Plot armor is a narrative device in which a character (usually the protagonist) miraculously survives a danger that would otherwise kill her/him, simply to advance the plot. Plot armor acts as a narrative shield that allows the character to continue progressing in the story, even if the situation illogically prevents his/her survival.
Some methods for avoiding plot armor that I've considered:
Create a human, imperfect MC.
Create commensurate stakes. For example, the MC is not invulnerable. They can lose, be injured, be maimed, be destroyed, or even die.
Simulate multiple scenarios simultaneously. For example, narrate two different plots in two different locations, then bring them together in the same location with a broader conflict. This way, if the MC "survives," it's not a sudden case of plot armor, but rather a logical consequence of the narrative.
Shift the POV to another character, allowing the reader to gain a broader perspective and understand that the MC's survival isn't a "miraculous" occurrence.
Creating an alternate protagonist if the MC deserves to die in the face of tragedy. This is the last option I've considered... but it usually changes the entire narrative direction.
My question is, how do you avoid plot armor in your fiction?
Try writing a plot that doesn't force you to scramble your brain in order to dig your MC out of the hole you buried them in. It's really not that hard... Just have a little foresight.
Your MC is the MC because they were able to navigate the exact situation that you threw at them. Anyone else would fail. If someone else can replace your MC, then the story should have been written from that person's perspective to start with. If they can't survive the scenario, then what exactly are you writing about?
Try writing a plot that doesn't force you to scramble your brain in order to dig your MC out of the hole you buried them in. It's really not that hard... Just have a little foresight.
Your MC is the MC because they were able to navigate the exact situation that you threw at them. Anyone else would fail. If someone else can replace your MC, then the story should have been written from that person's perspective to start with. If they can't survive the scenario, then what exactly are you writing about?
I like this, but I also believe in the opposite; sometimes the hole they are in is the arc of the story. That'd remove plot armor because challenges and setbacks are actually what drive the narrative forward.
One of my fanfic works, The Deity Entertainment Network (DEN), follows no 1, 2(with cavorts), 3, and 4
I try to put him into situations where there is a struggle, where even winning is a failure, cause he only won because of points 3 and 4.
He does have some PA (Plot armour). Basically, his only PA is the fact that he can return to DEN (The gods game show he is part of) at any time, pausing the world he is currently in, then go into other worlds to gain more power or get some ability to 'save' him in the current world
Examples;
He was bit in Highschool of the Dead, a zombie apocalypse manga/anime, and he started to turn. He left, and 30-40 chapters later, he had gained the cure spell healing magic from a different world, which let him heal himself in HOTD.
He was killed outright by a Zergling in StarCraft (video game). He was returned to DEN, locking that world.
Another character died in front of him in another world (DxD manga/anime), so he decided to leave to see if he could find resurrection magic to save that student of his (he is the principal of Kuoh Academy there).
Obviously, I won't kill him, but those around him are fair game. I haven't started George RR Martin'ing people yet, but it is a matter of time before deaths start happening around him, forcing him to make choices.
Plot armor is a narrative device in which a character (usually the protagonist) miraculously survives a danger that would otherwise kill her/him, simply to advance the plot. Plot armor acts as a narrative shield that allows the character to continue progressing in the story, even if the situation illogically prevents his/her survival.
Some methods for avoiding plot armor that I've considered:
Create a human, imperfect MC.
Create commensurate stakes. For example, the MC is not invulnerable. They can lose, be injured, be maimed, be destroyed, or even die.
Simulate multiple scenarios simultaneously. For example, narrate two different plots in two different locations, then bring them together in the same location with a broader conflict. This way, if the MC "survives," it's not a sudden case of plot armor, but rather a logical consequence of the narrative.
Shift the POV to another character, allowing the reader to gain a broader perspective and understand that the MC's survival isn't a "miraculous" occurrence.
Creating an alternate protagonist if the MC deserves to die in the face of tragedy. This is the last option I've considered... but it usually changes the entire narrative direction.
My question is, how do you avoid plot armor in your fiction?
In order to make sure nobody cared enough to kill my MC, I made her small, pathetic, and non-threatening.
Most characters would see her, and wouldn't care less. If they wanted to, they could crush her like a bug.
For the few that would crush her like a bug at a moments notice, or just for the fun of it, I made her immortal from the beginning, like chapter 2.
"Hey that's cheating!" I hear you screaming from your toilet seat. lol.
-But to that I say "SHA~DDUP!" lol. jk.
It may be a crutch, but I take into account that there's time skips while she heals, or gets knocked out, or dies, etc etc, and the fact that being 'immortal' doesn't necessarily mean unkillable. Which she learns throughout the story.
Not to mention the pain. Immortals can't die from pain alone, so there's some icky-ness to not dying immediately. Another lesson she has to learn. A lot of the story is really just learning what it means to be part of her bloodline, and how screwed up it is.
