On Plot Holes and How to Avoid Them

I haven’t really talked about plot holes here, and to be honest, I’m kind of disappointed in myself for not doing it sooner. I know, it’s weird that I haven’t. So, let’s look at them in detail today.

A plot hole is one of those things that everyone knows about but, aside from writers, only a few people can actually define it properly. It’s one of things that you pick up on when you’re reading a book and go: wait, what? That doesn’t make sense. 

It happens a lot more than people admit and it’s that moment when something in a story’s plot or chain of events doesn’t add up and feels so left field and inconsistent that even the most forgiving readers can’t overlook it. It’s every writer’s fear and the reason why some readers can absolutely hate your story—even if the prose is perfect, the world’s vivid and what not.

Of course, even the most famous novels have occasionally gotten away with major inconsistencies. But unchecked plot holes can wreck your and your characters’ credibility and ruin emotional payoffs. So, as a writer, you not only need to know how to spot plot holes and also find them in your own work and—well—fix it.

This post covers that: we’re looking what plot holes actually are, the most common types writers create without realising it, how to find them, and how to fix them before it leads to disaster.

What Is a Plot Hole?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a plot hole is:

Part of the plot (= story) of a film or book that does not fit with other parts of the plot.

Basically, as I’ve mentioned a few times now, a plot hole is an inconsistency or contradiction in a storyline that goes against the established logic of the narrative. It’s a gap where the story’s internal rules are violated without explanation or resolution. It could be a character moving too quickly across a vast distance, or a vital piece of technology suddenly failing for no reason. These errors disrupt the laws and reality of your universe.  

One of the reasons Winds of Winter is taking so long for George RR Martin to write is because we need all of our main characters, who are scattered throughout Planetos, in one place without breaking the laws of the universe. There’s a lot that needs to be done in a manner that makes sense with the story’s own logic and doesn’t involve blowing stuff up. George is trying to avoid plot holes and he’s got twenty-ish POV characters to write. If he can try his best to do it, so can we!

Don’t Confuse Plot Holes with Other Stuff Though

I’ve read a few truly horrendous books in the past year where the glaring plot holes were chalked off by their writers as them being “ambiguous” or trying to establish “unreliable narrators.” Don’t be like them, please. Let’s hold ourselves to higher standards. You don’t have to write a high fantasy series with complex arcs, but you just need to be consistent. Readers respect that. A lot.

So, it is essential to be able to distinguish a plot hole from intentional ambiguity or an unreliable narrator. A mystery where information is withheld for a later reveal is not a plot hole, provided that the eventual resolution fits the established facts of your world. Similarly, if a character lies or is mistaken, the story should remain logically sound as long as the “truth” of the world remains consistent. 

A plot hole, by contrast, is an unintentional oversight—a moment where the author simply forgot the rules they previously wrote. Readers notice these holes even if they cannot technically define them. They experience it as a loss of immersion or a feeling that the “magic” has been broken. 

When the internal logic fails, the reader stops thinking about your characters and starts thinking about the logistics of the error, such as questioning why a vampire is suddenly enjoying a midday picnic without explanation. Once that trust is lost, it is incredibly difficult to regain.

The Most Common Types of Plot Holes

So, now that you know what a plot hole is, understanding its “flavours” is the first step toward avoiding them. Most narrative inconsistencies fall into one of these five big categories.

Character Motivation Issues

This is by far one of the most common plot holes I’ve come across: inconsistent character motivation. This happens when characters act against their established personalities or beliefs without any development or justification. It often happens just to force the plot to move in a specific direction. If your tech bro character suddenly forgets how to use a laptop because it is “convenient for the scene,” readers will smell lazy writing immediately.

There’s also the phenomena of characters ignoring obvious solutions that are in plain sight. A classic example of this is someone cutting off their own limb to escape shackles when they could have simply used a nearby tool to reach the keys. Like, writers may intend it to be a “show of their determination or desperation” but it just reads off as a… pointless thing to do. Now, if your character’s loved ones are in life-threatening danger in front of them and they have to get out of those shackles? Well, I can see them doing something drastic to get to them.

