Mary Rosenblum, your web editor, has published three SF novels, four mysteries as Mary Freeman, and more than 60 short stories in multiple genres, as well as nonfiction! She is also a Long Ridge instructor and has taught writing for many years.

 

 

The Subplot

 

By Mary Rosenblum

 

What is a subplot exactly?  What does it need to do?  What can it do?  How the heck do I work it into the story and do I really need it?  These questions pop to mind, along with a host of others that leave most of us clammy with nerves and a serious case of cold feet as we contemplate that first novel.  The prospect of designing subplots (hey, the main plot is tough enough) can seem overwhelming. 

 

Well, it really isn’t.  Most of the time, your subplots will sprout like weeds, and your only task is to choose the one or two or three that you really like and pull up the rest, ruthlessly! 

 

So What Is A Subplot and Why Do We Need It?

Well, a subplot is just that…a plot that is subservient to, less important than, the main plot.  It might be a personal issue that afflicts your Main Character that he or she must deal with during the unfolding of the main plot.  It might be a Secondary Character who takes off on a minor adventure of her own, only to converge once more with the main plot near the climax scene.  Perhaps her minor adventure even helps bring about that climax!  It is simply another conflict and resolution that is less important than the main conflict and resolution. 

 

As to why we need it?  Well, a novel is a large landscape.  We don’t write a novel as if it is a 350 page short story.  Well, you can do that, but it makes for a fairly simplistic and highly focused story, and is more typical of the Young Adult market.  Usually, in a novel, we have several main characters and they have their own preoccupations outside of the main plot.  Their small conflicts and resolutions can bolster that large story in its slow moments.  Maybe our Main Character is simply enroute to City Argenta to take on an Evil Dragon, and it takes a week to get there.  Well, we can simply skip over that week of travel and begin a week later in the marketplace in Argenta.  Or, a Secondary Character might receive an urgent message about a family crisis and leave the main party in order to detour past home and deal with that problem.  During the course of that visit, we will share his adventures as our Secondary is attacked by the man who wants to marry his sister for her inheritance and in the course of exposing his evil nature, our character wins a magic dagger that has a connection to the Main Character’s quest to Argenta.  But will he catch up with the Hero in time to give him that magic talisman?  This new bit of extra suspense not only carries us through the boring week of travel, but we now have a new ticking clock to keep the suspense taut.  Main Character needs the dagger, although he doesn’t realize it.  But we do!  Will Secondary Character make it back to the group before they face the Evil Dragon?  Will the Main Character be strong enough to defeat the dragon without the dagger? 

 

Take the Reader on a Tour!

A subplot is also a great way to fill the reader in on what is going on outside the awareness of our Main Characters.  For example, our Secondary Character showed us an interesting fishing village when he went home to visit his sister, which we wouldn’t have been able to visit had we stayed with our Main Character and his quest.  We found out a lot more about our world and its peoples.  But if you had simply spent ten pages or so telling us about that fishing village and the thriving Trade Guild that sails up and down the coast connecting all the isolated communities, you would essentially have brought the story to a grinding halt for a lecture!  Not good…

 

Instead, the Secondary Character’s own conflict over his sister’s impending wedding to the evil shipowner drives the story along as we find out about the Trade Guild through the fiance’s membership in it.  Instead of a huge, indigestible expository lump we have a brisk and entertaining story that adds to the main plot’s momentum!

 

What Must the Subplot Actually Do?

The subplot can do a lot of things, but one thing that it must do is to tie into the main plot in some way.  It may be a tenuous connection.  Our hero, as with our Secondary, the brother, may simply turn up a bit of information or a weapon or spell that aids our Main Character in his quest.  The subplot may deepen the characterization of a Secondary Character who will die in the story, and whose death needs to matter to the reader.  That person’s small conflict and resolution grows them into a fully fleshed character to us, so that when he or she dies, that death has a strong impact on us, the readers.  It may have no relationship to the main plot at all, save that in the final chapter, they converge to be resolved simultaneously in the climax scene.   But subplots are never entirely separated from the main plot.  In some manner, they are joined.  Ideally, the main plot would not work as well without the subplot.  But if the subplot merely adds depth and interest to the world, that is enough. 

 

Subplots Grow From Character Seeds

So how do we come up with a subplot?  Let your character introduce it.  As you create your Secondary Characters, they will begin to share their own worries, strengths, weaknesses, and preoccupations.  As you approach that week long trip across the desert, cast about among your secondary characters.  Well, let’s see.  She is committed and has no distractions at home.  He is just a spear carrier and never needs to be more than that.  But this character…he’s a strong secondary and he’s the strongest character next to our Main Character.  What if he takes off on an adventure?  And what will happen to bring him back to the quest?  Well….what if he finds something that he realizes is critical to his friend, the Main Character’s success? 

 

Wow, we’re all set here!

 

So we send him off to visit his sister on the feast day that honors the local sea gods, where he finds out her suitor is evil.  He fights the man, gains possession of the magic dagger and realizes that it is critical to get this to his friend, the Main Character and leader of the quest.

 

Decide What You Need…Then Create It!

Do you need a subplot?  Well, are we about to take off on a boring trek?  Do we have two weeks to wait for the mountain to erupt so that the priestess can have her vision?  Do we need to know what is going on in the neighboring kingdom?  Hmm.  Time for a subplot.  So quick, which of your characters might be enticed off into a private adventure?  Look over your list.  Who do you like, as a person?  Who might have personal issues on the line?  Mom is ill, she is striving to live up to Dad’s standard…whatever you choose, your character has some reason to go off on his own and do things.  

 

Then…send that character off.  Think of those subplots as support poles to the main trunk of your story.  The more support poles you provide, the taller and heavier your main trunk can be.  For a huge, sweeping story such as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the subplots are many and quite strong in their own right.  For a simpler story, such as Harry Potter, Rowling’s first book in her best selling series, the subplots are smaller and more subordinate to the main plot.  But large or small, subplots enrich and support your main story.  And they’re a great way to go exploring when your Main Characters are just too busy!