How do you deal with plotholes (or not having a clear plot at all)?

[Klaustasya]

For every story that start creating is always the same thing: i have a concept idea in mind, i figure out the characters and what they do, then i find myself stuck cause i don't know where i want to go with the plot, and so plotholes arise.

I know developping a story sometimes is a slow burn, it's not like you have it all figured it out in two days of course, you always need to research and get inspiration in order to make it go on, asking a lot of questions as well in the process.
But how do you do all of this? What do you do when your story is stuck or you don't know how to run it, or when you realize that you still don't have a solid plot at all?
I'm not expecting there to be a magic standard formula for this, but i'm curious to know how do you get your creativity flow towards a new project like a novel or a webcomic

[spicy_sweets]

Yeahhh, I outline every story to avoid this. Once I've reread it I have other people look at it and edit accordingly. Then I write to a boppin playlist.

[graveweaver]

I never start a comic until I have an outline of how I want the entire story to go. Play-by-ear is possible, but you'll need a very loose plot with lots of wiggle-room.

I don't write every last bit of dialogue, but I have an outline of all the major plot points and plot twists from the beginning to the end of the story. There is always room for putting in more character developing side-plots and stuff later if I want to, but I make sure everything that is an establishing, plot-turning point is established before I even draw the first line in the comic. If a potential story just isn't jiving with me, I'll drop it since my energy input is pretty minimal, so not much is lost.

Even when you do this though, there is always potential for there to be an inconsistency you overlooked, and I generally try to avoid this by just making the plot/power system/world rather simple. Even then someone will probably point out something you missed so, just have to live with it

[ar-ninetysix]

I tend to critique my own writing as if it were someone else's.. like, I'll nitpick and just pry at my own plot to see if there's any hiccups.. I'll ask myself things like, "Wait, why don't you just do this instead, that seems like it's an action without any thought put into it." or "why would event A and event B cause event C to happen? These two things have nothing relating them together.."

I also like.. overthink about what I'm writing sometimes and imagine some dude aggressively making criticisms about certain elements not working. And then I remember the imagined criticism and sort of base my edits and rewrites off of that. It actually helps a bit bc in that headspace of imagining some else going off on my own work, I'll imagine some key points that I wouldn't have thought of fixing up on my own... so it's kinda like having someone else do it, but not really? xD I might just sound crazy though

[silverraven0]

My minds wander a lot and I kinda just filling it as I think of it. Kinda simple sounding, but not really, sometimes it create an even more bigger hole that I what I intended to be. XD

[Mr_estella]

what i do is brainstorm possible important plot points or scenes i wanna include in my stories and then i trie to write events to connect those scenes, like:
1.- main character meets a vampire
2.- vampires open portal to hell

so once main character discovers the guy he just met is a vampire and become friends, main character discovers there's a large number of vampires in the town, and most of them belongs to a cult that worships a demon, they are looking for people with something special to use as a sacrifice, at some point they get a girl who is perfect to be a sacrifice, they try to save her, but they fail and then they open the portal...

And then i detail more that pseudo.plot writing how main characters interact with each other, how the vampire society works, if there is gonna be romance and how will it work and stuff...
And remember, some of the plot ideas may not be on the story at end, no matter how much you like it.or at least that's how i do it it's something like this:

[qwerty]

I used to try very unsuccessfully to make stories because I would obsess over plot holes to the point that I would always feel stuck. Something that helped me was realizing that all stories have plot holes. You don't have to eliminate all the plot holes to make a good story (that may not even be possible), just the ones that are big enough to be distracting. I think no matter what you do, there will be a small percentage of readers who might complain and point out flaws. But in the scope of things, if most people wouldn't be bothered then you probably shouldn't be either.

I also definitely think it's better to have the whole story planned out, at least roughly, before actually starting to draw. But if it's too late for that, I would probably work from the ending backwards in order to make sure the story maintains a focused direction, and to keep a grip on the total length.

[Penni]

Outline, outline, outline.

