I THINK I LEFT OUT AN ‘O’

Plot holes unfinished when not. What did you just say?? Oh, I’m sorry. Plot holes are like unfinished sentences when they are not filled in. They are like glaring, bright lights from the oncoming cars along a dark, winding country road. You can’t see where you are going, and it’s hard to focus. In essence, plot holes take you off the road…err out of the story.

We can highlight a couple. Every piece of work is up for criticism, and I cringe at the thought that one day my work will be critiqued just as harshly. Nevertheless, we begin.

In Black Swan with Natalie Portman, there’s an enormous plot hole. SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! If you don’t want to know the ending, skip down two paragraphs. In the end, Natalie Portman’s character dies from a self-inflicted stab wound. Before she dies, she dances the most amazing dance ever. But then she falls off the back of the stage and dies with the blood spilling out onto her dress.

First, the blood should have leaked onto her dress during the dance. Second, because of the severity of the wound, there is no way that she could have danced in a ballet. So for me, I was like Gizmo from The Gremlins. BRIGHT LIGHT! BRIGHT LIGHT!

I didn’t like Black Swan anyway for reasons that I won’t go into, but with inconsistency so clear, I certainly could not appreciate the ending.

So what ever should we do to fill the graves that we have dug? Revise! Revise! Revise! As a writer and an artist, we must be open to revisions or we will submit trash and not the gold that we certainly are capable of.

Here’s an example. Let’s say that we need Mario to save the Princess. He only has a few weapons, and an ‘A’ button for jumping. Now let’s say that Bowser is getting too powerful, so we need Mario to do something…and fast…I mean…real fast. So let’s have Mario pull out a Rocket Launcher and blow that mutated turtle back to the sewers where he belongs. (Wait…that’s TMNT).

This rocket launcher doesn’t work because we have set up certain rules, and if the protag breaks those rules so that we, the writers, can defeat the villain, then in essence we win…but our protag loses. Why? Because our readers don’t believe that Mario could have manufactured a bazooka, so to give him one is as impractical as the upgrades from the Game Genie. It’s poor writing, and we are better than that.

More about this later. Remember. As writers we create memories. When I say Frodo, or Hannibal Lecter, or Clark Kent, or Scarlett O’ Hara, or Anne of Green Gables you know who they are, and you probably know their stories. Why? Because their missions were accomplished by their own strengths. Not by the desires of the authors.