Originally Published on Storybilder December 31, 2021

Now that you know what a subplot is, and you’ve decided what kind you’re going to write, it’s time to figure out what shape that subplot is going to take.

What Do You Need To Accomplish?

The first step is to think about what you need this secondary plot to accomplish. You know the goals and thrust of the main plot, but what will this secondary one do to either aid or impede your main character’s objectives?

Next, decide how this secondary plot line should end relative to the main plot. When your reader reaches the end of the subplot (which might occur before, simultaneously, or after the main plot is resolved), they need to feel that the subplot is complete, based on its own merit. But it also has to connect to the ending of the main plot as well, likewise in a satisfying way.

Understanding how the subplot relates to the main plot will help you decide what kind of subplot is it: Romantic, Conflicting, Expository, or Supporting. The next step is to think about your characters’ goals.

Multiple Goals; Multiple Plots

Main characters often have more than one goal in a novel.

For example, in The Hunger Games, Katniss wants to:

1. survive the Games (Main Plot),
2. keep Peeta from being killed,
3. fight back against a corrupt government system,
4. further her romantic connection with Gale.

Many of the scenes in the novel work to get Katniss closer to several of these goals at a time, while always keeping in mind that her first and most important motivation is to survive.

Break It

Once you understand what you need this subplot to do, think of the smoothest, easiest way that can happen—and then break it. See if you can do it the opposite way, or in a way that really screws up your main character and their narrative. Forget easy and brainstorm for interesting.

Going back to The Hunger Games as an example, let’s remember the scene where Katniss gets her nickname, “the Girl on Fire.” She and Peeta make a political statement in the chariots when their clothes catch fire (subplot C), garner admiration from potential sponsors (plot A), and further the ruse that they’re in a romantic relationship (subplot B). This, however, complicates Katniss’ relationship with Gale (subplot D) in a delicious, interesting way.

Play With It

I recommend using some form of external graph or software to help you play with the possibilities — if you’re more of a hands-on planner, write down possible plot points or scene ideas on colour-coded recipe cards and tape them to the wall or pin them to corkboard; organize plot points on post-it notes; get different coloured markers and fill a whiteboard. StoryBilder can help you do this without burying your kitchen table under a leaning tower of notes.

However you choose to externalize your thought process, study your subplot and look for ways to add complexity. You’ll want to examine your main and subplot arcs or your character arcs (or both, if you’re feeling very organized), so that way you can easily see how they interact with each other and where the gaps are when you stand back and examine your full plot map as a whole.

If you’re a Pantser who prefers not to organize so rigorously before you begin to write, I recommend reviewing your main and subplots after your first draft. This process will give you a clear understanding of the narrative you’ve created and help you focus your efforts during your second draft revisions.

Activity

Go back to our last activity where you thought about your favorite fairy tale and how you might create complexity. Try mapping out the main plot by writing down the main actions in the story. Now add a second plot line that reflects the new story elements you devised.

Pay attention to ways the secondary plot integrates with the main plot, for example by presenting new information that adds depth to the main story, actions that conflict with the main character’s objectives or create new challenges, or develop secondary characters in ways that contrast the main character’s journey.

Originally published on Storyblder November 29, 2021

Now that we know what a subplot is, let’s take a look at different types of subplots and see how they work.

Romantic Subplots

Unless the novel is a full-blown romance (where the plot of the book is firmly centred on the meeting and eventual happily ever after of your protagonist and their love interest), then any romance your characters experience in the novel is secondary to the main. A romantic subplot supports and complicates the main plot, but it is not the main storyline.

Example: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. The main plot is concerned with Katniss Everdeen’s survival, and the eventual overthrow of the government. Her romance with Peeta and Gale are secondary to this plot, but interweave in such a way that it is a very important feature of the narrative and both helps and hinder the goals of the main plot.

Conflicting Subplots

This type of subplot focuses on moments or characters that are opposed to the main character and their main plot goals. This may be a subplot that follows the antagonist and acts in direct conflict with your main plot. It could also manifest through two different characters with different (and likely opposing) goals and values, each narrating a portion of the novel as co-main characters.

Example: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. While the narrator of the novel is omniscient, she does have opinions on what Strange and Norrell are up to, and she highlights their falling out and eventual direct conflict with one another. Sections of the novel focus on each of the sorcerers in turn, while also following main antagonist The Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair and his interactions with the hapless humans he preys on. In making each main character the hero of their own part of the narrative and the villain in someone else’s, Clarke amplifies the conflict when each character’s desires oppose or get in the way of another’s.

