How do I enable event by interaction only?

Okay, so I'm gonna sound really stupid, but Im making a horror puzzle game and I want the character to drop a plank over a hole... But I can't get the command string right. The event has a conditional branch that checks that she has the plank in inventory but it proceeds to place the plank before the character interacts with the event. How do I make it so the string of commands work only after the character has interacred with the event?

You need to set the event's trigger (the one over the hole) to "Action Button" and set the priority to "Same as Character". Action Button means that the event will only trigger when the player inputs the "Z" button or "Enter", and the "Same as Character" means that the player needs to be on a adjacent tile in order to trigger the event (if you set the priority to Below or Above, it will require the player to be on the same tile as the event to trigger the event).

Hmm... I've tried that but it still runs without the character pressing anything. The moment the plank is in the inventory the conditional branch checks and removes it without player activating it.

Hmm, could you post the event page?

I can't seem to send you a direct snapshot bcs of the size? but this is the word for word rewritten version:
@>Text: 'Lin the Maid alt. face', 0, dark, bottom
: : The hole is too big for you to jump over.
@>Conditional Branch: [Wood Plank] in Inventory
@>Text -, -, dark, bottom
: : You can use the plank in your inventory to walk over the gap!
@> Change Items: [Wood Plank], -1
@>
: Branch end

After that string I did a control switch so that the graphic would change from blank to the hole covered.

You can screenshot your event page, upload it to something like imgur and post the image link here.

Anyways, so you do have 2 event pages?

Event page 1: "Same as Character" and "Input trigger", with no graphic (assuming your hole is drawn by default on the map).
Then you can have exactly what you've showed me. The only thing is that you need to activate that switch inside the conditional branch.

Event page 2: "Below character" and "Input trigger", with the Wood Plank graphic.
You don't need to have anything in this event page. Just make sure you don't forget to set the switch previously activated as a condition for this event page. Also don't forget the "Below character" priority, or else your character won't be able to walk on it.

Last but not least, make sure the event pages are in the good order. RPG Maker gives priority to the event page with the highest number. Meaning that if it can execute event page 1 and 2, it will display event page 2. So maybe you just forgot to set the condition for event page 2, which is why it displayed the wood plank by default (because event page 1 and 2 were possible, so it displayed event page 2).

Oh. My. God. You were right. All I needed to do was put the the switch inside the conditional branch. This is the moment I put my face in my hand. Thank you so much... My mushy brain would have probably tried 100 things but that!

Haha, sometimes it's the smallest things we don't notice.