Plot Holes And Plot Devices
Plot Holes and Plot Devices
Anyone who has read my blog for a while probably knows I don’t like plot holes. It ticks me off when I’m rolling along with a story, flipping pages (virtual pages) as fast as my eyes can read and then…I fall into a plot hole. What I do next depends on how deep that hole is. If it’s a small one I move on, and assuming I don’t encounter a hole in every chapter, I keep moving on. But if this is a massive plot hole, I usually put the book down. Or in this case, close the application I’m using to read.
I realize I’m picky. My wife has been telling me that for many years. But I read for pleasure, and I don’t get pleasure out of falling into plot holes.
What Is A Plot Hole?
Here’s a definition of a plot hole from Wikipedia.
Plothole:
- a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story’s plot, or constitutes a blatant omission of relevant information regarding the plot, sometimes even contradicting itself. These include such things as unlikely behavior or actions of characters, illogical or impossible events, events happening for no apparent reason, or statements/events that contradict earlier events in the storyline.
Some of the worst plot holes come at either the beginning or end of the story. A classic example, from one of the best movies of all time, is in Citizen Kane. The entire movie centers around Kane’s last word, “Rosebud,” and yet, Kane died by himself. Alone. No one could have known what he said. It doesn’t ruin the movie, but it does make you wonder why they couldn’t have fixed something so simple — and obvious.
Another one is from Independence Day, the science fiction movie where we destroyed the aliens with a computer virus. The problem with that is we couldn’t have known the alien technology to be able to create the virus. Even in our simple world, a virus from a PC doesn’t translate to a MAC, so how could we expect to make a virus that would infect a technology so superior to ours, from another world?
Books and movies are full of plot holes. If it’s a movie, I sometimes watch to see if I can find the holes.
What Is A Plot Device?
Here’s a definition of a plot device:
- A plot device is a character, or a thing, that affects the plot, moves it forward, serves as a decoy or a red herring, etc.
Unfortunately sometimes a reader sees a plot device and thinks it’s a plot hole, a mistake, an author error. These instances can seem to be similar, but they couldn’t be further apart.
I’ll give you an example from one of my books. I have a situation where there is a clue that gets overlooked by the lead detective on the case. His maid even mentions that he might want to check out that angle to the case, but there doesn’t seem to be anything of substance to it. Later on it turns out to be a valid clue and his partner gets hurt, when that incident might have been prevented if he’d found the killer earlier.
One reviewer thought this was a plot hole, but it wasn’t. In this scenario, the author obviously knew what was going on. The maid was used as a plot device, and for good reasons. I wanted to show that the detective makes mistakes, like everyone else, and I wanted to give him a reason to be ticked off at himself in the next book for letting his partner get hurt. That one mistake will be used to build his character and create future conflict.
If the detective had missed the clue and the maid had not brought it up, then it could have been viewed as a plot hole that the author was too lazy to go back and fix. If the author had left it alone and solved the crime another way, it would have been a huge plot hole.
The Bottom Line
If the author puts the clues in there for you to see, and even figure out before the detective, and especially if another character ‘sees’ the clues, that is not a plot hole. Obviously the author knew what was going on. He/she wrote it. The character the author uses to spot the clue functions as a plot device. It’s done for a reason. In one case I did it to show that not all detectives are omnipotent; they make mistakes like all humans. Another case I did it so it could play out later in future books and the detective could be pissed about it, regretting he missed a clue he felt he should have caught, and let something happen to his partner.
What about you? Got any plot holes in books or movies that really bothered you?
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Ciao, and thanks for stopping by,
Giacomo
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