Hidden Plot Holes Sabotaging Your Manuscript

Gina Kammer Author

May 21, 2025 |

Learn two pro strategies to spot hidden plot holes and keep your story emotionally resonant, logical, and immersive for readers.

Readers bail when your story breaks its own rules. They head to the reviews to complain about your plot holes. But most plot holes don’t look like obvious mistakes—they’re usually the quiet kind that make readers think, “Wait… that doesn’t make sense.”

Either way, these are gaps in logic that take readers out of the story and lose their trust.

In this article, I’ll show you how to spot hidden plot holes fast using two strategies I teach my coaching clients—so your story keeps readers immersed and emotionally invested.

What a Plot Hole Really Looks Like

We usually think of plot holes as outrageous logic breakdowns—like a time-travel story that doesn't explain why time travel can't just solve every problem with a timey-wimey redo. Or not using the Eagles to fly the ring to Mount Doom (just kidding, there are reasons for that one).

But for your purposes as an author, plot holes are anything that breaks your story’s internal consistency.

• A character acts without clear motivation
• A rule you established suddenly disappears
• Readers can’t figure out why something just happened

Because the consequences are the same—for both those outrageous gaps in logic and these sneakier breaks in your story’s consistency.

In speculative fiction especially, this is dangerous because you’ve built a world or magic system readers are trying to understand. They’re actively asking themselves, “What’s possible here?” Break your own rules, and you break their immersion.

Strategy 1: DAC Method

The fastest way to spot a logic break?

Use the DAC method—Decision → Action → Consequence. 

Every scene should follow that flow, and each consequence should feed into the next decision.

If a character suddenly does something unmotivated or the consequences don’t follow from the actions—you’ve likely found a plot hole.

This is one of the first things I have authors check in our scene-by-scene editing process.

Strategy 2: Work Backward from the Ley Line

But some plot holes go deeper—they’re not just logical gaps. They’re also emotional or thematic breaks.

That’s when I bring in your story’s Ley Line: the message that powers your protagonist’s arc of change. And then we work backward.

Start at the Moment of Transformation

Ask yourself: “What had to happen immediately before this for the change to occur?”

Then keep stepping back until you reach the scene you’re fixing.

Every revision you make must echo the Ley Line and snap into the DAC scene method.

Here’s How This Works in Practice

One of my clients was writing a dark academia fantasy where two main characters were meant to grow close—but there wasn’t a logical reason for them to keep interacting. The forced proximity felt… well, forced. Unconvincing.

So we worked backward from her Ley Line—the arc about the protagonist’s self-doubt and perfectionism as a way to maintain control. We clarified how the love interest’s arc mirrored that struggle, laying the groundwork for mutual empathy.

But because characters avoid their own brands of discomfort, the plot wasn’t creating enough external pressure to bring them together in meaningful ways.

Once we looked ahead to where the plot and arcs were going, we could build back in stronger reasons for them to keep crossing paths—reasons that also deepened their internal journeys.

The Solution: Make the External Reflect the Internal

One solution was to give them a shared rare type of magic—something more powerful and misunderstood than their peers’.

This reflected their internal struggles externally and created natural reasons for them to train separately or confide in each other when no one else could relate.

By working backward from the Ley Line and aligning it with the plot, we didn’t just fill a logic gap—we made the whole story stronger.

These fixes worked harder for the story on both internal and external levels.

The result?

• More thematic clarity
• More emotional tension
• A more compelling character dynamic for a deeply engaging story

Bonus Strategy: Get an Outside Perspective

You can spot a lot with these tools—but you’re still the one who knows what should be on the page or what you want your story to be.

That’s why plot holes often need a second perspective—someone who can trace the logic from what’s actually written.

A trained critique partner can do exactly that. Not just point out confusion, but brainstorm solutions with you.

If you want a fantastic CP like that, check out the Critique Partner Program. It’ll help you give and receive feedback that strengthens your story, not derails it.

What About Beta Readers?

The “test readers” made up of avid readers of your genre?

Beta readers are also an important component in the process of preparing your manuscript for submission or publication.

Specifically, beta readers can be quite good at catching plot holes—as readers often are—but you need to be so careful here.

In the next article, I’ll show you why beta readers often don’t give the kind of feedback you actually need—and the indispensable fix you don’t want to miss.

Categories: : creativity, novel drafting, self-editing