Tuesday, August 31, 2010

La, la, la....whoa!!

Avoiding Plotholes: Inconsistencies, Character Behavior, and Story Structure

I just finished reading a rather steamy fantasy romance over the weekend. The writing was pretty good, the characters interesting, the storyline unique. However, I hit a huge plot hole that I don't know how the author or an editor missed (not to mention some pretty bad typos too, but I won't go into that). In this story, the main female character discovers toward the end of the book that whatever she writes will come true, as she happens to be a sorceress and didn't know it. Anywho, the villain is after her and her fantasy macho lover who's from another world. The villain wants to get to this world to rule it, etc, etc. She is desperate to get down to the tournament arena where her lover is fighting the bad guy, but the police have put the woman under guard in her hotel room....she gets the idea to write down "The police will pay no attention to me when I leave the room." So, off she goes past the police officer guarding her, down to where the fight is taking place so she can help her lover.

Anyone see the plot hole here? Why didn't she just type, "The bad guy has a massive heart attack and dies. The End." ?? This particular issue wasn't addressed, to my disappointment. If he had perhaps been so powerful that she could not change anything that HE did by writing it, then that should have came up (perhaps I missed it, but I ain't goin back).

This article from Women on Writing addresses plot hole issues, which I will be paying closer attention to as I write my tales.

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