if it’s supposed to be significant? The main character can’t complete his goal without it! You need to find a way of fixing it.

During the read through, make a note of the things that don't seem quite right; the inconsistencies or continuity errors and so on.

Some plot holes that we inevitably create can give us huge headaches because they become complex problems that require a lot of head scratching, backtracking, re-writing and planning in order to fix, without inadvertently creating more plot holes in the process. But analysing them and then working around them does work. Sometimes it takes time, so be patient, don’t rush the process. Think it through carefully, but logically. Everything, eventually, has to make sense.

It’s not unknown for writers to scrap entire chapters or do huge rewrites because of plot holes, so it’s wise to plan as much as you can before you embark on your novel. The more information you have, the less chance of errors.

Next week: Pacing a novel

Why Plot Flaws Happen – It’s About Problem Solving Part 1

Plot flaws happen for a variety of reasons, and the result can leave writers scratching their heads, trying to figure out a way around some of the huge problems they create, however, it’s how they’re solved that makes the difference.

Plot holes are a by-product of any writing; they appear as inconsistencies or contradictions within the story, as gaps within the narrative, or huge holes that you can’t account for. You can’t avoid them – they happen either because we are not thorough enough, or they happen because of the way the story gradually unravels.

The thing about plot flaws is that they don’t become plot flaws until you actually read the work through in its entirety, because up until then, the obvious won’t become apparent while you’re working on the story. Only when it’s finished and you’ve left it or a reasonable time to come back and do your read through will these problems manifest.

Plot flaws can be gaping chasms or they can be subtle punctures in the fabric of the story. It’s about recognising them, understanding the problem they create and how you deal with them successfully that helps make the finished product flawless.

Dealing with them successfully, of course, depends on how well you spot them and what kind of problems they pose. The best way to spot them is read the work as though you are the reader.

Most plot flaws revolve around the following areas:

Continuity of facts – It’s easy to contradict facts in your writing, like putting the date of a famous event in the wrong time frame, or not getting names right. That means any gaps in your research will show up as plot flaws. Make sure your facts are correct.

Continuity of characters – These are common. For example, your character wears glasses at the beginning of the story but half way through, the glasses have vanished as though he never wore them in the first place. Other instances are when a character appears early in the story and goes off to do something and is never heard from again. What’s the point of that character in the first place?

Continuity of time/setting – For example, the hero goes to his friend’s house in one scene, which is in the middle of the day, but a few paragraphs later, the daytime has inexplicably turned to night. (Movies do this a lot). Or there is the common one of transporting a character from one country to another in the matter of hours, without taking into account the time it takes to arrange the trip, arrange a visa, buy airlines tickets, pack for the trip and so on. It takes more than a few hours.

The other error is that characters in novels that end up in a foreign country without a passport, money or anything else. Did they travel by magic?

Contradictions – These types of flaws arise when the writer simply forgets about things.  For example, you have a character who loves animals, and this is shown, but then somewhere else in the story is seen killing an animal without batting an eye, with no further explanation. Or perhaps you have a character that is a vegetarian, but four chapters later, he is seen eating meat.

Contradictions happen, but you have to keep an eye on your narrative.

Inconsistency – For example, the bad guy, who is very clever and wily, does something explicably stupid to help the hero defeat him. Another one often seen in books is the tough hero, trained in martial arts and used to be in the armed forces suddenly being defeated by a couple of bad guys who are not even half as skilled. (Movies also do this).

Another similar inconsistency is to have a strong female in your story, someone who can stand up for herself, someone fiercely independent, and yet she is suddenly reduced to a dithering heap in the face of danger or when confronted by the bad guy, because of stereotyping and a contrived plot demands it.

Another one is where the hero possesses amazing martial arts skills and can kill with his bare hands, yet seems to forget his has these skills when he’s confronted with the bad guys all through the story. But then at the end, when fighting the villain, he decides to use the very skill he’d not bothered with all through the story.

All these are silly inconsistencies, yet writers continue to fall into this trap. If you don’t spot them, your reader will.

Sometimes plot flaws are not always apparent straight away and are generated whilst writing the story. For instance, you have an important scene that takes place early morning in the winter, with several key characters. You describe the bright yet hazy, wintry sun, the cold air and hint of frost. You write a great the scene, happy with the way it unfolds.

But can you spot the obvious plot flaw?

You cannot possibly have a bright hazy sun so early in the winter. Early mornings are dark. And it gets dark early too, especially if there is daylight saving time in operation. It means you would have to re-write the scene to reflect accuracy and realism and avoid a continuity of setting problem.

