You write a full length novel. You put your heart and soul into it, and then while you’re editing it, you suddenly realize there’s a seriously major plot hole that pretty much invalidates the last four chapters of your book.
Is there anything more devastating to an author than that? No, not really. How do I know? Because it just happened to me with Infestation. Honestly, when I realized what I’d done, I was ready to hang myself in the closet. This plot hole would have invalidated everything I wrote and left me with nothing. I sat here racking my brain trying to figure out a way around it that would save the story, and I was getting more and more desperate as each idea I came up with to fix the problem had holes of their own. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a way to work around it that’ll only take a small bit of rewriting, which was about the biggest relief you could possibly imagine.
Basically, I had two choices. Find a way to explain the plot hole and make it work, or just go ahead with the story as is and hope that no one would notice it. Unfortunately, there are people out there that can spot the most miniscule of plot holes, and then they bitch about them endlessly to anyone who’ll listen, so this was something I absolutely had to fix. Yes it’s setting me back a bit in my editing, but honestly, I’d rather have it right than to put out something ill conceived that would eat at the reader every time they read the book.
So that’s where I am as of now. I’ve got 13 chapters edited so far, and after I fix this plot hole, I’ll go ahead and finish up the final three.
Phew! I seriously can’t tell you how relieved I am that I figured out a way to explain this and make it work. I would have had to have dropped the whole part of the book that involved the infestation if I hadn’t have, which would have absolutely destroyed the story.
Anyway, I’m going to take the rest of the evening off to get myself past the stress of this whole thing before I go back to editing again. I’m going to smoke my pipe with some Evening Stroll tobacco from Milan Tobacconists and maybe watch a movie or something. I’m not sure yet. Whatever I do though, it’ll be away from the computer, which is exactly what I need right now.
Plot holes…
You write a full length novel. You put your heart and soul into it, and then while you’re editing it, you suddenly realize there’s a seriously major plot hole that pretty much invalidates the last four chapters of your book.
Is there anything more devastating to an author than that? No, not really. How do I know? Because it just happened to me with Infestation. Honestly, when I realized what I’d done, I was ready to hang myself in the closet. This plot hole would have invalidated everything I wrote and left me with nothing. I sat here racking my brain trying to figure out a way around it that would save the story, and I was getting more and more desperate as each idea I came up with to fix the problem had holes of their own. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a way to work around it that’ll only take a small bit of rewriting, which was about the biggest relief you could possibly imagine.
Basically, I had two choices. Find a way to explain the plot hole and make it work, or just go ahead with the story as is and hope that no one would notice it. Unfortunately, there are people out there that can spot the most miniscule of plot holes, and then they bitch about them endlessly to anyone who’ll listen, so this was something I absolutely had to fix. Yes it’s setting me back a bit in my editing, but honestly, I’d rather have it right than to put out something ill conceived that would eat at the reader every time they read the book.
So that’s where I am as of now. I’ve got 13 chapters edited so far, and after I fix this plot hole, I’ll go ahead and finish up the final three.
Phew! I seriously can’t tell you how relieved I am that I figured out a way to explain this and make it work. I would have had to have dropped the whole part of the book that involved the infestation if I hadn’t have, which would have absolutely destroyed the story.
Anyway, I’m going to take the rest of the evening off to get myself past the stress of this whole thing before I go back to editing again. I’m going to smoke my pipe with some Evening Stroll tobacco from Milan Tobacconists and maybe watch a movie or something. I’m not sure yet. Whatever I do though, it’ll be away from the computer, which is exactly what I need right now.
By Duane • Uncategorized 0