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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47891
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47891
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

In the end, the story you are creating will either be convincing or not. But being logically coherent has little to do with making a story convincing. (The fact that there is an entire YouTube subculture dedicated to finding plot holes in blockbuster movies should convince you that a plot hole is not fatal to a story's appeal.)

Being convincing has far more to do with creating a sense of reality, the sense that these are real people living and moving in real places. As you are writing, you will imaginatively "play" these characters and if you do this well, you will inevitably find that you are imaging moments, and responses to moments, that are not in your plan. You can't plan for the act of imaginative discovery that you engage in as you write, you can only do it or not do it. Thus that notion that a decent book can be written entirely to plan does not work.

There is a constant tension to be managed between imaginatively inhabiting your characters and your world and being as true as you can to what your imagination reveals to you as you write, and keeping your plot on track so that all the characters arrive at the climax at the right time and in the right configuration. Normal people, after all, do not blithely walk toward such climactic moments. The plan matters to make sure that you get them there, but it has to be subservient to what the imagination discovers and created in the actual imaginative act of writing.

Which is probably why so many books and films do have plot holes if you look at them too closely, because they have stuck with the dictates of imagination to create compelling scenes and characters, and then resorted to coincidences and outright inconsistencies in the mechanics of plot to get all the characters lined up in the right order to play their role in the central climax.

In short, trust your imagination to reveal who your characters are and the world they live in, and then lie, cheat, and steal on the mechanics of plot to force them into the situations you need them to be in.

Original score: 12