After completing Chapter One of my Colonial Mystery ( ), I went on to the second chapter only to realize that there's a gaping plot hole in terms of sequence of events. To wit: - Amos Garnier (my MC), Benjamin Walker (his friend and constant companion), and Mischa (a deformed girl that they are familiar with) all grew up in a horrid orphanage ruled by a sour matron named Missus Gertrude. - When Amos was 12 (and Benjamin was 9), they were taken in by Mr. Wilkins of the tavern. - Fast forward two years to the start of the plot - The entire crux of Chapter One is that Mischa had narrowly survived getting killed by two kidnappers who were taking away a friend of hers who had allowed her to live in the basement of a chapel rather than out on the streets. She limps toward the tavern where Amos is and... That's the problem: She magically knows where Amos is despite not having seen him for two years. She should have zero clue where he is. For all she would know, Amos is living in Philadelphia. I did come up with a scenario where she hears someone chattering like... Guy #1: "Hey, I see you got your locket back!" Guy #2: "Yeah, the blind kid from the tavern helped me." Guy #1: "Wow! Really? How?" and Mischa goes to ask Guy #2 who the blind kid was, but that's kind of a stretch right? I don't know how to resolve this plot hole. Advice?
Well. I have one idea. Problem is though, I think ny idea is gonna have one glairing aspect to it. It is gonna feel forced, since these two characters needed to randomly meet and any explanation to how they do is gonna feel forced. You could medigate it by explaining in greater detail why both are there and then just bank on it being a coincidence. Or at least that is what I would do. But I digress, my fix. Make it a coincidence. Make it where she actually has no idea he is there and is surprised to find him there. Give her an alternate reason to go there and just be like. "O.O" lol. I mean, I think we have all had that moment we went to the store and bumped into someone we didn't expect. So it does happen.
Does it have to all be the same chapter? Or can Mischa start doing something in Chapter 1, find out that Amos is in town in Chapter 2, and then track him down in Chapter 3?
You could eliminate a lot of the time gap between Amos knowing the girl and the incident. Maybe she kept tabs due to Amos helping her at the orphanage? If there isn't a two year gap, it's more likely she'd still know where he was. I'd caution against coincidence to open a novel, but it's been done, and can be done again. ETA: Maybe she's been dropping anonymous gifts the whole time for him, and that would lend credibility to her knowledge.
Well, if you're talking colonial times here, civilization is going to be fairly concentrated in a handful of population centers. So if the kids all began in an orphanage in, say, Philadelphia, it's unlikely they'd be adopted (or kidnapped) and taken to, say, Boston. There's a good chance the kids would all remain in the same metro area, since that's all there was back then, and travel would have been a major pain in the ass. And if they're in the same area and Mischa escapes, it would seem logical that she would head to a tavern/boarding house since that would have been the hub of congregation. So maybe it's not too far fetched, but not knowing your set up I can't be sure. I wouldn't do this. Now you're pointing at the plot hole. The reader may not have even noticed it yet. Do this, and we'll see through it. As a side note, have you researched how orphanages worked in colonial times? I have no idea myself, but I'd be surprised if they were not centered around the church. Also I'm not sure how diligent people in the 18th Century were about rounding up the younglings, and how the process of "adoption" would have worked. Not saying you flubbed anything there, but it did get me thinking.
Ah, an alternate reason. Good idea! Brainstorming time: #1- Since she's hurt, maybe a kind passerby saw her and began hauling her toward the tavern (more people = more chances that someone in there might be a doctor, and it's nearby) She gets treated for her injuries. It's then she sees Amos, is surprised and yells out the guy's name. #2- She isn't badly hurt, but she still needs help. She gets to the tavern and tries to sound the alarm. Again, she doesn't know Amos is there until she catches him and asks to see him. Amos goes to her, equally confused and learns what it is she needs. Maybe I just need to remove the specific person and change it to "I need to go to where there's a bunch of people and get help." Her goal is getting help, the fact that Amos is even there doesn't even occur to her. She has no idea he's there until she spots him. This had me thinking: even if there was a two-year gap, surely Mischa would at least be aware that Amos is still in town and working in the tavern. As Homer said, taverns were where people congregated for the evening so it may not be much of a stretch for her to overhear something like 'Wilkins' blind kid' or 'the blind tavern kid', put two and two together and conclude that this has to be Amos.
I am not sure on the times and how people gather, but she was kidnapped and injured. So her sense of time, and awareness I imagine is clustered. I think that confusion is something to bank on. If she is taken there, or goes there herself, either works. Me personally? I would lean to her being like. "I need help. I need a crowd to hide in, friends that will help me. Its night, but people are still walking around. Tavern is the most likely."
Yeah, I think the thing to bear in mind with anything colonial is that a person's world view was EXTREMELY limited. The concept of America as a thing was very abstract, which was why the federalist/anti-federalist debate dominated politics for the next century. There just wasn't any national cognizance for people whose entire world barely extended from one horizon to another. Think Hobbits in the Shire... that's essentially the 18th century mindset.
Remember (and this occurs to me very strongly, enough that I kinda want to make it the theme to a novel), coincidences with staggering levels of unlikeliness are EXTREMELY COMMON. Not just in fiction, but in real life as well. The world is a strange place sometimes.
The difference being that fiction has to feel real and reality doesn't I've always loved coincidences that make characters' lives harder, but anything that makes the characters' lives easier, I've always tried to have be the result of a decision that they made to work for it.
I take it this is a small town? In colonial times? With perhaps only one tavern? If that is the case, that is where she would head for help, as there aren't a lot of other businesses open at that time of evening (and it will be evening, I presume?) I don't think it will be all that much of a coincidence, actually. It's a small town. Where else would she go? The fact that she's not heard of where Amos is can easily be explained. And he won't know where she is, because she's been hidden. It's perfectly okay to open your story with a coincidence, especially one that's as easily explained as this one. It's bad to resolve a story problem with a coincidence, but coincidences do certainly happen in real life. Especially the 'small world' one, where you run into somebody you haven't seen in years, etc. The two of them can make a big deal about the coincidence as well. He's blind, right? So how on earth could he go searching for her? And she always wondered where he'd gone, or assumed he'd gone to Philadelphia, so she never tried to find HIM. You can make this all more plausible if Misha never knew who took Amos and Benjamin in the first place. Orphanages didn't bother to keep their inmates informed, I imagine. Kids would just disappear. Without knowing more about your story, I can't really say for sure. But this seems like one of those 'believeable' coincidences that you can certainly exploit. If your characters are good enough, and the whole plot doesn't center around how they find each other after all this time, it won't even blip on the reader's radar.
If I was reading the book, I'd definitely be okay with the "she goes into the tavern for help and he happens to be there" coincidence. Your example feels very forced; I'd not use it. I don't mind coincidences in books if they don't happen all the time. Sometimes they're needed to get the plot going.
