Plots & Subplots

(image courtesy of Lisa Fotios via pexels.com)

One of the things that engages me in a book is a strong plot and some terrific subplots.  I define the “plot” as the incidents that happen over the course of the piece in a particular order, and the “story” as how those incidents affect and change the characters. That’s not the one-and-only definition, but it’s the one that works best for me, as both writer and reader.

The plot of a novel, such as a mystery, would include the catalyst, the murder or murders, the protagonist’s decision to find the killer, the specific steps taken to find the killer, the clues, the red herrings, the climactic sequence of facing/defeating the killer, and the resolution.

The story of the novel is how the murder changes the protagonist, what they learn about themselves and those they thought they could trust as they unravel secrets and clues, the strengths or weaknesses they discover in their own responses when faced with death and betrayal, and how they process/integrate/grow from that moving forward, and how the relationships have shifted, deepened, or shattered through the course of the piece.

In a romance, the plot is the lovers meeting, the challenges they present to each other as they fall in love, the obstacles those who want to prevent their love present, the way they build their relationship, their dark moment where they nearly lose each other, and then their happily ever after (or happy for now). If it doesn’t have a happily ever after or a happy for now, it is not a romance. It is a different genre of book with romantic elements. (That will be part of our genre discussion in a few weeks).

The story is how falling in love changes them into better people because they love each other and are stronger together, and how recognizing and dealing the saboteurs to the relationships changes their other relationships, and how the couple plans to move forward together.

In other words, the plot is “this happens, then that happens” and the story is “this is what the character(s) experienced during what happened and how it changed them.”

Are there novels without plots? Just Google it, and you’ll find a bunch of opinions by a bunch of different people about various books they don’t think have plots. I’ve seen MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and ON THE ROAD both called books without plots, and I disagree on both of those. The plots of some books are more episodic than others, but things still happen. One can get into all sorts of interesting discussions about post-modernism and surrealism and books that happen in a moment inside someone’s head and experimental fiction and layers of meaning, but that’s usually more fun in person, with plenty of food and drink available.

A good enough writer can pull of just about anything, with solid skills, imagination, and an understanding of craft.

Short stories and novellas often get away with less plot or differently structured/hidden plots than longer novels because it’s easier for the reader to suspend disbelief in shorter bursts than over, say 400 pages.

Subplots get tricky, because the best subplots support the main narrative drive. The worst subplots are distracting tangents. Subplots serve different purposes depending on the rest of the book, and whether or not a book is part of a series. In a standalone, either everything is neatly wrapped up, or the point is that life doesn’t do that, but there are enough hints so the reader can come to their own conclusions. In a series, subplots can arc over several books, or even through the entire series, and serve as points of connection through the series, while the central plot/narrative drive of the individual book in the series is self-contained. Duologies and trilogies sometimes break this rule, because basically they are Very Long Books broken up into shorter books that are easier to read, and hopefully have been restructured well enough to feel satisfying in each book, WHILE enticing the reader to want more. Plenty of them don’t manage that, and frustrate readers who feel cheated and stop reading by the end of the first book.

Long-running series can fall into the trap of subplots (and supporting characters) getting more interesting than the main narrative drive, because the main plot is very similar from book-to-book, with just a few tweaks here and there, and very little character growth. That happens a lot in long-running cozy mystery series, for example. Sometimes they sustain because the reader goes to them for comfort, knowing what the plot will be and that it all comes out okay, and there’s enough dynamic among the core ensemble to satisfy, and the reader needs that. But, eventually, unless there is enough growth and change in the series, readers will fall away.

I’ve mentioned this before: for a Master Class in long-term ensemble character development, read the Meg Langslow series by Donna Andrews. She hits and exceeds genre expectations for comic cozy mystery AND does character development for her entire ensemble over the course of the series.

But how do you figure out plots and subplots?

Again, I start from character. A character starts telling me their story – which means how they are changing, and how interior and exterior circumstances affect them. I listen. I make notes. As I’m listening and making notes, I start trying to figure out what kind of book it is: a mystery? A fantasy? An historical? A more general, contemporary fiction? A mix of several genre elements?

I take notes and take notes and take notes, as long as I feel I need to. This will help me figure out format, at least the starting format. If the story comes to me as dialogue, I am likely to start it as a stage play or a screenplay, and then, once I have a first draft, see if that’s where it makes sense, or if I need to adapt it into a different format. If it’s coming to me in sentences and scenes, it’s more likely to start as a novel or novella or short story, even if I later decide to adapt it into a script. That’s where understanding different formats comes in handy.

 At a certain point, I stop, and usually “write my way in” for three or four chapters, as I’ve mentioned in an earlier post. That will give me information on voice, and genre, and whether I think it can be a viable piece. Sometimes you write forty or fifty pages, and it winds up being a good character study, and not much else. In those cases, I keep a hard copy, keep a digital copy, and when the time is right, that character or a variation might work in some other type of story. I save everything.

With scripts, I tend to outline the whole piece before I write, whereas with novels, I tend to write a few chapters in and then stop and outline (although I’ve generally taken a few pages of notes before I start to write). Part of that is the scriptwriting training; we are trained to outline first, because most paid scriptwriting jobs involve far more collaboration than novel writing does. If you’re going to work on a series, you’ll be in a room with other writers, throwing out ideas, working beat-to-beat, at least until the draft is assigned to one or more writers.

If you’re writing a novel, novella, or short story on your own, it’s usually you and the story, at least until you are at the stage to get an agent or editor or Trusted Reader involved.

But once I’m at the outline stage, this is where I start to think in terms of plot. Because the outline, for me, is more about WHAT happens, with more minor notes about how it affects the characters. Most of the story will shape as I write up the plot points and turn them into scenes during the first draft.

