By Koundinya, founder of Bunsho · 9 October 2026
How to Find Plot Holes in Your Novel: A Self-Editing Guide
You cannot see the holes in your own book because you remember the story you meant to write. Here is a method for reading the story you actually wrote, whether you use software or a pen.
What counts as a plot hole?
Two things get lumped together. A continuity error is a detail that stops matching itself. A plot hole is a gap in the logic of the story. Readers feel both the same way: a small jolt, and the spell breaks. Seven kinds cover almost everything I have run into while writing my own novels.
Character facts
Mara has a scar on her left hand in chapter 2 and a clean left hand in chapter 20. Eye colour, age, handedness, a brother who becomes a cousin.
Who knew what, and when
Dev only learns the safe is empty in chapter 18, but in chapter 15 he rehearses what he will say to the man who emptied it.
Timeline and travel
The ferry takes a full day, yet Ines leaves the island at breakfast and is at the harbour office in the capital by lunch.
Objects and injuries
The key is thrown into the river in chapter 9 and unlocks the door in chapter 14. A broken wrist is carrying a suitcase by Friday.
Rules of the world
Magic that cannot cross running water in act one crosses a river in act three because the plot needs it to.
Motive gaps
The villain could have ended the story in chapter 5 with a single phone call, and nothing explains why he doesn't.
Dropped threads
A letter arrives in chapter 3, the whole house is afraid of it, and nobody opens it again.
Notice that most of these are not about prose. They are facts, and facts can be checked.
Why you miss them
When you reread your own chapter, your memory fills every gap. You know the key was in her pocket, so the page doesn’t need to say it. You know he had learned the secret, so you read right past the scene where he hasn’t. A new reader has only the page. The whole method below is a way of reading with only the page.
A manual pass, step by step
This takes time, and it works. Do it on a finished draft, not while you are drafting.
Make a reverse outline
Read the draft and, for each scene, write one line: where, who, when, what changes. Don't write what you meant, write what is on the page. Holes in causality show up fast in a column of one-liners: scene 14 depends on something no earlier line contains.
Build a timeline sheet
One row per scene, with the day, the time of day, and the travel between places. Add the seasons, the moon if it matters, and anybody's age. Most timeline errors are invisible while reading and obvious in a table.
Keep a character fact sheet
For each person who matters: looks, age, history, what they know, who they trust. Fill it in from the book as you reread, not from memory. The act of writing it is what catches the drift, because you stop on the line that disagrees.
Read once per question
Reading for everything at once finds almost nothing. Do a pass for knowledge only: at each scene, who in the room knows what? Then a pass for objects. Then a pass for injuries and health. One question per read feels slow, and it is the part that works.
Ask beta readers specific questions
“Did you like it?” gets you feelings. “Was there any point where you stopped believing in what a character did?” and “Did you ever lose track of where someone was?” get you holes. Ask them to mark the page, not remember it afterwards.
Fix in order
Cause before consequence. A hole in chapter 5 can create three more in chapter 20, so repair the early one first and then recheck what leaned on it.
If you haven’t got a place to keep the fact sheets, the free story bible template is a decent start.
Hole, or deliberate?
Not every mismatch is a mistake. Mysteries depend on the reader being unsure, and unreliable narrators depend on saying things that aren’t true. Before you “fix” anything, ask four questions.
Is the book showing me the mismatch on purpose?
A character who tells two versions of the same night may be lying, and the text may know it. If the narration later reveals the lie, it was never a hole.
Whose view is it?
An unreliable narrator can misremember or deceive. But the reader must be able to tell, eventually, that it was deliberate. If nothing in the book ever signals it, readers will call it an error, and they will be right.
Does the story pay it off?
A planted mystery is answered later. A dropped thread never is. If you can point to the scene that resolves it, keep it.
Would a careful reader forgive it?
Some inconsistencies are character. A person can claim they never cry and then cry. The test is whether the contradiction tells the reader something about the person, or only about your memory.
When you can’t answer, mark it and ask a reader. A flag is a question for the author, never a verdict.
Doing the checking pass faster
The manual pass is the right method, and it is also hours of rereading and spreadsheets. That is the part I built Bunsho to take over. When you ask, it checks the book against what the story has already established (traits, who knows what, the timeline, objects and where people are) and reports possible contradictions with both passages quoted side by side. Slip or deliberate? You decide.
Nothing runs while you type, you see the cost before a check starts, and writing is never metered. The plot hole finder page shows what a check looks like, and the continuity checker page covers the wider idea.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find plot holes in my own novel?
Reread with a reverse outline, a timeline sheet and a character fact sheet beside you, and read the book once per question (who knows what, where is everyone, what is each object's state) instead of for everything at once. Then ask beta readers specific questions instead of whether they liked it.
What is the difference between a plot hole and a continuity error?
A continuity error is a detail that stops matching: eye colour, a date, a name. A plot hole is a gap in the story's logic: an action with no motive, a solution that breaks the world's own rules, an event that couldn't have happened. They overlap, and the manual pass finds both.
When should I check for plot holes, while drafting or after?
Draft first, then check. Hunting for holes while you write stalls the draft. If a draft is long or fast, a short check every week or two keeps early mistakes from becoming the foundation of later chapters.
Can software find plot holes in a novel?
It can find a lot of the factual ones: facts that disagree, things known too early, places and timing that don't add up. Judging whether a flagged moment is a slip or a choice stays with the author.
Read the page, not your memory
Every book has holes in its first full draft. What matters is whether you find them before your readers do. More posts on the Bunsho blog.
Check your book for plot holes
Bunsho is free to download for Mac and Windows. Bring your manuscript and see what it finds. Write fearlessly.