But the important part is that all my characters (Not including Npcs) are all family!! Yay! familial violence!!! So, it's not like they WANT her dead. They're just a bunch of.. a-holes.
I'll be real.... It's not a story for everyone..... but if anything it's interesting world building, and interesting characters. I think.. I don't know.
(Honestly, I'd say start at chapter 10 if you want to read, but skip 13+14.. Those are just lewd pages.. I'll have to go back and mark which pages are just for lewd purposes.. Gah.. The pain of all the lessons you need to learn while writing a first book.)
You need planning, foresight, and causal reasoning if you aim for perfection.
Plot armor might exist, but it should be unnoticeable. Just avoid Deus ex machina, which most people recognize, and avoid illogical situations that make it obvious.
For example, in Star Wars, Obi-Wan says stormtroopers are lethal and precise, but we see they aren't capable of killing the protagonist who barely had military training in episode IV, which qualifies as plot armor.
The most common scenario is when a villain has the chance to kill the protagonist but doesn't, which feels like plot armor.
Another example is illogical survival anomalies, like in Gundam Seed, where Kira Yamato miraculously survives three times when his Gundam is destroyed, without a clear explanation. This made him a meme, famous for his plot armor.
In an older anime called Armored Trooper Votoms, the protagonist is like Rambo, surviving every encounter miraculously. By the end of the series, it's revealed that the MC has a godly ability called "Abnormal Survivor," which makes him survive every encounter. The writer turned plot armor into a legitimate ability, so no one protested that the character had plot armor.
Try writing a plot that doesn't force you to scramble your brain in order to dig your MC out of the hole you buried them in. It's really not that hard... Just have a little foresight.
Your MC is the MC because they were able to navigate the exact situation that you threw at them. Anyone else would fail. If someone else can replace your MC, then the story should have been written from that person's perspective to start with. If they can't survive the scenario, then what exactly are you writing about?
I agree. Like why would you put your MC in a situation they cannot come out from and then hope that the reader don't catch on to the miracle of plot armor. For eg if your premise is an intergalactic war, you cannot expect an ordinary teenager to survive it, let alone win it.
1 is more complex than you might think, because it basically doesn’t matter unless you also do 2. It’s not just that you make an imperfect MC. You also need to give those imperfections teeth. If the classic isekai fish out of water protag keeps stumbling into things because he has modern perspective blind spots and none of that humbling results in consequences, then that is a far stronger and more noticeable than a boringly hypercompetent MC. If the tactical “genius” does obviously dumb shit and it works out and everyone praises him, that’s unsatisfying for people who saw the obvious flaws in his plan.
I’ve had some success with costs and incomplete wins. Plans that by definition require risking pain or taking an L to secure a bigger win later. Making it the MCs choice gives it a degree of moral weight, and even if it all goes according to keikaiku their plot armor doesn’t protect them from everything. Even if it’s actually flawless perfection in motion, it feels like balance.
I agree. Like why would you put your MC in a situation they cannot come out from and then hope that the reader don't catch on to the miracle of plot armor. For eg if your premise is an intergalactic war, you cannot expect an ordinary teenager to survive it, let alone win it.
Unfortunately, realistically in some scenarios, your protagonist may not have a choice, and could be forced into a scenario where they aren't ready. If they're ready for every situation they have to face, that still feels like its own kind of plot armor. It's like power rangers, where they just keep sending weaklings because the big bad either doesn't care, is too arrogant, or for plot reasons can't fight them because of some lack of energy or something. In the end, sometimes in real situations, your not ready, and in those scenarios, that's when you make sure there's a reason your main character doesn't die, be it a rescue, or maybe they're wanted alive, and killing them is pointless. Really, no matter how you write conflict, unless you actually CAN kill off your main character, it will never truly be realistic, because your main character will never die.
Unless you're just writing a power fantasy where your protagonist is just the most broken character in the story.
I choose 1.
for tanenter , that's because I intend to kill his plots indirectly.
The plots of the characters I created are a bit strange :3
The two main characters (not the standard male and female leads):
tanenter
Yamao
Yamao's plots are practically the main protagonist of the story ?. She is a female character who is the most skilled user of ice power, practically the strongest god-tier among humans. No matter how many enemies there are, she can defeat them in the blink of an eye.
As for tanenter, his plot is essentially begging for a Game Over ??. One magic attack and he's practically knocked unconscious. Plus, he is a normal person with no magical power. He can't fight anyone, his body is weak, and he has a bad personality both bad and stupid. He's shameless, and his only virtue is being good at cursing people out.
First of all, it is generally best if the protagonist is not working alone. Biggest survival tip IRL as well. The more varied the allies and abilities, the more likely it is that someone has a workable solution, even if not an ideal one.
