Waving at Plotholes

I have been helping an author, call them A., with a short story.  A. wrote a pretty good tale but it had one problem: near the end a character I'll call Vic Villain did something that seemed very odd but was needed to make the story turn out the way A. wanted.

A. provided a complicated explanation for Vic's actions, but that didn't help. I could think of two better and safer ways Vic could have gotten the same result, but they wouldn't have made the story turn out the way A. had planned.

My first thought was to suggest that the author hang a lampshade.  I have discussed this before.  It means disarming a plot problem by calling the  reader's attention to it.  It seems paradoxical but it can work.  

Think of the movie Rear Window.  For the plot to function Hitchcock needs Thorvald to leave his blinds up while killing his wife.  This seems like a ridiculous thing to do.  The Master's solution is to have several people comment on how unlikely it is that Thorvald would do that.  They consider it evidence that our hero must be  wrong about the killing.

So A. could have dealt with the issue by having the protagonist say something like "I guess we'll never know why Vic that" or "He must have been crazy to..."

But that didn't strike me as satisfactory either.  So I suggested that A. take the other route, which I call the Burning Storeroom Trick. 

Let's move to a different Alfred Hitchcock picture, Saboteur.  At one point the movie's hero is locked in the storage room of a mansion,  no way out.  But wait! He has a book of matches and the room has an automatic sprinkler. He lights a match under the sensor and alarms go off.  The next scene is an exterior, showing the mansion being evacuated.  A group of onlookers are watching  and one of them is the hero.

Clever! Obviously he used the fire to escape.

How?

Excuse me?

How did setting a fire allow him to get out of the storage room?

Umm...

Exactly.  In an interview Hitchcock admitted he didn't know either. 

In science and academia this known as handwaving. The Jargon File does a nice job of explaining it. 

To gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to support a (possibly actually valid) point with blatantly faulty logic... If someone starts a sentence with "Clearly..." or "Obviously..." or "It is self-evident that..." it is a good bet he is about to handwave. 

Notice that I used the word obviously a few paragraphs ago? 

It is self-evident that all penguins can yodel, so I don't need to provide any recordings of them doing so...

By the way, handwaving is similar to the original meaning of the phrase begging the question.  There is a wonderful Wondermark cartoon on this subject here.

Anyway, I suggested to A. that he try that approach. 

Hero: Why did you do that?

Vic Villain: It was part of my cunning plan.

Hero: Why are you waving your hand like that?

Vic: Look! Yodeling penguins!

As it happened  A. found a different solution, changing Vic's plan to get the bad guy in the right place.I like it much better than being locked in a burning storeroom.

Five Red Herrings: 12

1. Sounds of Suspense.  If you are a fan of Alfred Hitchcock you might want to head over to BBC Sounds and listen (for free) to Benny and Hitch, a radio play by Andrew McCaldon about the highly productive and finally explosive relationship between the director and composer Bernard Herrmann. They collaborated on eight movies, including some of the Master's best.  (He said Herrmann deserved one-third of the credit for Psycho's success - although, as the play points out, he didn't share the profits with him.)  Tim McInnerny and Toby Jones star and the BBC Concert Orchestra performs Herrmann's music. 

2. The Customer is Cussible.  If you have a few thousand hours to spare I highly recommend Not Always Right, a website designed for people in retail to complain anonymously about customers.  They have since added: Not Always Legal, Healthy, Family, etc.

So far I have collected three short story ideas from the website.  Here is an example of what they offer:

I work at a musical instrument store. A customer is trying to buy something when the checkout shows me a code indicating that the card is registered as stolen.

Me: “Sorry, the checkout is buggy today and it’s locked. I just need to fetch my manager to fix it.”

I tell my manager, and he and the salesman stall long enough for the cops to get there. Three or four officers come in, ask the guy a few questions, and then arrest him.

The best part is that, as the guy is being hauled out in handcuffs, he starts shouting back at us.

Thief: “The service here is terrible! I’m going to tell everyone I know not to shop here!”

3. Play Free Bird. This next piece is off-topic but it is certainly about publishing. In November 1951 a group of friends went hunting in Ireland.  One of them, Sir Hugh Beaver, fired at a golden plover and missed. This led to a debate over which was the fastest game bird in Europe. 

Unable to find the answer easily, Beaver realized that a book which provided this sort of information would be hugely popular (and profitable) to settle arguments in pubs.  So he convinced the brewery for which he worked to publish one: the Guinness Book of World Records has been selling millions ever since.  So a failed hunting trip  was one of the most profitable expeditions in publishing history...

4. Definitely not me.  Do you ever vanity google yourself? No? Liar.  

I had a nasty shock recently when I did that.  In 2019 Salvatore Lopresti and his son Robert Lopresti of Bristol England, were accused of Modern Slavery for forcing a disabled man to work in their ice cream shop.  Nasty story.

5. Is the Rule Forgotten?  Take a look at the photo here.  Does that actress (Nicola Walker) have blond hair? If not then ITV has violated the international rule I have pointed out in the past: All police shows about cops who investigate cold cases must be headed by blond women.   

Whaver their hairstyle the show is worth watching, although Season Four was, well, forgettable.  I hear Season Five is coming soon.