The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: subplots

  • When Subplots Go Bad

    Your mileage is going to vary when it comes to subplots. I feel like authors who can handle large casts of characters, or who write long-running series, or both, have a greater license with subplot. They can weave them through several stories, and slide them in more carefully.

    For me as a writer, subplot is a balancing act. I have to be careful not to let side details overwhelm the story.

    First, let me be clear: I love subplots. There is not a single thing that I don’t love about the stories within the story — mostly because life is a series of subplots, of character back stories and minor quests.

    As a reader, I love to know what else the main character has going on. Yes, sure, this romance is nice and all — but tell me more about what’s going on about her father’s assassination. Author, you’ve been dropping hints for chapters now, and damn it, I need to know!

    Also, I love the catharsis at the end of the huge story reveal. When the main plot and most of the subplots get wrapped up in a nice little bow. When done right, there’s this exhale, and it’s all clear. The whole story has focus: the threads are wrapped and the stragglers aren’t a big deal, and it’s amazing.

    (In a really good book, there’s also the element of, “I totally didn’t see that coming!”)

    But subplots don’t always work. Sometimes they feel tacked in for “depth,” like the hypotenuse of the love triangle that was never really a question. Other times they distract from the plot, either because they ended up more interesting than the plot (at which point: whoops, that draft needs more time to stew) or because the author preferred the subplot.

    I’m guilty of both, but I’m really guilty of the latter. I have the bad habit of falling in love with characters and wanting to share all those interesting things about them, even when they’re not relevant.

    (more…)

  • Counting Down from Dee to Aay

    Each team member gets their turn at Magneto. How they get there is a subplot. Art by John Byrne. Image Attribution.

    When I was growing up Chris Claremont and John Byrne (with Terry Austin, Glynis Wein and my favorite letterer EVER Tom Orzechowski) were taking comic books to new levels that are taken for granted now. Their run on Uncanny X-Men from 1977 – 1981 shaped how comics are made forever. What did they do? They built up anticipation with subplots that would run over the course of several issues as a ‘D’ or ‘C’ story of a couple of panels or one page or so and then graduate it to a ‘B’ story for a couple of issues before it became the ‘A’ story. The one featured on the cover.

    It was classic soap opera storytelling but it was NEW. Well, not absolutely new, but they did it in a way that was so fresh it appeared new. I suspect they learned it from what Paul Levitz was doing as he was writing his classic Legion of Superheroes runs and he did the same thing. Anyway, that’s enough about comics for the nonce. (I always wanted to use ‘nonce’ in a blog post. Check that one off my list.)

    This is what influenced me in storytelling, these amazing comics that took me places I’d never been before, told me stories in ways I hadn’t seen before. That particular run, Uncanny 108 to 143, made me want to make comics. I wanted to draw like Byrne (with Austin) and write with the style of Claremont but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what to do. It took me years to realize there was a secret I hadn’t picked up on and even then I wasn’t sure how to go about discovering it. (more…)

  • Subplots: Dogs on a Hike

    Moose in BreckenridgeThis morning my wife and I woke up at 6AM, ate a hearty breakfast, and then took our four dogs on a three mile hike along Blue Lakes in Breckenridge, Colorado. Three miles isn’t a particularly long hike, until you add in the vertical climb (around 1500 feet), the dangerous terrain – slippery scree fields, narrow single track through alpine scrub, and boggy marshland near the headwaters – and the altitude of more than 11,000 feet. Combine all those factors, and three miles feels more like six. Or nine.

    It’s one of my favorite hikes though, for all of those reasons. It’s challenging. It varies greatly from one stretch to another. It’s beautiful. And it’s not particularly well known, which means we usually have the entire trail to ourselves.

    What does this have to do with this week’s topic: subplots? Nothing, yet. The hike I described is much like a good story: it varies, it has high points and low points, it has a great climax, it feels rewarding after you’re finished. And, like most of my manuscripts, it manages to do all these things in relatively short distance!

    (more…)

  • Spicing with Subplots

    Plots are quite pleasant for novel readers and even more pleasant for novelists, providing a structure for the writing and all that jazz.  But subplots are the sugar and spice.  As a writer, I don’t enjoy the main plot so much–once I’ve constructed the gist of the book, it’s difficult to change, and that element of the creative work is done.  For me, subplots allow play and fluid creativity on the sideline of a novel.

    Subplots bear especial importance in science fiction writing.  My novels are set in the near future; their plots involve characters who live and breathe and grow through that future.  They don’t necessarily think about how their own time came to be.  But for me (and I expect for many other readers) there must be a link between our present and that future-present, and I tuck those links into subplots: an older person who watched those changes unfold, perhaps, or a holdover community that progressed in a different direction, or other minor characters whose wanderings explore a different part of the world.

    In my reading and writing both, I notice that subplots serve a very important commercial-literary purpose:  sequels!   If a book does not wrap up its main plot, I am annoyed and less likely to feel the book was a satisfactory literary experience.  But subplots can be left floating, a stem into a future full plot with its own sundry subplots and schema. My NaNoWriMo novel of 2010 ended up having a character work on the border crossing between Kansas and Missouri; her relationships there were minor details in context but contributed a lot to the sequel in the end of Novel2011.  And someday one of the subplots from the border-crossing will spout into its very own main plot, making the annual a perennial.

  • Subplots Make the Skeleton Dance

    Give him a little backup so he go places.

    If you’re writing a short story, there’s probably no time for much of a subplot. You only have so many words to get your hero inside from the dark and stormy night, into the castle, past the creepy caretaker, rescue the damsel in distress from the horrible monster, and get them both home safely.