Build using pieces of what came before. I am something of a panster, and I have a scenario where there were a set of difficult challenges, with the last 2 being particularly deadly. I had a general idea for each of them for a bit, then wrote the second-to-last one in detail, and got to the final one and laid out the problem.
I did not have a solution. Instead, next chapter, I spent some time going over the characters' tools and the environment around them. And one of them gets the idea to go get material from the area they just passed through to help mitigate one of the issues they were facing. I did not have it planned that A was going to help provide the solution to B, but it certainly made things easier for me and the characters.
If the protagonist has been shown to be a slightly paranoid prepper, you should have them preparing things constantly, even if they don't get used (so long as some/most of them do). It can also be a situation where he has generally prepped for X, Y, and Z, but there is a scenario Q that has happened, and they can scavenge bits of their prep for X and Y to deal with Q.
An example for my work is a defensive battle where I show all the layers of plans and preparation that the protagonists made, and there were still 2 layers left before the "oh shit button" option at the end of the battle. One of those layers converted into an ally saying "right, we're keeping these forces stationed at your home until this situation is dealt with permanently. Work them into your guards and defensive prep as you see fit. We'll rotate them out with a new set every few months."
Hmm, I have written but not yet published a section that I think is a fairly good setup for a dangerous fight, so spoilers for the next 2-3 unpublished chapters.
So, when the MMC of my story, who is the most powerful of the protagonists, reaches the primary antagonist, his allies are behind him and will take a little bit to get to him. He also just broke through a barrier of sorts, so hasn't quite set himself when he is ambushed.
This puts him on the defensive while deflecting and tanking a rapid series of deadly spells. He stays on pure defense while waiting for every one else to catch up, and stays in his largest form, which also makes him easier to hit. But it also means that the antagonist couldn't see around him easily and could not target around him at all. When the rest of the group caught up, MMC let himself collapse and triggered changing back to his normal form while everyone else charged forward. Facing a multi person onslaught after having used his most powerful attacks on a different target immediately put the antagonist on the defensive.
MMC was out of the fight for now, but one of the others did not join the now running fight. He was simply too slow to keep up. Everyone else had charged because keeping pressure on the antagonist was the only way to make sure he couldn't get back to try finishing off the MMC.
The guy who stayed back started performing crude surgery, cutting away dead flesh and pouring on healing potions. This got the MMC back on his feet in time to contribute to the final section of that fight. His major contribution at this point was to trigger something that I had teased with a bit of mystery a few times over the preceding several chapters, and use that as a distraction to steal an important item from the antagonist.
An important part of this is that the person doing the crude surgery was guiding his cuts using an aspect of his unique ability. The ability to tell which sections of flesh were completely dead is entirely within the bounds of that ability. I had no intention of using it this way, but when I considered which of the characters was going to stay back, the combination of his ability and his slow speed compared to the rest made him the logical choice.
So in summary, if you give yourself a Chekhov's arsenal instead of a Chekhov's gun, you don't actually need to fire all the guns in the arsenal, so long as you fire enough of them to justify the existence of the arsenal, and the arsenal can then have enough tools to find one of several options to help in this particular scenario.
*Strokes non-existent beard* In my many years of writing...I have learned this: don't get too hung up on 'rules' or 'shouldn't's'.
I think it's very important to learn to write well and the rules of writing well, but also to learn to ignore these rules when they don't apply. (Now that's the greatest skill).
When I first started out (in a professional writer's organisation) The Rule was 'show, don't tell'. After years of slavishly following this rule and finding that it was crushing my passion for writing and my creativity (and also that it contradicted acknowledged 'literary masterpieces' I'd read for my Literature major in Uni), I decided 'f@#$ it!' and wrote how I wanted, which includes a healthy dose of 'telling'. The point is, that while you should aim for 'show, don't tell*' there are times when telling enriches a story, and while it's popular now, it apparently wasn't for Jane Austen (for example).
In the novel I'm uploading at the moment, one of my MC's is a cultivation master and is so OP it's not funny, but he has a massive amount of childhood trauma to deal with. You can have someone who is physically strong but emotionally fragile or vice versa, which is a way of 'avoiding' plot armour and makes the mc more relatable for readers and more realistic. Mind you, I write cultivation novels, so it's still fantasy and my characters can survive it they want to!
*There is a famous Chekov quote about this: 'Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.' He focussed on detail over narration, but I think that like everything it should be done in moderation.
The question is, do you really want to get rid of plot armor?
Sure, MC can fail here or there, but if he dies, 99.9% of readers will be pissed off, and a majority will drop the story. Most readers want to read a simple wish-fulfillment story, and they know and accept that MC most likely will succeed in most of his ventures with a few setbacks here or there.
You're asking the wrong question - the trick is NOT to avoid "plot armor" but to try to find ways to make the plot armor as inobvious as possible. If the reader sees it, they may lose interest (though it often takes a while - a lot of people burn out on Batman after a year or so of reading because he runs on plot armor).