Expository Subplots

These subplots exist to explain something to the reader—either to further their understanding of the themes of the novel, to reveal an important fact or truth, or provide an opportunity to pause for a moment and allow a deeper understanding or evolution of a secondary character.

Example:The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Both Kavalier and Clay have chapters told from their own perspectives, which either fill in the gaps of events when the characters are separate from one another or provide further understanding of the character’s morals, community, and personality.

Supporting Subplots

Supporting subplots contains a narrative centred on a character whose goals and motivations match those of the main character and main plot, but in which events happen in a separate location or time frame.

Example: Shadow and Bone television series. This adaptation takes the off-screen events of Mal tracking Alina and puts them front-and-centre in a subplot thread. Mal’s aims and motivations match Alina’s (find one another, then the stag, and escape or destroy the Darkling), but don’t always happen in the same place at the same time.

Mix and Match

Once you’ve decided what kind of subplot you’d like to introduce to the book, think about how you can pull elements from the other types into it as well. If you can manage it, each scene in a story should achieve more than one thing in terms of advancing plot and conflict, character development or understanding, and the reader’s comprehension of the world the novel is operating in. Plucking out elements of another kind of subplot and sprinkling them into the one you’re working on can achieve that, if you’re subtle and mindful about it.

Activity:

Think about your favorite folk or fairy tale, a version you remember reading as a child. Which characters or off-scene events could you explore to add depth and contrast to the story? What happens to Sleeping Beauty if the story follows the Evil Queen to learn more about her life and motivations? What happens to Hansel and Gretel if the story spends some time learning about the wicked witch? Is Aladdin different if you spend more time with the forty thieves?

Originally published on Storybuildr November 17, 2021

Welcome to a new article series! This time, we’ll be talking about about the structural and narrative importance of SUBPLOTS. But before we dive in, let’s figure out what a subplot actually is.

According to Dictionary.com, a subplot is:

“A secondary or subordinate plot, as in a play, novel, or other literary work; underplot.”

Great, so to know what a ‘subplot’ is, you also need to understand what a plot is.

That same dictionary says:

“Also called storyline, a plot is the plan, scheme, or main story of a literary or dramatic work, as a play, novel, or short story.”

A plot, therefore, is the map that your storyline follows. The term covers both the beat-by-beat, scene-by-scene events as they happen, but also the overarching structure of the narrative. A plot includes both the minutiae and the big picture. The characters are the people who experience the plot, the setting is the place where the plot takes place, and the themes are the greater philosophical issues that your plot encourages your reader to think about and examine as Stuff Happens.

A subplot is the part of the story that is happening — to your characters, in the world, both beat-by-beat and overarching — in tandem with the main plot.

What does a subplot do?

So, subplots support the main plot, usually tying into it in some way, and they are generally resolved at the same time. However, they can also juxtapose the main plot, act inversely to it, or negatively affect it. Subplots can either intentionally or accidentally mess up a main plot, throwing a spanner in your main character’s works. Or a subplot can fix an issue in the main plot, providing a solution for a crisis point at exactly the right moment in a deus ex machina. Subplots also provide you, the writer, places to highlight or dig into the themes of the novel, to provide greater depth to a secondary character, or to provide greater explanation and understanding for the worldbuilding featured in the main plot.

More than anything, subplots exist to keep the story interesting and engaging.

How do they work together?

A great way to understand how subplots weave together to create the tapestry of the story is to think of your favourite procedural television show. Let’s take House M.D. for example.

• In the main plot, Plot A, a patient arrives at the hospital with a mysterious illness, which Dr. House and his team must identify and cure by the end of the episode.
• In the subplot, Subplot B, the ongoing interpersonal or romantic tension between members of House’s team evolves, which ends up either aiding or hindering their ability to find the solution to the mystery in Plot A.
• In another subplot, Subplot C, House is either in conflict or cahoots with his best friend, Dr. Wilson, in a series of smaller events that reflect and add depth or complexity to the themes established in Plot A.

In summary, subplots:

• Relieve reader fatigue that comes from following just one character or narrative.
• Help in driving the main plot forward.
• Increase tension and conflict between characters.
• Increase tension and conflict at the crisis points of the main plot.
• Provide a stage for secondary characters to develop.
• Provide an opportunity to reinforce or highlight the themes of the novel.
• Provide a place for the elaborate worldbuilding in the mail plot to receive explanation.

And of course, a good subplot will do more than just one of these things at a time. Make sure every scene you write does double or triple duty, where possible.

