One of my favorite Disney movies is "The Emperor's New Groove" from 2000.
At one point, we see the bad guys -- Yzma and Kronk -- chasing the good guys -- Pacha and the Emperor Kuzxo -- through the jungle as both parties are trying to get back to the palace. Part of their journey is illustrated with maps, showing each party's relative location. At one point in their journey, Yzma and Kronk are struck by lightning as they're paragliding over an abyss, and plummet into a canyon.
Despite this setback, they're able to get back to the palace to find the cure for the Emperor being turned into a llama before Pacha and the emperor arrive.
"It can't be," the emperor exclaims. "How did you get back here before we did?"
"Ah. Um, how did we, Kronk?" Ysma asks.
"Well, ya got me," Kronk says, as he pulls down a map of their route. "By all accounts, it doesn't make sense."
They literally fell into a hole in the plot, and can't explain it themselves.
While this is done for comic effect in this film, I'm sure you've read stories or seen movies that had plot holes in them that the story doesn't explain, leaving you as the reader or watcher guessing.
It's up to us, as writers, to avoid doing the same thing to our readers, unless we want to do it deliberately. An unintentional plot hole, even in a change essay, can leave our readers confused. We don't want confused readers.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE A PLOT HOLE. The best way to recognize a plot hole is to have someone else read what you've written. As writers, we tend to be like Yzma and Kronk: We're too close to what we've written to see what we might have left out. Writers are funny. We have all this stuff in our heads, and when we commit to writing it out, we think everything that's in our head has made it onto the page to tell the story.
But we create plot holes ourselves. A while back, I wrote a story about Moki, who'd been with the family for years. She got old and ended up having to be put to sleep because of a back injury. I left out one important detail in the first draft of the story: Moki is a daschund. A friend who read the story first wanted to know who Moki was, and then how we wrestled with the ethics of human euthanization. Once I clarified Moki was indeed a dog, the story became much more understandable.
HOW TO FIX A PLOT HOLE. Have someone else read what you've written. And if you're the one doing the reading for someone else, be honest. Offer praise -- because we all write things that are praiseworthy -- but also ask questions. Offer constructive criticism. Help the writer see what they've done well, and where they could improve.
If you don't have someone else to read what you've written, the best thing is to put your writing aside for 24-48 hours, and come back to it with fresh, more critical eyes. If you have to, print out what you've written and edit on paper. I find I notice more things if I'm working with a physical page, rather than a document on a computer.
If a peer reviewer says you need more information, listen. Try to see your story from their point of view. And it might be that you don't have to add a lot -- just a clarification, like my mentioning to the readers that Moki was a dog.
The best feedback, as this comic illustrates, has three components:
1. Be positive. Don't go in, red pen blazing, criticizing everything in sight. Offer praise. Point out mistakes. Be firm, but be gentle.
2. Be specific. Don't say things like "I don't understand," or "I really like this." Be specific. Say things like "I don't understand your relationship with Moki. Can you clarify?" or "your description of the acupuncture treatments really had me feeling the needles going ino my own skin." The more specific we are with criticism and praise, the better our feedback will be.
3. Offer a next step. The "can you clarify?" from the previous item is a next step. I don't know who Moki is, can you explain who she is to me? Often, we leave something out because we ourselves don't know what the next step should be. Offering a suggestion will help get the writer's brain firing.
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