Solving the Plot Hole Problem

One of the minor problems that every author usually comes across is the Plot Hole. Everyone has seen them even if the weren't quite aware of what they are. It's the 9 year old Pod Racing boy who JUST HAPPENS to be able to fly the space ship and take out the shield generator. It's the traps meant to keep an adult wizard out yet three first year students were able to bypass them. It's the One Thing that statistics, science, and probability saying shouldn't happen, but for the sake of the plot it happens.

While working on my latest story, I ran into not one but four of these little delights. To be rather vague, a crime happens and someone important is injured enough to require medical care. My plot holes became the following:

1. Why weren't the police notified?
2. Why wasn't a doctor summoned?
3. Why weren't the family notified?
4. Why didn't anyone show up for X amount of days?

I took those questions, wrote them down on a piece of paper, and then stared at them for a while this morning, pen in hand ready to answer those questions. Oh, I could keep writing the story as it was going, but those four questions would keep poking me. I could even wave them off as not necessary due to plot, but that just felt lazy and wouldn't give the story I want to give my readers.

Besides, answering those stories would make it challenging and force me to actually think about what's going on in this world instead of just shrugging and answering those questions with "Because reasons".

It took about a quarter of an hour of weighing pros and cons before I came up with answers that were acceptable to continuing the plot instead of disrupting it. Are the answers perfect? No, there's still a bit of a plot hole in them but not nearly as large as they had been. It's quite likely that in the editing phase I'll be able to close them even more, but for now, that small bit of a gap is going to have to do.

I will probably use this technique for all of my plot holes in the future as it seemed to work out rather well this time. Having the problems right in front of me like this allows me to realize just where the issue is and now it needs to be fixed, perhaps it will take creating a whole new plot point or something in the story to seal up that plot hole, or perhaps I won't be able to successfully seal up a plot hole. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future.