    It’s a straight shot. Beginning, middle, end.

    Novella’s are longer, and they give you more room to work, but usually the subplots are minimal. It’s kind of a halfway point between short story and novel. I’ve read some good ones lately, but the form itself is not my favorite. There’s usually not enough meat in the middle. Just enough complexity to leave me feeling let down when it’s over too soon. Most novellas feel unfinished to me. Not all, but most do.

    Now, a full-length novel? If you have nothing but one single plot running in a straight line from beginning to end, well, you’re going to lose me.

    (more…)

  • A story isn’t just vanquishing foes and saving the world

    Subplots are crucial to any story. Everyone loves a good “ordinary Joe discovers only he can save the world so he fights against the Evil and then lives happily ever after” tale (or maybe not necessarily happily ever after, but you know what I mean).

    The trouble is, if that’s all that was happening in the story, you’d be bored, right? All Joe would ever talk about is saving the world and vanquishing the Evil. Every scene. Every conversation. And the story would be over in a few chapters.

    The thing is, Joe had a life before he had to save the world, and his life didn’t suddenly cease the moment his quest was laid upon him. His Mom is still dying from a rare disease that only the hermit in the mountains knows how to cure, and his best friend since childhood has just recently revealed she has feelings for him. (more…)

  • What if My Life Is Somebody Else’s Subplot?

    Mickey Mouse and Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit
    If Bob Cratchit’s story is merely a subplot, why would two of the greatest actors of all time agree to play him?

    They say we’re all the lead characters in our own stories. But what about other people’s stories? I have this horrible feeling — now and then — that I’m not a main character at all. I’m just a minor character (comic relief, perhaps), and my life is a subplot in the story of someone I know.

    I bring this up because I want to point out how important subplots are. They shouldn’t be relegated to the role of “rounding out a character” or “adding some drama to a narrative.” The subplots — and the characters who make them — are heroes in their own stories.

    Think about Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol. The story is about the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly and cold character who must learn the true spirit of Christmas. But Dickens also weaves in a marvelous subplot about Scrooge’s employee, Bob Cratchit. The story of Bob and his poor family is every bit as important as Scrooge’s story. In fact, it’s so important to Scrooge that it becomes a part of his salvation. A Christmas Carol wouldn’t be the same without Bob and little Tiny Tim.

    For me, a good subplot is almost a strong narrative on its own. It must support the main plot, certainly. But a subplot must also be self-sustaining. Otherwise my characters come off feeling like cardboard.

    Years ago there was a very popular movie titled The Gods Must Be Crazy. The film follows three distinct stories that all seem unconnected except for their location in Africa. Eventually, the three stories dovetail in an unexpected way, bringing all the unrelated characters together for the conclusion.

    I like my stories to take this equitable approach to storytelling. I don’t think of my story in terms of plot and subplots. I think about what’s driving the character forward and what needs to happen next. I have never once thought that I needed to insert a minor character or subplot. When a character appears in my story, I consider it a major character until events prove otherwise.

    When I feel that something isn’t working in my stories, I often discover that it’s because I’ve written too much about a character or storyline. That’s okay, though. It’s a lot easier to cut an overabundance of a big story than try to pad a thin one.

    Each character and plot is important. Some may be de-emphasized, but none should exist only to serve another.

    Simply put, there are no subplots — only great stories waiting to be told.

  • Subplots: Sexy Enough to Deserve Your Time

    Here’s the thing about subplots. They don’t have to be your best friend, but you should treat them like your best friend’s hot sister. Nobody’s asking you to spend a lot of time getting to know her.  (But let’s be honest. Would they have to ask?) Just make sure the time you do invest is quality.  It’ll totally pay dividends in the end.

    Be good to your subplots. Show them you understand their complexities and you know their worth. Make them believe that their development is as important to you as the other plots that occupy the majority of your day. You wish that you had more time to devote, but it wasn’t meant to be.

    You and your subplots are star-crossed lovers. Victims of circumstance, meeting in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps in another life you’ll have more time for each other. Maybe the universe will do you a solid the next time around.

    But rather than bemoan what the fates have given you, it’s better to seize this moment, this day, no matter how brief. Cherish the time you have together and make it something special. If time is the enemy, then ally yourself with memory. Write a story worth remembering. One that outlives its own fleeting arc.

    (more…)

  • Now Boarding: Subplots

    If a story is a train track, a subplot is the trestle. The main plot takes you where you need to go, from point A to point B and all destinations in between. But without the subplots, it would never make it over the valleys that inevitably manifest during a story arc.

    Some people define story as characters acting within a setting. I’ve never totally bought in to that, but I do believe that characters generate subplots. Whether you are a pantser or a plotter, your characters have histories and quirks that lead them in certain directions, giving birth to subplots.

    A good subplot tells us things about characters that we need to know in order to strengthen the main plot. It helps develop three dimensional characters, and encourages showing rather than telling.

    (more…)

  • Diving into Subplots (Week Ending July 14)

    Last week the Cafe heated up (perhaps because it was so hot outside) with a debate about that old nemesis of writers everywhere: writer’s block. This week shouldn’t be as contentious, as we take the Cafe regulars into a discussion of basic writing mechanics to tackle subplots.

    We all know a good subplot to a story when we see one, but how do writers weave them in to begin with? How important are they? And what does it take to make them stand out?

    The writers here at the Cafe have put away their dueling pistols and sworn off their blood feuds long enough to discuss — in their own inimitable style — their thoughts on inserting a good sublot into a novel. We hope you enjoy the discussion, and pray it will not lead to more chaos.

    Until next time,

    The Cafe Management