Spent 4 hours trying to fix a plot hole that one sentence could have solved

I was working on a fantasy short story last Tuesday and realized the timeline for my main character's journey made zero sense. She needed to travel 300 miles in three days but the map I drew only had foot paths. I spent all evening rewriting travel scenes, adjusting weather patterns, and adding a magical shortcut. Then my buddy read it and said why not just have her find a horse at the first village. That's it. One horse. Anyone else ever overcomplicate a story detail like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

alice_reed4727d ago

Oh man, I once spent three days building a whole magic system just to explain why a door was locked.

karenw9027d ago

Kept it simple and just said "magic lock" with a quick backstory, turned a throwaway scene into a whole fun lore drop.