I hate plot holes. In my opinion there is nothing that can gut a
story faster than a plot hole. I'm one
of these people that looks for them in any kind of media I come into contact
with, from books to movies, and even video games. It often irritates my friends because I have
the habit of poking holes in even the most well written story. Even stories that I love myself are not
immune. As much as I love the
Dragonlance series, there are several places where I can punch a hole in the
plot. I am a terror.
Why am I bringing this
up? Simple. A few days ago I was in the middle of doing
an edit on one of my short stories for my new anthology book when I stumbled
on, you guessed it, a plot hole. To be
fair it's not horrible, and several people I have had read it, never even
caught it. Either that, or they were
just being nice. It's not even about the
plot itself. It has to do with the
character himself and an abrupt transition from one set of actions to another,
without any real reason or prior explanation.
Most plot holes can be fixed quickly or
sometimes they require a re-write, depending on how bad the problem is. Obviously you can see where a quick fix would
work in this case, I would just have to add either an explanation or a trait
that would explain the sudden change in behavior of the character, but you can
also probably see where a re-write could possibly produce a better overall
flow. No matter what though, it is there,
and in the words of Morpheus it's like a splinter in my mind, and it must be
dealt with.
Now I am faced with a
simple dilemma, which method do I use to fix it? It's not that I haven't faced this before in
my other stories, but this time it is different because I could use both
methods to remedy the problem. My
biggest dilemma, is that a quick fix may make the character seem too unrealistic,
or a total re-write may produce a purely malevolent person, which is not what I
was aiming for with this character. To
be honest, the character is a villain, but now I must decide what kind of
villain he is. Is he someone who just
seems to make bad choices, or is he a sociopath that has no redeeming qualities
and should be killed on sight. I'm not sure which method to choose.
So, I am going to ask all
of you, what it is you think I should do.
Should I just do a quick plug that would do the job, or a total re-write,
which could change the overall nature of my character and leave me with
something different than what I started from?
Granted a re-write may
produce something that is superior to what I have now, but I must admit I am
quite fond of the story the way it is.
In fact, it is one of my favorites from my new book. Despite this, I'm leaning towards the
re-write since I think it will produce a more cohesive end result.
So give me your opinions
and suggestions. Do I use a quick fix, a
re-write or do I forget the whole thing, and go eat some noodles?
