Plot-holey

Happy Wednesday, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! That felt weird to say... This isn't radio, it's a blog. Oh, whatever.

Hi! It's good to see you :) Thanks for reading my blog. I appreciate it, really.


This week we're back to talking about short stories, and a few of the reasons why I keep going back to writing them, especially between big novel ventures.

No Plotholes Allowed

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you can't have any plotholes ever in either short stories or novels. But you'd be wrong. A few plotholes can be acceptable in novels, expansive pieces of work that have wiggle room for things like that (I'll explain why next week, don't worry), but in short stories, it's an all-out no-no.

It's a good thing, because it helps authors to keep ourselves on track, to know what we're doing, how we're writing, and what's going on in the story.

But why is it important not to have any holes? 

1. Smaller

See, short stories are short. Obvious, right? But because they're so short, they don't have the wiggle room that novels do for little plot holes that open doors for new ideas. Short stories, as we've discussed before, are very self-contained. Everything about the story fits into that one single story, basically put through a magnifying glass, and your readers will find every single plot hole that gets left in there.

We don't want that.

Readers want to trust us, to see that we know what we're doing and that we can craft lovely stories and won't break their delicate trust. Leave a plot hole in, and they might never come back.

2. Necessary

Because short stories are so short, every single word is important. This is another reason why we have to watch for holes, because they're taking up valuable words that we could use elsewhere. We need those words for character development, for crucial plot details and information that our readers actually need in order to better understand the story.

Editing out the plot holes, removing anything that might relate to another story, means we'll be better able to tell this story, to get this story off the ground and get it published.

Ignore the plot holes, and some editors will simply ignore you, I'm sorry to say.


What do you guys think? Have you ever found a plothole in a short story?

I have, many a time...

[love]

{Rani Divine}