Similarly, writers sometimes ignore off-screen solutions—there can be a scene where characters are struggling to land a plane at a closed airport while ignoring several other perfectly functional airports nearby. That would confuse readers, especially if your story’s based in London or Miami where there are several airports nearby.

Logic and Continuity Errors

Continuity errors are simple breaks in consistency, like a character firing ten bullets from a six-shooter or a magical necklace that disappears and reappears between scenes. These are often the result of sloppy editing and, while minor, they add to a feeling of unreliability.

Worse yet is the timeline confusion, where events do not add up chronologically or travel times magically shorten to suit the pacing. 

On a larger scale, you may encounter large-scale plot holes, where the entire premise of the story is built on a logical fallacy. For example, a story might depict a space agency training deep-sea drillers to be astronauts in twelve days. That’s dumb because the much more logical route would be to teach established astronauts how to use a drill.

Worldbuilding Gaps

In fantasy and sci-fi, magic system violations or inconsistent technology can be fatal. I’m not even being dramatic here. Readers are actively trying to understand what is possible in your world. When you break your own rules, such as a character resurrecting someone in a world where you established magic cannot bring back the dead, the suspension of disbelief crumbles.

Your story world has to conform to a set of norms that readers can rely on. If a protagonist lives under constant government surveillance, they shouldn’t be able to rally a massive resistance in the town square without attracting attention. These inconsistencies make readers feel as though the world is being reshaped at the author’s whim.

Interested in learning more about worldbuilding? Check out my blog post: On Worldbuilding: A Comprehensive Guide.

Pacing and Structure Problems

A slow start can kill a story before it begins. If the first fifty pages are a “warm-up” focusing on mundane routines rather than an inciting incident, readers will DNF the book. On the other hand, an abrupt ending without sufficient moment leaves readers without a sense of closure or emotional payoff.

Avoid pacing issues by reading my guide on pacing: On the Art of Pacing: A Writer’s Guide.

There’s also the messy middle of a book. This is where the conflict fails to escalate and the protagonist simply does things for the plot. There’s also the deflating balloon lulls, where time jumps lead to a total loss of tension, or runaway train tangents that stray away from the main plot into unnecessary subplots or info-dumps. This is why you need to be able to structure your book properly.

For more information on structuring your novel, check out my guide: How to Structure Your Novel: A Step-by-Step Guide.

The most frustrating thing that you can do though, is employ the classic bait and switch plot. Not going to lie, this is why I don’t like Colleen Hoover. She does this a lot. Basically she sets up one premise, only to pivot halfway through it into something that’s just…bad. A classic example of this is It Ends With Us. I wanted to read a good story where the nuances of domestic abuse and the like is explored—the title, the premise, the setup, all of it pointed to it—only for us to get a deeply unserious book where abuse is rationalised and romanticised. Don’t even get me started about it.

Convenience Errors

Convenient discoveries and lucky breaks are signs that a character isn’t earning their victory. If a protagonist coincidentally finds a secret diary or runs into a wise man with all the answers exactly when they are stuck, the story feels contrived.

This category also includes abandoned subplots that disappear without resolution, leaving the reader feeling cheated. There’s also the issue of zombifying darlings, where a writer clings to an old idea—like a secret reveal—that no longer fits the evolved plot. This leads to characters acting without motivation just to keep that one “darling” alive.

How to Find Plot Holes in Your Own Work

Now that you know what the most common plot hole types there are, the next thing you should learn is how to find plot holes in your own story. Identifying the issues we’ve discussed is difficult because you’re “too close” to the source material. So, what do you do?

Well, there’s a systematic approach you can take to spot plot holes in your story. 

