writing

Filling Plotholes in OC Stories

Solar

• 3 min read
Light and regular blue gradient background. Text reads "Filling PLOTHOLES in your OC Stories". A doodle of Solar holding a "Road Work Ahead" sign and graphics of cones and books are present.
We have the beginning, we have the end, ... what the heck goes in the middle?

“A guide to filling… potholes?” Nope! Plotholes. A pothole is a hole in the road or pavement that can cause bumps while driving, and even damage a car’s wheels. Think of a plothole as something similar. A plothole is a noticeable ‘bump’ in your reader’s journey through your story, which can stick in their mind as a lingering question in an otherwise great story, or be so catastrophic that it halts the reader entirely. Depending on how you handle the plothole, you can make the issue disappear seamlessly or create an iconic moment for your story. Here’s a famous example you might recognize.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous fantasy series, The Lord of the Rings, the main goal of the story is to destroy a cursed ring that corrupts those who hold it by throwing it in a volcano (I know, I know, an oversimplification!). The whole story revolves around the journey of a group on foot; but wait! Doesn’t the wizard in the group have connections with giant eagles? Can’t they just fly the ring to the volcano, making the whole story pointless? To fill in this plothole, the ring’s corruptive power of greed works as a valid reason as to why the eagles can’t solve the story’s problem. While it might be a bit frustrating, it doesn’t impact the story since the story would be instantly resolved if this method was used.

Now that you’ve got a handle on what a plothole is, let’s figure out what plotholes exist in your story. Sometimes what seems like a plothole is actually something you plan to explain later, or something you have an explanation for but forgot to include. A plothole is something that makes you or your reader go “hey, wait a second…” when they think about it. So, can you think of anything like that in your story? If you’ve got something in mind, let’s try something out.

What you’ll need for this exercise:

  • Paper
  • Scissors
  • A pencil or marker
  • Optional: Colourful pencils or markers, stickers, washi tape, or anything to make this more fun!

If you don’t have any of the materials above right now you can use a drawing program to create the cards digitally on each layer so that you can move them around, or you can draw a mind map on paper to get a similar process.

  • Cut out some cards from the sheet of paper and pick one to write your plothole on. This is the problem you need to solve. 
  • Next, take two more cards and write out what happens after the event your plothole is in, aka what you need to happen. A story is a chain; if you could just cut out the plothole entirely, it’d be great, but if you need it to make what you want to happen, happen… well, that’s where the issue lies. 
  • The last of the three cards is the event that triggers the plothole event. Basically, the thing you need to happen, to make the event you need to happen, happen, so you can- okay, this is getting silly. Let’s think of it another way. The events are past, present, and future, so line them up in that order. 
  • Next, try to think of everything you can that makes your story move. These can be groups, like Tolkien’s eagles, magical items, characters, or events. Add marks to show what kind of cards they are at glance, if you want!
  • Now, try moving these cards around! Can you add a character into the section between the past and present to fill the plothole? Can you replace the plothole event entirely using a group or item? Try different combinations of cards in sequence to make everything make sense and flow smoothly. That’s ultimately your goal here; to make everything make sense.

It’s always perfectly okay if you can’t find any solutions from what you have on hand. You can create a new card from just moving things around, or fusing them together. Like, maybe two side characters can become one new character to solve the issue at hand, or events can be moved into a new sequence so the issue is solved because it occurs before or after another scene or event. Even if this exercise doesn’t help you, you’ve still got a better grasp of what your problem is, and what potential solutions you already have. So, get writing! You can find writing by other amazing Unvale creators here. It never hurts to ask other writers for tips, so comment away!