Edited plugin, now learnt that i need hooks?

Hello,

I’m learning how to do this as I go so please don’t be too impatient with me lack of experience.

I have recently started to build a site and successfully built a child theme etc.

I was rather proud of that and started to tackle plugin editing to attempt to build a pop out contact form. Which, after several hours, I managed to do.

Then a thought occurred. If themes get overwritten when updated, what happens to plugins.

I now understand that the same thing occurs to the html/php code for plugin edits and have sought some sort of solution on the net.

From what I understand there is no direct equivalent of a child theme for plugins due to the various ways they are coded. Suggestions I have found are:

Forking – I don’t understand what you actually do to achieve this but I gather it is a direct copy of the plugin. As I only need the functionality variable at present from the plugins used, would this be a viable option?

Hooks – I gather this is similar to the idea of a tag in CSS but do nt comprehend what is involved. Can someone send a link for some good, clear documentation on how to do this for a relative novice?