There are many ways a plot can go astray, but plot armor, deus ex machina, and plot holes are the most common. So why would you ever want to use these devices? And if you do, how do you use them correctly?
Why You Might Need These Plot Devices and What to Watch Out For
Plot Armor
Plot armor helps you keep your character alive while still providing tension and action. A certain level of armor makes sense in some situations. But when you stretch credibility too far, you risk losing your audience. It’s better to think of plot armor as a shield that can deflect danger to your protagonist rather than making them immortal.
Watch out for:
- Breaking your reader or audience’s trust by suspending their sense of disbelief too much—if your character is protected all the time, even when it doesn’t make sense, your reader will lose interest because the outcome isn’t reasonable
- Losing the tension by ensuring a given outcome every time. We want to worry about the main character. If they win all the time, there is no chance to worry about them. We know what will happen.
- Losing your character’s core. When thing always work out for a character, their actions and life become more about good luck than skill or choices. It’s hard to care about someone who stumbled into the good life with no agency of their own.
- Breaking the rules you have created for your character and world. If you want to create an unbeatable protagonist or an immortal, establish how their world works and stay within those rules. It’s okay to create armored characters, if that armor is part of their character and remains consistent and intact throughout the story. Think Sataima in One Punch Man or Superman.
Deus ex Machina
Deus ex machina solutions are never expected or anticipated. They appear out of nowhere. They are sudden and the only possible solution to an issue facing the protagonist and exist outside of the character.
The best way to employ this device is in comedy as an element of surprise. Typically, these types of comedic endings are done tongue-in-cheek with a nod to how lame this type of ending can be.
Watch out for:
- Painting yourself into a corner in your plot where you can’t get your character out without divine intervention. Use story logic instead with a strong focus on cause and effect.
- A lack of groundwork needed to turn this type of device into a twist. Twists are foreshadowed and not unanticipated, though often sneakily and in a way only recognizable after the fact.
- Lazy writing that leaves you no other solution but deus ex machina.
Plot Holes
There is no reason for a plot hole because they don’t make sense and risk making your audience angry. Avoid them.
Watch out for:
- Plot points that can happen only if you eliminate a key piece of information, forget about a power or ability, or force an event in an unnatural way. If you establish rules for your world, you must be consistent in how you use them.
Convenient plot points that allow the story to happen, for example, not letting the protagonist in on a basic bit of knowledge that is readily available or ignoring the past (or canon in established series). - Illogical plot points that exist only so the story can continue.
- Gaps in the story or inconsistencies that break the line of the story. Readers and audiences hate glaring holes. Avoid them.
How to Fix These Plot Issues
You can write a story without these plot issues. All you need to do is:
- Keep story logic in mind. Every plot element should be the result of cause and effect. Each scene should be the logical result of what has gone before it. Each scene builds on the previous one until your character reaches the logical end. Sure, there should be detours and obstacles along the way, but even these should happen in a way that makes sense to the reader/audience.
- Employ Chekhov’s gun by planting clues along the way that lead the character to the logical ending. There should be a reason for what is included. Eliminate items that don’t come into play later. There’s no reason to include details that have no bearing on the story.
- Rewrite, if you find yourself using one of the devices above, unless you are deliberately using it for comedic effect.