sub-plots

This week neither Ashley nor Kathleen could remember whose turn it was to post. Thusly they have developed their new segment “Work it Out Commentary, with Ashley and Kathleen.” This week Ashley and Kathleen play with the idea of subplots.

You know something, Ashley? I friggin love subplots. They are like bacon on sandwiches to me. Sure, you can have too much, but honestly, the line between not enough and too much is pretty wide.

I do love me a good subplot. I just finished a re-read a Deathly Hallows and Rowling is a master of this. I really enjoyed her “hey look over here!” approach. Just when you get a piece of information relative to one of the subplots something happens in the main plot, or just in the scene and you completely forget to think through what you just learned. It really kept me from figuring things out too early.

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By: Melody J.

First off, let me explain that I expound on everything. One page writing assignments can become twenty if it’s allowed because I just love to write. So, when I started writing this novel, “The Dragon Within”, I feared it would become a 100,00+ word epic that only the most dedicated of readers [and possibly my family] would ever read.

And I knew I didn’t want it to be that long, but it could become that if I allowed myself to. So, I didn’t. I’ve set bounds for myself and constantly ask ‘is this necessary?’, checking my work for rabbit trails that don’t advance the story, because that’s where I’ve got the problem.

Don’t worry, this does have a point. And it does have to do with the title. I’m getting to that.

Anyway, I’ve found, however, several times throughout my rewriting process, I have packaged up and shipped off several sub-stories/plots/whatever you want to call them just so they wouldn’t take up too much space, and haven’t allowed them enough room to be interesting. This is where I’ve become too concerned with length.

So, after a recent discussion on CC opened my eyes to this problem, I’ve decided to let my sub-plots blossom a little more, including conflict and all the good things that makes a story interesting. Right now it has been a budding romance between two of the semi-main [or important, I should say] characters, Toran and Treya. It’s become a lot more complicated [in a good way], deep, and much more interesting. I’m so much more satisfied with it now that I’ve allowed it to be more than “I love you.” “I love you too.” “Okay, now we’re in love.” [okay, so it wasn’t that bad, but I just wasn’t very open to any conflict that could make the romance be drawn out more. And that was a mistake.]

Now, Treya believes she is cursed and she can never truly be loved because of who she is. Now Toran doesn’t know what to do, because he’s in love with Treya but she avoids him like the plague, because she’s too scared that he’ll get caught up in her curse. Now my FMC[female main character]Kaena is caught in the middle of this conflict between two of her good friends, trying to help them get together but possibly making things worse. Now it’s much more interesting, and seeing Toran and Treya finally get together will be so much sweeter. 🙂

So…what about you? Ever had a sub-plot or whatever you call it that you tried to keep short and get out of the way quickly so it wouldn’t take away from the main plot? Did you end up letting it grow into something more, and did you like the end result better because of that?