Moderator Musings

[rolanni]

Of the two panels I'm moderating at WorldCon, one seems to have, on inspection, something of an odd kick in its assumptions.

The panel is title "Mind the Plot Holes, Dear," and the panelists are charged with giving examples of plot hole problems from "any piece of SF/F," categorize them, and offer suggestions on how the story could be saved/rewritten so as to seal the perceived hole.

We've got an able crew, easily capable of talking entertainingly for an hour about anything at all, but I'd like to at least come within shouting distance of the topic, preferably without bloodshed or tears.

I've thrown the question of how best to play it out to the rest of the panelists. One feels that it really wouldn't be fair to ding Classic SF/F (i.e. Dead Authors) for, say, science "mistakes" when the author was playing with the rules as known at the time, and I have to agree that this would be Bad Form.

There might be a couple of worthy targets among Pulpdom -- thinking here in terms of major secondary characters abruptly going missing and never mentioned again; or of loving preparations made for our hero's journey to Cleveland so he can save the girl, only to find him in New York after the scene break, on the cause of saving the world, and he doesn't notice the difference -- but I'm not sufficiently well-read to locate them, nor do I think they'd have a lot of relevance to our audience.

Another panelist offers the suggestion that we come prepared with errors from our own works. At first glance, this seems the most reasonable way to go, but the more I look on it, the uneasier I get. Do we really want to tell a room full of people that they can't trust us to be careful craftspeople?

I feel like there's some Really Obvious way to discuss the material -- which is interesting and useful in a What are Plot Holes? How to Recognize and Repair Them sort of way -- without either self-immolation or humiliating a fellow writer.

Wish I could figure out what it is, though...

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah...if I were in your shoes I wouldn't want the panel to turn into a big trash session on various books; defining plot holes and whether everyone agrees with the definition might be a good idea. The obvious ones you covered--science glitches, or continuity glitches--but there are the dicier ones that reviewers will scorn that could become a runaway chariot. Like those who will insist the economics of this book would never work, or the customs of that world are nothing but Japan without the Shinto, or naming the books that seem to end with deus ex machinas to the rescue.

If the audience is full of writers, it seems to me if the panelists come armed with some stories about their own first drafts that ran into plot problems, and how they worked around it, or you panelists posed some scenarios and asked how audience members might fix them, it might be a useful dialogue.