Why Plot Holes are Opportunities
+ moving beyond them with ease
This week in class, I had a great discussion with some of our Radical Collapse writers. We were untangling that sticky part of the writing process where the plot is just not....plotting.
Characters are stuck in repetitive scenes.
There is no build up towards a climactic moment.
Or—a climactic moment is falling flat.
And the most common problem of all...we have no idea what happens next.
It’s normal for writers to point the finger of blame towards the amorphous idea of plot. The plot simply needs to be tighter, we mutter to ourselves in our writing laboratory. I just need to step back from actually writing, and get a birds-eye view of my plot, and then I will find the plot holes, and patch them up, and be on my merry way.
I have to be honest with you, writer—that birds-eye view will not show you much more than how big the mess really is. And what happens when we see a big mess? We get overwhelmed. And we slow down on writing.
Zooming out to find ‘plot holes’ is incredibly appealing. We get to leave the muck of the unknown, the field work of drafting, and ascend to the lofty tower of intellect in order to engage with straightforward problem-solving.
Our brains love problem solving. If we could problem-solve our way to the end of the novel, we would.
But writing a beautiful, heart-wrenching book that will resonate with readers requires engaging in the creative process. Creativity is messy, unpredictable, and can be uncomfortable to work in for too long if our brains don’t feel safe there.
Here’s just one of my processes to fill in plot holes without overwhelm:
Label the stage you’re at. Embrace being stuck. Don’t force yourself to push through.
Reconnect with your purpose in the book (aka, your future readers).
Identify the last point in the book that matched the energy of your reader experience.
Let go of each thread holding up the next scene, one at a time, to see which one was barring your way forward.
The important part of this process is having a clear transition between the problem-solving mode of plotting, and the creative flow state of writing. When we conflate the two, we get stuck—because our brains resist the unknown and want to keep us stuck in the familiar world of problem-solving plot holes.
I do believe that writers need to problem-solve. We need to understand our plots. We need to have systems for designing them and fixing them. And the best way to do that is to let go of the idea that plot is real at all.
When writers have an easy, consistent method for moving beyond plot holes and getting unstuck, I almost always find that the subsequent scene they write is their favorite one in their book.
If the idea of a more conscious plot-hole busting strategy appeals to you, I invite you to get even more theoretical with me this Spring. When I started writing down and fleshing out my personal strategies for getting out of holes created by ‘plot,’ they added up to enough notes that I realized I had to make a class about it—and that’s what you’re invited to this March!
By the way, even if you can’t make it live, all the recordings, notes, and worksheets are yours forever. Plot holes will always come up, but armed with your own system of narrative organization, I have no doubt you will enjoy filling them in faster than ever before.