In the past I've only written a bare bone outline, highlighting all the major parts of the story, but I found that at times it can be hard to get from one point to another that way. In the future, I plan to write a more complete outline before starting. I'm learning that preparation prior to writing can make call the difference to the overall story and experience.

[SeraphicMayin]

You deal with plotholes and an unclear plot by studying story structure. If you don't know how to craft conflict, you won't know where to go with a plot, no matter how interesting the characters are.

I'm not talking about formula one-sheets or hard and fast rules that such-and-such trope HAS to be included cause you're writing in the such-and-such genre. These things are not plot, they're examples of window-dressing that groups of stories have in common. Inevitable, and yet able to be reworked in interesting ways because of the specific context in good stories.

I'm talking about the principles of storytelling that have worked before and will work for you.

I'm not going to lie, I can summarize what's worked for me but it'll only be a drop in the bucket because my creative flow is predicated on a study of the following books (and i'm still studying storycraft with more resources and changing my processes as I learn more):

• Joseph Campbell >> He explains the Hero's Journey, wrote Hero with a Thousand Faces

• Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing

• Stephen King's On Writing

• Robert McKee's Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting (why screenwriting? Cause Comics is a visual medium just short of animation and more than Plays and Novels in the spectrum of pure writing to pure physical visual drama)

• The Snowflake Method created by Robert Ingermanson

• Blake Snyder's Save the Cat

• and a LOT more, not just books but a TON of online researched sources, youtube videos and more.

And not just studying, but applying what I have learnt. My core process is heavily built on the Snowflake Method and McKee's principles from his book because I'm interested in only making webcomics.

I start from the core premise (a Logline/1-2 sentence PREMISE that has a hint of irony to it and thus shows there's more to a story.)

• So not something like "Rose meets and falls in love with Jack.", but more of something like, "Rose, an assassin, is in love with the man she's supposed to kill next, Jack". It rings of irony because the conflict is written into that sentence. You can virtually see how the conflict is going to make things difficult for what Rose would really want. (Save The Cat has a really great chapter on how to make a hook like this. Again with basic principles, not rules.)

From that Core, I start to both Outline ideas for the story as it unfolds while at the same time filling in background information as I need to.

• The Setting, the era, the time-span of the story itself, the locations, the politics of power they have to deal with.
• And also information about the characters core: What are their desires? What are they willing to live for? What are they willing to DIE for? What are the routines of their lives? What's their Biography? What's their Backstory? and so on and so on (it's detailed in Story by McKee in a later chapter that expands on Setting.) The questions you ask and need to research vary from story to story.

The Outline is then organized in terms of an overarching structure of Acts, with rising action, climaxes/turning points where something meaningful changes from a positive state to negative or vice versa.

• I make sure that my conflicts are actually dilemmas, that is not a choice between something obviously good or bad from the character's perspective (Cause a character will ALWAYS do what they think is Right from their personal worldview), but a choice between two incomparably GOOD things OR, a choice between the lesser of two EVILS. That means the conflict has built-in sacrifices involved, it's got stakes!.

The Outline has an excess of scenes by double or triple the amount I'd need for the story. Entire possible scenarios are torn out when better ones are worked out.

Work is fast and loose and nothing is sacred to the story, only what works. Only what adds to the conflict and stakes and brings out who the Characters truly are.

That way, things that don't work are thrown out. Variations on troublsome scenes are made and only one of possibly ten or fifteen are kept.

This outlining stage is vital because if you can make a summary based on this that can be told to a friend in 10 minutes or less, you can figure out at this stage whether or not the story actually WORKS. Long before you put in the 100s of hours it takes to actually expand and develop the whole dang thing.

The Final Outline is structured by Acts, Sequences, and Scenes, which are written in 2-parts (2 sentences):

• What happens and How it changes the situation for the character.

If the begining and ending of the scene have the character in the same dang place, it's just exposition. It gets cut out and the necessary information is slid into a scene where something actually happens.