Activity

Think about your favorite long-running tv or streaming series, one with the same main characters who have to tackle a different problem in each episode. Choose an episode you like. What is the main plot? What happens and what characters are involved? Without talking about the action, how would you explain what the main plot is about? Is it about love? A certain type of human relationship? The choices people make?

Once you’re comfortable with the main plot’s features, start thinking about all the other things that happen in the episode that don’t seem to be related, or that are only revealed to be related at the end. Are some of the characters chasing another problem that later resolves the main issue? Is something going on that allows you to explore a character’s mental state in a way the main plot won’t? What would the episode look like if the subplot were removed? Would it still work?

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Read more WORDS FOR WRITERS articles or ask me a question about the craft or business of writing.

The Stages of Editing

First Published on Storybuildr on April 24, 2022

Draft one of a manuscript is for you. In this draft, you get to tell your story to yourself. You can write as much as you want, go off on tangents or side quests, or infodump and worldbuild to your heart’s content.

Draft two is for your readers. Draft two is where you rework the story you told yourself to ensure that you transmit it to the readers in a way that is entertaining, enjoyable, and understandable. That’s not to say it has to be basic or simplistic—but it must be comprehensible.

As Neil Gaiman is fond of saying: In draft one, write down everything that happens. In draft two, go back and make it look like you know what you were doing all along.

So where do you start? Here’s how I usually break up my phases of editing:

Structure

Take a step back and look at it as a whole book. Take a break from working on the manuscript for a few days, a few weeks, or even a month or two. If you can, read all the way through as if you’ve never heard this story before.

Think of your novel as house. If your narrative structure is all over the place, or contradictory, or full of plot holes, it’s like a house with a slapdash frame, or missing support beams, or a cracked foundation. It doesn’t matter how much you paint the kitchen cabinets if the fridge is sinking through the floor.

Address issues of structure first, and refer back to your plot outline or synopsis to see where you went off the rails. I suggest waiting before you bring in a beta reader or editor until you’ve had the chance to let the novel rest and reread it yourself. You’ll catch the glaringly obvious structural flaws on your own and can present your network with a more solid version.

Character

Once the foundation is solid, you need to put up walls, designate what each room is for, and bring in furniture. Someone needs to live in this house, which brings us to character.

When looking at your characters, make sure they fit the house you’ve built, and they are consistent in the way they use it. To stretch the metaphor a bit, you don’t want them showering in the living room, if you know what I mean.

In this case, refer back to all of your notes on your character before you re-read the book. If you intended your main character to be a brash, fearless, thoughtless himbo, but he comes across on the page as an unsure, intellectual over-thinker, then you need to decide either to change the novel to suit your character’s evolution, or realign your character with your original intent.

Make sure that your character arcs are consistent (and, more fundamentally, that they actually exist) and ensure that your secondary characters have their own quirks, rich inner lives, desires, and motivations that can be identified as separate from the main character.

Word Crafting

If the structure of the manuscript is the foundation, and character is the decor, then wordcraft is the style. You don’t want to accidentally build a Ranch-Style Craftsman when you were aiming for a Steel-And-Glass Ultramodern.

Once you’ve had a chance to really dig into (and rip apart, and rewrite, and restructure) the novel, and you’re satisfied with how it’s assembled as a story, it’s time to review it on the line-level. Make sure that each word you chose is the right one, the best one you can find to convey the tone and meaning you want your story to have.

Polish

This is where we paint the outside of the house and make sure there’s curb appeal.

Call me old fashioned, but I generally do this part on actual paper with an actual red pen. I like this method for two reasons:

1)     Reading on a screen and reading on paper are different, and I generally catch things my eyes would otherwise skip over.

2)     I can read it anywhere and thus get distracted. In this case, getting distracted is a good thing—it keeps me from falling too deep into the story, and thus missing the punctuation and typo errors I’m supposed to be rooting out.

I like to take a paper copy on my daily commute, to a coffee shop or a pub in the afternoon, or to a park. The downside to this method is that once you’ve made all the changes on paper, you then have to enter them into the digital version, which can be tedious.

However you prefer to do the final polish, try to keep your creative brain shut off for this part. You’re correcting the actual words and punctuation marks themselves, not the story as a whole.

Activity

Pick a familiar short story or fairy tale and do a test run on it. First, read the story to identify the basic structure. How is it put together? What are the key plot points that give it shape? Do you think you could change anything to make it better? Next, look at the characters and think about how they fit within the plot. Do they do things that aren’t necessary? What details would you add or subtract to make their story arcs more effective?

Third, reread the story with a focus on language. How does the word choice support or undermine the story? What words would you change? Finally, if you want the practice, rewrite the story in your own words and don’t forget to polish your final version when it’s done.