Internal Analysis Methods

Use these effective methods to check your story’s logic:

• The DAC method: Decision, Action, and Consequence. Every scene should follow this flow, and each consequence should feed into the next decision. If a character acts without a clear motivation or the consequences don’t follow the actions, you’ve likely found a plot hole. 
• The story lay line audit: Your story’s lay line is the core message of the protagonist’s arc. Make this when you sketch out your protagonist’s story in the book. You can work backward from the climax to the end and use it to ensure every scene is sync with the eventual ending.
• The subplot checklist: Write down every new story thread and character arc as they are introduced to ensure they are eventually resolved. 
• Detailed revision notes: I do this a lot. Basically after every draft—of scenes, chapters and even the whole story—make notes. This helps you keep track of your story and can help you fix any plot holes you found earlier. You can use it to keep track of any holes you need to plug later and prevent the butterfly effect of opening three more plot holes because of that one later in the story.

Getting Objectivity

The surest way to catch plot holes is to edit with “fresh eyes.” This is pretty hard. Trust me, I know. It requires you to step away from your manuscript for a significant amount of time—usually one to two weeks for short stories and at least a month for a novel. 

Once you return, try questioning the plot logic out loud. Interrogate your story: Do the events build upon what came before? Are the consequences meaningful? Do characters make choices true to their beliefs, or are they acting as “wish fulfillment” for you, the author?.

External Feedback

Eventually, internal tools reach their limit, and you need external feedback. Beta readers are excellent for identifying moments where they were confused or “pulled out” of the story. Critique partners are even more valuable because they can trace the logic of what is actually on the page versus what you intended to be there, and they can help brainstorm solutions. Finally, a developmental editor provides the professional oversight needed to identify significant structural issues that might be secretly killing your story.

How to Fix (and Prevent) Plot Holes

Okay, so fixing a plot hole is rarely as simple as adding a single line of dialogue. Most of the time, it requires you to go back to the drawing board.

Structural Fixes

Sometimes, you have to restructure the plot by backtracking and adjusting character arcs. If a character’s reaction feels unearned, you need to sprinkle hints in earlier chapters to justify their later outburst. This is where subtext comes in.

Check out my guide on subtext for more information: On Writing Subtext: What It Is & Why It Matters in Storytelling.

If the tension is sagging, condensing the narrative timeline or introducing a midpoint twist can refuel your story’s momentum.

To prevent convenience errors, focus on adding consequences. If the protagonist wins too easily, attach a price to that victory. You can also foreshadow twists. A reveal should make the reader say: “I see it now,” not: “Where did that come from?”

Organisation Tools

The best way to tackle major plot holes is through prevention. I would recommend keeping a story bible. Basically, it keeps a track of your world’s rules, character histories, and timelines. It doesn’t need to be pretty. It must, however, be accurate to save you from those “green eyes in chapter one, blue eyes in chapter ten” moments.

Make a worldbuilding framework before you even begin the first draft. Establish the laws of your story world—social, magical, or physical—and stick to them. Finally, use an idea cataloguing system. When a eureka moment strikes, write it down in a dedicated place rather than trying to implement it immediately since that can derail your current progress.

The Meta-Mistakes That Create Plot Holes

Beyond the plot itself, the way you approach your writing can inadvertently create plot holes. 

Productivity Traps

Many writers fall into academic procrastination, conflating research and outlining with actual progress. You can spend years compiling lore documents and yet never write a single scene with real characters.

Another major trap is rewriting before finishing. If you go back to edit chapter one before you’ve written “The End,” you will spend five years salvaging the same confusing draft. Push through the rough draft, keep notes of the changes you want to make, and only begin the overhaul once the full story exists.

Audience Relations

How you handle feedback can also impact your story’s logic. Responding to haters or engaging with dishonest criticism is a waste of creative energy. If you try to “dunk” on critics or pivot to appease internet spats, you will burn goodwill and likely create massive “bait and switch” plot holes. 

Trust your work to speak for itself. Remember that you cannot control how others perceive it. Wasting reader trust by being defensive or spiteful only reveals that you are prioritizing your ego over the narrative.

The Creator’s Ego

Perhaps the most dangerous meta-mistake is blindness to your own flaws. An uncompromising “artistic vision” is admirable, but it becomes arrogance when it leads you to ignore valid feedback. If multiple people tell you a worldbuilding point is nonsensical, doubling down just to stay pure to your vision results in a lack of polish that readers will notice.