Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Plot hole bigger than the Ozone Layer

More than 15,000 words into my WIP and I've realised that I have a massive plot hole. And it's integral as it relates to the reason my hero needs a marriage of convenience. Now, I can hear you asking: How did she not pick this up earlier - like in the planning stage? Unlike my previous mss, I did actually plan this one. I spent ages brainstorming with my teacher, getting to know the characters, their backgrounds, and the internal and external conflict. And yet...I knew there was something wrong, something niggling away at me.

S'pose it's better that I picked it up now rather than at the end. Now in order to address the plot hole issue, I'm coming up with ideas that are making it more and more complicated. And I keep remembering the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

So I can either keep trying to bust my brain trying to come up with a way to fix this thing. Or I can change the reason entirely as to why the hero needs the MOC. Which means I need to go back and rewrite. Grrr...whoever says writing is easy ought to be shot!

Oh well...might as well get back to it.

4 comments:

Lacey Devlin said...

(HUGS) Sneaky plot holes! It's amazing how many people think writing is as simple as "cranking a book out". Are you studying as well? I'm having conflict problems at the moment so I have sympathy pains for you ;)

Angie Peters said...

Hi Lacey,

Thanks for the empathy :) Hope you sort out your conflict problems - they're probably worse than the plot hole problems (I'm not trying to make you feel worse! I promise!). I'm sure I'll also come across conflict problems eventually, too. It's easy to lose sight of the big picture at times.

And you're so right about how many people think writing is easy. Especially romance writing.

I'm doing a category romance writing course at the moment and Assignment 3 is Chapter 2 of my novel, but I had the bright idea of writing the first draft of the whole novel first. Easier said than done...

Lacey Devlin said...

That's an interesting course structure who are you doing it through? I looked into a lot of different courses but I don't think I've come across that one.

I've just alter chapter three and in typical ripple effect form everything from then on will have to change too. So, I have to admit I'm with you, I'd want to write my draft first before handing in completed chapters :D

Angie Peters said...

The course is through OTEN Tafe - http://www.oten.edu.au (27079 Writing for Publication - Category Romance). It's aimed only towards Category, namely Presents and Sweet and you have a year to complete it. The teacher also works as your mentor and she's published under Harlequin Spice Briefs (Cathleen Ross). You can email her via her website and I'm sure she'd be happy to answer any questions you may have in order to make a decision about whether to part with your hard-earned cash :)

Thanks for the tip, Lacey. I haven't yet rewritten a ms but I would say no words are wasted - even the ones we cut. At least you know what your story's about :)

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