#56 Stuck in a plot hole

Welcome to another Writing Update—a weekly journal where I document the ups and downs of my writing life. This week started great. I blazed through two chunky chapters, improved them quite a lot. I was getting ready to start the next one when this little thing crept into my mind. A five-minute staredown with the wall ensued. Many more thoughts came up. The main one was, ‘Oh shit!’

There was a tiny flaw in the plan: it was bollocks.

I spent days rewriting two chapters only to find out that the premise was flawed. And that sucked. Over the course of the week, I descended into a progressively escalating panic. Not only I would have to redo those chapters, but I had no idea how I would do it in the first place. It took me until Saturday evening to figure it. After spending a full day just staring at the screen, the solution kinda just showed up. It couldn’t possibly be more anti-climatic. Oh, well.

I never want this to happen again. The problem is that it most certainly will. No matter how much time you spend revising your plot, you can only see so far. Research and outlining decrease the chances of a book-breaking plot hole substantially, but they don’t eliminate them.

One of these days, you too might find yourself looking through a giant hole in your plot that wasn’t there when you first wrote the thing. When that happens, it’s important to keep going and work through it. If you’re stuck, it’s more likely that you will abandon the project altogether which is a huge shame, because many issues can be overcome with enough focused effort. I had several of these moments just on this book alone.

This thing definitely threw me off the rails. I didn’t get to write a short story or finish reading any books. Heck, I was planning to edit two more chapters. But what can you do? I’ll do those next week. At least I’m able to sleep again.

What about you? Did you ever hit a major plot hole? How did you solve it?


I’m also working on a website for my writing in my spare time, and I thought I’d post a little teaser. I made a simple design last week, and I’m writing the code bit by bit.

Screenshot of my new website

What I am reading

I’m almost done with Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I’ve been stuck on this book for weeks now, mainly because I had so much to do. The book is really great. I love connections between history and computers, and that’s something that I would love to write myself one day. Thumbs up for this one!

Capture or Kill by Tom Marcus

Next, I’ll be reading Capture or Kill by Tom Marcus. A fairly short spy thriller from a former MI5 officer. I read his memoir a few months ago, and that was pretty cool. I’m wondering how he handled a fiction book.


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