Of protagonists and plot-holes
Only pick that up if it is going to advance the plot! Photo 210180768 © Stokkete | Dreamstime.com
I’ve been doing a fair bit of thinking about protagonists and plot-holes of late.
The reason for this is that I undertook something of an experiment.
A small UK publishing company, called Wyldblood Press, is shortly to publish a Steampunk Anthology, which as you can imagine got me quite excited.
I heard about this from the wonderful Steampunk Explorer newsletter, which is well worth signing up for, but I soon realised that the call for submissions had been open for nearly a month. Argh!
I knew I had to write something QUICKLY, but initially, I struggled to find an idea. Then, on Friday 23 April, I had a germ of an idea and set to work. I worked all Friday afternoon then most of Saturday and Sunday, and pinged the tidied draft - 9,500 words long - to my editor on Monday.
Let me tell you, 9,500 words is a LOT to have written in that time period, but it was as if I’d taken two steps back on my writing journey.
It wasn’t a total mess, but my editor and I both agreed I should have spent a few days more letting it settle, self-editing and figuring out what turned out to be quite an intricate little plot a bit better.
Aside from slowing down, I drew two important lessons from it.
#1 - at speed, plot holes are unnoticed, and as the story develops, they yawn wider. By the time you finish, you have something which more closely resembles Swiss cheese or a terrible piece of knitting than a coherent story.
#2 - my male protagonists - this does not, weirdly, happen with my female protagonists - are all observers, passive if you will (!). The plot goes by without them, for the most part, and had done in this case, until the end, when he was pivotal. Of course by that time the reader is far more likely to think “who’s this guy?” than believe he’s the hero.
This last point reminded me of a wonderful episode of one of my favourite sitcoms, ‘The Big Bang Theory’, where Sheldon Cooper’s fairly new girlfriend, Amy Farrar-Fowler, who does not share his love of science fiction and comic books, points out the massive plot hole in the classic adventure movie ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’.
Still wondering? It’s the fact that our hero, Indiana Jones, is completely superfluous. Everything in the movie would have occurred whether or not he is present. He is simply taken along for the ride.
(I have yet to fully investigate this for myself - I’ve seen the movie at least ten times and never noticed! - but I presume that there would have been howls of fan outrage if this were not the case...)
So, my resolution for this week is to make my male protagonists ACTIVE. They must drive the plot. The plot should not happen without them.
Anyway, I submitted the (cut-down) story - ‘No.47’ - to Wyldblood this evening.
Fingers crossed!