An Informal Poll: How Much Do You Care About Plot Holes?

Okay. I’d like to talk a bit about plot holes today. As an author, I hate them. Can’t stand it when I find one in one of my books, and I do my best to get things set up so I avoid them. That said, it’s clear from a ton of the movies and books I read that not everyone feels the same way. I mean, there are sometimes holes big enough to fit a Deathstar through, but I’ll encounter them, roll my eyes a bit, and then just move on. In other words, as a consumer of media, plot holes don’t bug me nearly as much as they do when I’m the creator of that media.

So the question then comes up, should I be bothering as hard as I do to avoid plot holes in my own work? If I don’t mind them that much, why am I so worried someone might find one in something I’ve written? And for that, I turn to you all. All I’m looking for is how much plot holes bug you. Fill in the survey and hit submit.

Now, if you want to leave a comment explaining your reasoning, that would be spiffy, but it’d be great to have as many people fill out the poll as possible.

This isn’t to say that I plan on just ignoring plot holes depending on the responses, but perhaps it’s something I shouldn’t worry quite as much about. Right now, I try to think through the plot from every angle to see if there’s something glaring I’m missing. When it’s an easy fix, that’s a no brainer. But sometimes I’ve totally thrown out scenes or massively overhauled them based on a hole I found.

Watching a movie the other night (Epic was the name, if you were wondering), I was stunned by how big the plot holes were. Time was a huge problem. It was so elastic in the climax. Things that needed to take a lot of time, did. Things that needed to be rush and tense, were. But none of it followed any rhyme or reason, and it really bugged me. (No pun intended)

Then I realized this was a kids movie, and maybe I was taking it too seriously.

But anyway–on to survey. Please fill it out!

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1 thought on “An Informal Poll: How Much Do You Care About Plot Holes?”

  1. Plot holes are a big deal to me. It says one of two things: the author isn’t that bright or the author thinks that I’m not that bright. In either case, it makes it much harder for me to invest myself and enjoy the rest of the story.

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