Here’s another plot flaw example. Your hero and villain are in a fight as the climax mounts. There’s a struggle as each tries to get the upper hand, but then, from nowhere, your hero pulls out a knife to defeat the villain, but unless you have mentioned the knife in previous scenes, so that the reader picks up on this, then the knife from nowhere will be a contrivance and thus becomes an obvious inconsistency.

Contradictions, flaws and inconsistencies are unavoidable during the writing process, but it’s how we find and fix them that matters, so in Part 2 we’ll look at how to solve the problem of plot flaws.

Next week:  Why Plot Flaws Happen – It’s About Problem Solving Part 2

Creating Dilemmas and Why They're Necessary in Fiction

When you read a good book, the one recurring thing you find is that, aside from plenty of conflict, the protagonist is always getting into some kind of trouble and yet somehow he or she manages to get out of these close situations.

What you’re reading is the natural escalation of a character’s dilemma. It’s a stable ingredient of any good fiction. In other words, dilemmas, or problems, get worse as the story goes on, up until the action packed or explosive conclusion. As writers, we get to make life pretty bad for our main characters. We do that by setting them up with hard choices. This heightens conflict and tension and keeps the reader turning the page.

We’ve all faced hard choices at some point. If we make one choice, it will create an outcome (which may or may not be desired). If we make the other choice, things could be vastly different. That’s why we’re often damned if we do and damned if we don’t. But that pressure we sometimes feel in real life is also the kind of pressure the characters should feel.

For the very reason we don’t like dilemmas, your characters should experience the confusion and burden that their choices will make. Does the hero save the girl from the clutches of the villain, or does he save the family trapped inside a house that the villain has just set fire to? Whatever the choice, each one has a different outcome.

Almost always, when you make your character faces such decisions, there is a sacrifice, whether that is a personal one, an emotional one, a physical one, an object or a person, a pet or even a principle...whatever it is, it’s something that means a great deal to the protagonist. This produces an undercurrent of conflict and drives the story forward.

Dilemmas come in various guises, but the mains ones you see in fiction tend to be three types – moral dilemmas, personal (or internal) dilemmas and external dilemmas.

Moral Dilemmas

Just like in real life, your characters will hold certain views, beliefs and morals. The kind of people they are will dictate the kind of decisions they make throughout their lives. They will have been taught values and morals by parents and teachers and will have formed their own ideas and principles into adulthood. So when they’re faced with a moral dilemma, the more values a person has, the more the moral dilemma will affect them, for example:

A young teen finds out that her father is having an affair. Does she immediately tell her mother what she knows and risk breaking her mother’s heart, knowing that she might also fall out with her father? Or does she remain silent to protect her mother from the truth and pain and keep the bond with her father?

This is a very common moral dilemma, and when personal dilemmas like this occur – who knows what her decision could be, since it might not be so clear cut – it strengthens the connection from story to reader, because the reader can identify with this. It gives the story a whole new perspective.

Personal Dilemmas

Unlike moral dilemmas that test a character’s values and the way they view the world, personal dilemmas are just that – very personal to the character. For example, does the protagonist reveal he is gay to his devout Christian parents? Or does he stay silent, gripped by fear and inner turmoil because he won’t be able to come to terms with anything?

What if your character’s wife is in terrible pain, bedridden and trapped in her own body? Does the husband give in to pity and place a cushion over her face to end her torment? Or does he carry on nursing her, prolonging her suffering because he thinks it’s the right thing to do?

These are extremely difficult decisions, which give rise to all manner of conflict and tension; just what the reader loves. They will try to guess what your character will do, what decision he or she might make, and that’s why creating dilemmas is so captivating to them.

External Dilemmas

External dilemmas come from external influences that characters can’t control, usually thrown at them by nature. While they may not involve a sense of value or morality, they are still centred on conviction, whatever the choice your character makes.

For instance, your character is hiking in the mountains and bad weather closes in. Your character loses his backpack full of equipment and food. Now he faces a dilemma – does he stay put in the cold and await rescue, which might take hours or days, or does he keep moving to stave off the cold and try to reach safety?

As the writer, you will be able to force the character to make a decision. It might be the right decision or the wrong one, and because it’s not clear just what choice the character might make, it keeps the reader guessing.

By forcing your characters into a corner, they are required to make choices which they won’t want to make, but have to, and that means there will be repercussions because of that choice. That reflects real life – when we make a choice, there is always a consequence, good or bad.