Change is the primary prerogative of any story (unless you've practiced enough with storycraft to start breaking the principles consciously). But MOST stories require some kind of change in the principal character's situation from the beginning to the end in a Permanent and Irreversible way.

This process of outlining to excess means I discover everything I need to know about the story long before I start writing the Treatment (A scene by scene description of all the actions and Subtext, no dialogue) and finally the Script (which is concise only because my treatment was so detailed and with the dialogue that is reflective of the subtext).

And even then, I keep learning things about my story throughout the treatment and Script too! Scenes still change, or get added or taken away in later stages. Nothing is sacred, only keep what works. This is the true meaning of "kill your darlings".

It really is true that you end up with far more information about the story than what ends up being presented, and this is necessary. More than necessary, it's vital because in order to be Authentic, you must tell your story with Authority, which means knowing the little universe you've created inside and out. That's what makes someone an Author.

I hope this helps.

[cookiety]

What I do before I start writing script and stuff, is think about how I want the story to start, and how I want it to end. For example if it's a romance, the story could start from the soon-to-be-couple's meeting. The ending could be that they stayed together. Then, I'll write down stuff that I want to happen like "first date at the movies" or whatever and keep adding bullet points, but as I do that, I'm thinking about how every action brings a reaction. Every thing I add is useful to lead the story to something else. Take "first date at the movies" for example. This action could bring the reaction that the characters enjoy the same movies. Or that they have completely different tastes. I can use that for their dialogue, or something that could happen in the future. If I see that something doesn't lead to anything at all, I erase it and write something else until it leads somewhere.

I don't know if I'm clear, but I hope you understand and that I helped.

[nostalgicroxas]

Make a character who's entire purpose is to solve that plot hole.

It sounds stupid, but that's exactly or pretty close to what I do. The character serves other purposes in terms of Protag's motivations and what not, but fundamentally they're a linchpin to the story, and without them the story would not function.

[jurinova]

In my opinion, the key is time.

Whenever I have an idea I write things down and have a whole bunch of ideas about the plot and characters and everything imaginable. I get very excited in the beginning but trying to piece everything together into a coherent plot seems impossible.

However if I give the project time things tend to work out. Slowly but surely I'll get new ideas about how to weave to plot points together or how to fill out an empty space in the story. Sometimes I never get to this point with a story but I think that means it wasn't interesting enough if even I couldn't stay interested in it. I don't start writing the story properly until it's past the first stage. Though, it may not have a complete plot yet I can start working on it if I know enough.

My current comic project took years to simmer in my mind into what it is, and even now I still change things. The main plot remains, but sometimes the events and the characters take the story into places I did not plan but that seem natural as the story goes on.

[LT1986]

If I discover a plot hole or issue with the making of a decision about the direction of a plot hole, I just figure out how to make it work. This is what I've seen in Dragon Ball Super. Retcons are made to make the story work. S cells, potara fusion time, and origin stories in the Dragon Ball series have either changed or additions to the information about things have been added to make the story work.

[L.O.R.D]

When I have the basic idea down in my mind, I just lie down, close my eyes and start imagining the story from the very start. Let it unfold, and surprise you... And then fall asleep, to wake up with a great story! Sometimes, when this doesn't work( I suggest you do this when you are alone) I simply just roleplay, taking myself to be the protagonist and visualizing all other characters and scenes. It helps me develop the plot. Hope this helps

[Wumbl]

Make sure you know what all the main plot points are going to be before you start writing. I understand not knowing this stuff because it took me long enough to learn plot structure.

Pay attention to things like Todorov's narrative theory when creating your plot.

I like to have a plot decided before even considering the characters finished. Most of my unused characters are basically drafts. They become proper characters once they are in the story. That lets me create a plot without the characters getting in the way.

[phinality]

All these points make good advice... I have this problem too... My story probably has more holes than swiss cheese lol. I definitely try my best to have some resolution in mind, and try to pick out parts that might be confusing/could potentially have plot holes, before writing stuff down. But in the end, I tend to write freely. I'm more creative when I don't plan a lot of details and it's also more fun for me that way