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Still have questions? Read more WORDS FOR WRITERS posts here or ASK ME HERE.

A Book Pitch is basically a two-to-three paragraph description of your novel, which explains who the main character is, what the world is like, and generally what is going to happen in the novel.  The point of the pitch is to entice the person reading it into then reading your book as a whole. Be they an agent, a publisher, or a reader who is debating purchasing your book, the pitch exists to hook them in. And unlike the synopsis of a book, you don’t want to give away the ending, or explain everything that happens in the novel.

• Tell me who the main character is:
  • Introduce me to your main character. Whose shoulder will I be riding for the course of the story, and whose head will I be in? Why this person, and not someone else in the narrative? Try not to spend more than a sentence or two on this introduction.
  • For Example: “Bilbo Baggins is a gentlehobbit of good breeding, and he, like the rest of his kind, is very much not interested in Adventures, thank you very much. They are nasty, dirty things that make one late for dinner.”
  • And then at the end of the pitch, give me a glimpse of what the main character’s emotional arc and journey of growth will be.
  • For Example: “To succeed in his mission to liberate Erebor and help his newfound friends reclaim their homeland, Bilbo will have to dig deep and find a courage that he never thought any hobbit, let alone and gentleman like himself, could ever possess.”
• Tell me what the world is like:
  • What are the values and morals that your main character lives by, what’s their home and neighborhood like, what’s their relationship with their family or their employment?
  • For Example: “One would think a wizard had better sense than to endanger Bilbo’s respectable reputation with his neighbors than to promise his help to these roaming dwarves as a burglar for hire, of all things.”
  • Tell me what they’re risking by undertaking this change in status or going on this adventure, or in seeking to change themselves or something around them.
  • For Example: “As a noble Baggins of Bagend, Bilbo is already absolutely mortified to be found in the company of such rough, brash folk; his neighbors would shun him for sure if they found out that he’d entertained dwarves, even if one of them is their handsome King Thorin Oakensheild.”

• Tell me what the major conflict is:
  • What is the novel’s inciting incident? What compels your character to take their first step out the door?
  • For Example: “But when Bilbo learns that the dragon in question has stolen the dwarven kingdom of Erebor from it’s rightful people, and they are looking for help reclaiming their lost homeland, Bilbo’s sympathy compels him to sign on to Thorin’s company.”
  • What’s going to happen to our main character over the course of the novel?
  • For Example: “Thrust into an adventure his books and armchair explorations have left Bilbo woefully unprepared for, the young gentlehobbit will follow the tragic king through troll-infested glades, ethereal elven cities, over treacherous rocky cliffsides, and through goblin-infested tunnels. All the while learning to wield a magic ring won in a perilous game of riddles with a creature twisted by it’s dire curse. A ring that may just allow Bilbo to become the burglar Gandalf had promised to the dwarves after all.”

• Entice me…
  • But don’t spoil the ending.
  • Try not to rely too heavily on rhetoricals aimed at the reader. A phrase like “What would you do if you were asked to steal a cursed gem from a dragon?” doesn’t tell the reader much about the novel itself and the events in it. Reframe such questions to center on the character’s personal dilemmas and the book’s world.
  • For example: “Bilbo Baggins has never stolen so much as apple from his neighbor’s tree, so why has the wizard Gandalf tasked him with crossing the known world to pilfer a cursed gem from under the nose of a fearsome dragon?”
  • At the same time, feel free to end on a question for the character, not the reader.
  • In this case: “Will Bilbo manage to make off with the Arkenstone, and liberate The Lonely Mountain from the fire wyrm that has invaded it? Or will he end up just another charred corpse in the desolate wasteland that surrounds the embattled dwarven kingdom?”

• Where you can, echo the voice of the book.
  • You can lean on the tropes of your genre while describing the inciting incidents and plot, but not so hard that your pitch is nothing but a string of buzzwords and hollow idioms.
  • A synopsis is commonly written in third person present omniscient (“Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit of the Shire”), but can sometimes work in another tense and POV.
  • Most importantly, use the same words, the same style of sentence structure, and the same idioms as your narrator or main POV character. The pitch should sound like the book.
    • Example – Book text: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
    • Example – Pitch text: “Bilbo Baggins is a gentlehobbit of good breeding, and he, like the rest of his kind, is very much not interested in Adventures, thank you very much. They are nasty, dirty things that make one late for dinner. So when the wizard Gandalf the Grey arrives at his doorstep with thirteen dwarves looking for help reclaiming their lost homeland, Bilbo is more than a little miffed.”