The thing to remember with dilemmas is not to create contrivance, for example, if your hero has very strong belief in justice and high moral values, and he catches his wife committing a crime, he is then faced with a moral dilemma. He will naturally think emotionally with his heart by wanting to protect her from the consequences of her actions. But at the same time he knows she has broken the law and his sense of justice is strong enough to know she must be punished.  The true dilemma here actually belongs to the writer because when a character is defined and characterised by his beliefs and values throughout a story, he cannot then be expected to switch personality to facilitate a favourable outcome. That’s a contrivance.

Choices that are inconsistent with the character’s values, morals and beliefs simply don’t work. The reader won’t fall for it.  Any choices your character makes must be representative of his or her moral values for it to be believable for the reader, without it undermining who they really are. Dilemmas are not easy to get out of, and shouldn’t be. But the behaviours and reactions of your characters must be consistent.

The solution you come up with in order to get your character out of the seemingly impossible must be logical, but not implausible. The reader needs to identify with the problem, understand it and expect the unexpected. Dilemmas start small for your characters and should escalate as the story unfolds. Don’t make their lives easy. They have to confront their problems, their own beliefs and assumptions and they must deal with those choices. They deepen the tension and move the story forward.

To create satisfactory dilemmas, create characters with conviction and a strong sense of moral values, because if they don’t care what happens in the story, then why should the reader?

Next week: Why plot flaws happen.

Active v. Passive Fiction

What do we mean by the terms passive and active? How important are they for writing fiction and should we only use one and not the other?

Some people argue that there is nothing wrong with using passive fiction - they tend to think of those writers who disagree with this are purists, but there is a huge difference between using passive fiction deliberately within your writing, for effect, to using it all the while in the misconstrued belief that it actually helps the writing, when in reality, it actually does the opposite.

Any worthy editor will always advise against passive writing for a very good reason, and that’s because passive sentence structures weaken the writing considerably. It just doesn’t connect with the ear when you read a passive sentence, nor does it look right. And that’s because it isn’t.

In truth, passive writing is frowned upon, but it can sometimes have its place, and is most often used in academic writing and teaching, however, your creative should always be active.

What is meant by active voice?

‘Active’ refers to the subject of the sentence doing the action, so in an active sentence, the subject is doing the action to the object, and almost always relies on a strong verb to do so, for example:

‘Jane loved the flowers.’

In this case, Jane is the subject doing the action to the object: she loves the flowers and the verb 'loved' is the correct form (used with an object). It’s a perfectly clear sentence.

What is passive voice?

Passive voice refers to the subject receiving the action instead of doing it, so if we take the example above, the passive sentence would look like this:

The flowers were loved by Jane.

This doesn’t just look wrong, it reads incorrectly, too. The object of the sentence (flowers) is made into the subject and the real subject (Jane) is relegated within the sentence so that it’s is rendered clunky by the passive voice. The appearance of ‘were’ is a giveaway to passive writing, as is the use of ‘was’.

Take a look at these samples to see the difference between active and passive; the strong and weak sentences and how they change the way they are read and understood:

The girl was startled by the noise - Passive.

The noise started the girl – Active

The cheese was grated by the chef - Passive

The chef grated the cheese – Active

The man was walked by the Alsatian - Passive

The man walked his Alsatian - active

The use of ‘was’ clearly weakens the sentences, forcing them to become passive when they are much better as strong, active sentences. That’s because the subject is being forced to receive the action rather than to give it.

When writing, try to avoid the use of ‘was’ or sentence structures with ‘by’, as shown in the example above of the man being walked by the Alsatian, as these almost always make the writing passive.

But why is it so important to avoid passive fiction writing?

Firstly, readers prefer their fiction to be active, not passive. In other words, passive sentences don’t allow any immediacy. Also, they don’t create tight sentence structures, either, which are more desirable than long passive sentences. Look at this example and you’ll see why:

The car was brought to a halt outside the library and Jane got out with her books. The cookery books were enjoyed by Jane and she appreciated improving her knowledge, especially as the moussaka was attempted for the first time and a complete success with the family.

The entire paragraph is written passively, so there is little connection or immediacy and the sentences just look so clunky, which means they are not pleasing to the eye, nor are they clear to the reader. Now read the same paragraph, with an active voice:

Jane brought the car to a halt outside the library got out with her books. She had enjoyed the cookery books and knew they had improved her knowledge, especially when she attempted moussaka for the first time and it proved a complete success with the family.

The sentences are different, more concise. They look different and read differently and because they are active, there is no unwieldy feel to them. Active verbs are stronger and more efficient. Active voice always creates immediacy. Passive writing kills it.

For these reasons, active writing is very important and should always be the aim for any writer. If you see too much use of ‘was’ or ‘were’, go over the work and see where it can be improved. Root out instances of passive writing. Keep it strong, active and clear.

Next week: Creating dilemmas in fiction