You've plotted your novel meticulously. Your protagonist needs to get from New York to Los Angeles in 24 hours, but you've just realized commercial flights take six hours, and you've already established she's terrified of flying. Meanwhile, your villain somehow knows exactly where to find her despite no logical way of tracking her movements. And that crucial USB drive she needs? You forgot to explain how she actually got it in the first place.

Welcome to the logic trap—where perfectly good stories die under the weight of "but wait, that doesn't make sense."

Most writers tackle these problems head-on: they add exposition scenes, insert flashbacks, or create elaborate justifications for every little thing. But there's a more elegant solution hidden in Robert McKee's concept of the Oblique Approach to conflict—and it works brilliantly for dissolving plot holes without your readers ever noticing they were there.

What Is McKee's Oblique Approach?

In his seminal work Story, Robert McKee distinguishes between direct conflict (where characters confront obstacles head-on) and oblique conflict (where characters pursue their goals indirectly, at an angle). While McKee primarily discusses this in terms of character confrontation, the principle has a powerful secondary application: plot hole camouflage through misdirection.

The core insight is this: readers don't notice logical gaps when their attention is focused elsewhere—specifically, on emotional conflict, moral dilemmas, or character revelation that feels more important than the mechanics.

It's not about being dishonest with your reader. It's about understanding that stories operate on emotional logic before forensic logic. When the emotional current runs strong enough, readers willingly suspend their need for every technical detail to be explained.

The Three-Step Oblique Solution Framework

Here's how to apply this technique systematically to problem areas in your manuscript:

Step 1: Identify the Logical Weak Point

Be brutally honest. Where does your plot rely on coincidence, convenient timing, or characters doing things that don't quite add up? Write down the specific problem in one sentence.

Example: "My protagonist needs information only the villain possesses, but there's no logical reason the villain would reveal it."

Step 2: Create an Emotional Crosscurrent

Instead of solving the logical problem directly, introduce a compelling emotional conflict at the exact moment the logical gap appears. The emotion doesn't need to explain the gap—it needs to be interesting enough that readers move past the gap without dwelling on it.

This emotional crosscurrent should involve:
- A character revelation that changes how we see someone
- A moral choice that has no good answer
- A relationship moment that feels authentic and earned
- An internal realization that shifts the protagonist's understanding

Step 3: Let the Gap Close in Retrospect

Later in your story—sometimes much later—drop in a casual detail that could explain the earlier moment, if anyone's still thinking about it. This retroactive logic works because readers are now emotionally invested enough to accept it, and they'll often supply explanations you never explicitly provided.

The Technique in Action: A Concrete Example

Let's say you're writing a thriller. Your protagonist, Sarah, needs to find her kidnapped daughter. The problem? She discovers the daughter's location by hacking into police surveillance systems—but you've established Sarah as a high school art teacher with zero tech skills. This is a glaring plot hole.

The Direct (Clunky) Approach:

Most writers would add a scene showing Sarah taking a coding class years ago, or introduce a convenient tech-savvy friend, or have her google "how to hack police systems." All of these solutions scream "look at me fixing a plot hole!"

The Oblique Approach:

Instead, write the scene where Sarah sits at the computer terminal like this:

Sarah's hands shook as she navigated the surveillance interface. She'd promised herself she'd never touch this kind of system again, not after what happened with Marcus. But Claire was running out of time.

The login screen appeared. For a moment, Sarah saw her brother's face—the disappointment when he'd found out she'd accessed his police credentials all those years ago to check on her abusive ex. He'd covered for her, lied to his captain. Three months later, he was dead, and she'd never apologized.

She entered the backdoor code Marcus had once shown her "just in case." It still worked. Of course it worked. The department never changed anything.

Notice what happened? The emotional content—Sarah's guilt about her dead brother, the revelation about her past, the moral weight of repeating a betrayal—overwhelms the logical question of "how can she hack this?" Readers are processing the character revelation, not the technical implausibility.

Later, perhaps fifty pages on, you might have another character mention, "Your brother was one of our best cybercrime consultants before he transferred to patrol." Now the reader can retroactively assume Marcus taught Sarah more than she let on.

Why This Works: The Psychology of Reading

Readers aren't looking for reasons to disbelieve your story—they're looking for reasons to keep believing it. When you provide rich emotional texture, readers actively collaborate with you to make sense of the plot. They'll fill gaps you never explicitly bridge.

Research on narrative transportation shows that emotionally engaged readers actually have impaired critical thinking about story logic. This isn't a bug—it's the fundamental feature of how stories work.

The oblique approach leverages this by making the emotional content so compelling that the logical scaffolding becomes secondary. It's not cheating; it's understanding that stories are fundamentally about human experience, not mechanical cause-and-effect.

When to Use This Technique (and When Not To)

Best for:
- Minor logical inconsistencies that would require lengthy explanation
- Coincidences that serve the emotional story
- Technical details readers don't actually care about
- Character capabilities that feel slightly outside their established skill set

Don't use for:
- Major plot-breaking contradictions (emotional misdirection can't fix "the character died in chapter 2 but appears alive in chapter 10")
- Promises made to readers (if you've made the mystery about how she'll hack the system, you can't skip the answer)
- Character motivation gaps (these need genuine resolution)

Making It Work in Your Manuscript

The next time you encounter a plot hole, resist the urge to explain it directly. Instead, ask: "What emotional moment could happen here that's so compelling readers won't even notice the logical gap—or won't care?"

Then write that moment with everything you've got. Make it real, make it matter, make it change something about how we understand these characters.

The plot hole won't disappear. But like a magician's misdirection, it'll fade into the background while your story's real magic happens center stage.