In the Writer’s Rough outline stage, it is not a document that would make sense to anyone else. It is simply ideas for things that happen as they come to me. After I’m done with the initial scribbles, I go back and try to rearrange it so it has sense.

Every fictional world, even a piece based in a contemporary real place, runs on its own internal logic. The logic of that world needs consistency, so that when something illogical happens, it has a purpose in that particular story.

Real life doesn’t work that way, but real life isn’t fiction. Fiction is a contained capsule the reader enters whenever they pick up the book, and for the wide variety of reasons readers pick up books. You can’t do everything in every book. So serve the story you best want to tell in THIS BOOK.

The plot and the internal logic are entwined, and each needs the other for the piece to work. The structure and the logic are also entwined, and the logic is necessary for the structure to support the plot and the characters.

As I work, I realize that some points work better as subplots, and then the decision has to be made if they are going to be shorter or longer. When I’m writing the first draft, I may write a lot of pages on a subplot, but only include a short scene here and there in the submitted draft, because otherwise it pulls too much focus from the main plot. I don’t mind overwriting and then cutting. I need all the information as the author; I choose which portions of it serve the story (and therefore the reader) best, and get rid of the rest (in a file I keep with material to use in other pieces and other ways). Nothing written is ever wasted; it’s part of what gets you where you need to go.

If the subplot is more interesting than the main plot, I explore switching them, because the central plot should have the strongest narrative drive, and the subplots need to support that. I do that with characters, too; if there’s a character demanding more attention, I might switch my central protagonist to the more interesting character.

The ultimate question is always “what serves the work best?”

By saying a character “demands attention” I mean that my subconscious understands the overall piece faster and better than my conscious mind, and if the subconscious is pushing something, plot or character-wise, it behooves me to listen, because my initial impulse in the piece might not be the best way to tell the story.

My characters are embodiments of the subconscious.  There are often two approaches by writers. One type of writer uses the more mystical approach, believing they are the instrument through which the story is told. Another type of writer is the god of their fictional world, and manipulates every detail. I do a bit of both. I give my subconscious free reign in development and early drafts, and then I take more control, draft to draft, and layer in and shape the craft. It’s flattering to feel like one is “chosen” by the gods to tell a story (and sometimes it truly feels like that), but that doesn’t mean that what comes out in an early draft has enough craft to successfully communicate the story. One needs to meld both the art and the craft.

Some experts will claim there are a set amount of subplots a plot can support. I think that’s become a bit more flexible, especially with mixed genre pieces. The shorter the piece, the more focus needs to be on the central narrative drive. The longer the piece (or the series), the more room for subplots (as long as they don’t pull too much focus from the plot). In scriptwriting, especially series writing, one generally has the A plot, with some B and maybe C plot material, but again, so much depends on genre, length, and the main narrative drive. It also has to with actor contracts; if an actor breaks out, the series will often be reshaped to feature that individual more. This happens more for long-running, multi-season shows than for, say, a six episode, self-contained limited run. And because streaming networks kill new shows so quickly, without giving them a chance to grow and build, it’s changing how actors can develop their characters, too.

Often, authors will plant subplots as the seeds for the next book in the series or as a spinoff. When that is handled well, it’s a lot of fun, and leaves the reader eager for more. If the reader feels too set up, it often feels like the author just wants more money from the reader, and the author isn’t sharing enough of the story in this particular book. When a reader feels like the author is hoarding information instead of inviting them on an adventure, it’s likely the reader will go elsewhere.

One of the best ways to learn how to do this integration of plots and subplots is to take a stack of your favorite books in your favorite genre and re-read them, this time for plot, character, and structure. Break down and diagram how the plot and subplots are handled and woven together. Then take a stack of books from the bestseller lists, across genre (if these are different than your favorites in your favorite genre) and do the same thing. You will learn a lot by doing this, have references when you sit down and plot your own work (or layer in plot after you’ve drafted). I like to add page counts into these breakdowns, because it gives me a sense of where different genres need different flows. (And your library will love you for the checkouts, it counts in their budget allocation).

How do you develop plots and subplots, and decide which is which? How much plotting do you do ahead of time, how much is done as you write, and how much layered in during subsequent drafts? Or does it change, project to project?

Other Notes:

I’m over 70 pages into what I’m calling the “Heist Romance Script” which is the piece I wrote the 22 page outline/treatment for a few weeks ago. It’s a lot of fun. The other script is tapping its inky toe, wanting attention after I wrote 50 pages, and I’ve figured out how to get past the corner into which I’d written myself, which made the piece change tone and genre.

ANGEL HUNT, the urban fantasy serial, launched on Kindle Vella on January 25. That is a finite serial (although I don’t have it all broken down yet, and don’t yet know how many episodes will run). It’s a much darker world than that of LEGERDEMAIN, which continues to run. LEGERDEMAIN drops episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays; ANGEL HUNT drops episodes Wednesday and Fridays. First 3 episodes of both are free.

For the month of February, I am posting #28Prompts, one prompt per day. I’ve uploaded and scheduled all 28 prompts to drop at noon EST each day on Twitter. I will post them on the other social media sites when I visit them on any particular day (but not tie myself to a particular time), and make sure I even get online to do so during weekends. I’ve been cutting back my social media time on weekends, and trying to stay off most of social media completely on Sundays (although I tend to post to IG, which cross-posts to FB and Twitter any time I have something to post). These prompts can be used as jumping off points for words, for paintings, for dance, for visuals, for anything you wish. The #28Prompts hashtag should help you find it, no matter the platform.

P.S. Yes, I changed the logo for The Process Muse. This one feels more me.