![]() Still, we should also be aware that our characters are fragile and can come to some sort of harm, giving us an excellent opportunity to further develop them. We need our protagonists and villains to survive for long periods. Overall, we need to remember to make sure everything makes sense and plays into the overarching narrative we’re creating. By applying Checkov’s gun to our stories, we make them more believable for our readers. It does not mean that every single plot point of your story must be significant. ![]() Each part should contribute to the whole in a way that makes sense. The lesson behind Chekhov’s gun is that your story should be cohesive. ![]() ‘If in Act I you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act’. This idea is known as Chekov’s gun, which goes a little something like this: The second thing we should do is plant clues early on in the story that points to how the narrative will be resolved in the end. Make sure that there is a reason as to how and why your main character is spared death – maybe this takes the form of another character dying, or someone else steps in to save the day. The first is to keep an eye on the cause and effects of your story. Undermines the character – everything comes down to luck rather than skill.Īccording to Inkdrop Lit, there are two things that we should keep in the back of our minds when things get tough for our characters.Lowers the stakes – it’s hard to get excited about a character who wins all the time.Challenges the reader’s suspension of disbelief.We just don’t want it to be so blatant that our audiences roll their eyes or develop a twitch in their left eye due to frustration. So it makes sense to shield them from the harsher realities of their world. We do need a little bit of it because our readers rely on us to see our main characters to the finish line. Some of the most common ones we see are villains that keep coming back (the Joker in Batman), the villains that can’t shoot the hero at all (I’ve seen this done in numerous action films), and everything is thrown at them, but somehow they still come out okay in the end (most The Avengers movies). We even see Arya escape with barely a scratch when Daenerys and Drogon burn King’s Landing down.Īccording to an article I came across by TV Tropes, different sub-tropes of plot armor can be used. For example, Jon Snow successfully fought off the ice dragon, and Drogon conveniently decides against killing Jon after finding Daenerys dead despite knowing Jon killed her. We’ve recently seen this carried out in the last season of Game of Thrones. The plot holes I’m talking about are ones when the character goes through some big ordeal, either physical or mental, and comes out completely unscathed. They have explanation – fantastical ones – as to why they would survive a bullet to head. This isn’t to be confused with Superman or Wolverine. It often denotes a situation in which it strains credibility to believe that the character would survive. Plot Armor: is a device used in film, tv series, and novels that prevents important characters from dying or being seriously injured at dramatically inconvenient moments. The Problem with Plot Armorīefore we go any further, let’s start off with our definition of plot armor. We’ll start off with plot armor before moving into a discussion about plot holes. We’ll be discussing today is plot armor and plot holes, two issues we should avoid. The Ultimate Guide to Plot (Part 4): Developing Plot.The Ultimate Guide to Plot (Part 3): How Plot Structures Differ Across Mediums.The Ultimate Guide to Plot (Part 2): Subplots.The Ultimate Guide to Plot (Part 1): The Basics.If you have missed a post in the plot series, you can catch up by clicking on the links below: It won’t be the complete end of our discussion of plot, as there is a lot of ground to cover on that front. We’ve got one more topic that we’ll be covering after this installment before we move on to other subjects. We’re nearing the end of our intensive look at plot.
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