Novel Tips: How to Create Subplots

A subplot is the secondary plot in a play, movie, or novel. In other words, any part of the story other than the main storyline that connects somehow to the main plot. Creating a story inside your story will make things not only more interesting for your readers, but will also make things more complex and realistic. The ABCs of Subplots says subplots "weave dimension and complexity into stories".

A strong story should include subplots that connect back to the main story line, explains Bob Mayer in Novel Writer's Tool Box. Subplots are easy to create, you can simply write about a character's private, personal, professional life, or relationships with others and there is your subplot. Though they seem complex they can be simply constructed. Hypothetically, lets say your writing a story about a woman who doesn't think her husband loves her. The husband, Jack can go to the store, flirt with the cute cashier, and drive back home and that is subplot. To fully utilize subplot, though, you must continue to carry the story's goal, motivation, and conflict without presenting loose ends to the readers.

Secondary events should happen for a reason, including introducing a character that will play a role in the main plot later, introducing a conflicting situation in which characters will make decisions that will play a factor in later situations, or introducing a relationship, friendship, or romance, that can be entwined into the main plot. Subplot is a way to show readers a concept or character in the larger story in a new and fresh way. And it is ideal that the subplot somehow impacts the novel's resolution.

Too many disruptions, a thousand different subplots, can create a disturbance in the original story and distract and frustrate the reader. You Can Write a Novel by James Smith details the horrors of subplots, parallel issues that have no significant affect on the story and "detract" from the novel and "confuse" readers.

The fewer the better. Stretch the substance of a subplot across the entirety of the novel. Things should be planned just like the plot with a beginning middle and end. Remember, Jack's trip to the store. Well, first Jack goes to the store, things happen in the main plot, the story goes on and then suddenly back into the subplot Jack is cheating on his wife with that cute cashier. Time goes by, the plot continues, and then Jack stops the affair realizing that he loves his wife. No loose ends, but it still helps move along the story. Jack is no longer cheating on his wife, so she now believes he loves her. The End. Thus the subplot, which started with a simple trip to the grocery store, plays a significant role in the main plot.

Works Cited

Mayer, Bob. The Novel Writer's Tool Box. Writer's Digest Books, 2003.

Mercer, Mary Lynn. "The ABCs of Subplot." 2005. Why Stories Work. .

Smith, James V. You Can Write A Novel. Writer's Digest Books, 1998.