A single plot on its own usually isn’t enough to fill an entire book.
To do that, you need subplots!
But what are subplots are how do you use them? Let’s find out!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we do a stream about “how to plan a subplot.”
Watch the full video here or scroll down for highlights.
What is a Subplot?
- A subplot is any plotline in a story that isn’t the main plotline
- For example: in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Hagrid hatching the dragon egg is a subplot to the main plot of finding the Sorcerer’s Stone
- In The Hunger Games, Katniss’s love triangle with Gale and Peeta is a subplot to the main plot of the Hunger Games tournament
Why Use Subplots?
- Subplots can enhance the main plot, especially when they interact with them both mechanically and thematically
- For example: the dragon egg subplot gets Harry and friends caught out at night and sent to detention in the Forbidden Forest, and it is also how they figure out that Hagrid told a stranger how to get past Fluffy (mechanical)
- Another example: Katniss’s romantic shift from Gale to Peeta is analogous to her shift from just wanting to survive/run away to wanting to fight/make a difference (thematic)
How To Come Up With a Subplot?
- There are tons of different kinds of subplots, just pick what works best for your story!
- World-expanding subplot (like in Harry Potter)
- Romantic subplot (like in Hunger Games)
- Rival subplot (two characters who hate each other, like Harry and Draco/Snape)
- Mystery subplot (like in Neal Shusterman’s “Unwind”)
- Backstory subplot (like in Louis Sachar’s “Holes”)
- The most important thing is to use a subplot that intertwines with your main plot and expands upon it, not one that is detached from it
Chat then voted that we come up with some backstories for this plot idea: shortly after the discovery of fire, a caveman plans the world’s first robbery.
Here’s what we came up with:
Expanded plotline: Og is a down-on-his-luck 40th century BC food-gatherer planning a fire heist as a last-ditch effort to try and become the alpha male hunter of the tribe that he was exiled from. In his tribe they eat raw meat, but he hears about a tribe nearby that has fire to cook meat, and Og decides to prove his worth by stealing the fire and bringing it back home.
World-expanding subplot
- As a gatherer, Og steals an egg for dinner, almost getting eaten by a dinosaur. He learns the thrill of the chase, he wants to rob something bigger or more important, makes him realize he CAN steal.
Romantic subplot
- Og also has issues with his wife and sees the robbery as a way to impress her and reignite their love life
Rival subplot
- The tribe’s alpha male who doesn’t want to have cooking in their tribe because it’s not traditional (against their religion, stealing from the sun, stuck in ways that made him the leader, “eat the way that nature intended us to eat”)
Mystery subplot
- Pterodactyl corpses are piling up and no one knows why? (maybe another tribe has already invented arrows)
- Random tribe members are turning up dead (because they’re eating raw meat which carries diseases)
- Caveman illuminati (time traveling tourists who come back to this period to see the important historical moment)
- Mysterious white stuff starts falling from the sky and it’s getting colder than ever before, thick snow clouds feeds into the theory that he’s stealing the sun (maybe they burn him in the end as an offering to the sun god!)
Backstory subplot
- Fire was originally robbed from a dragon (aka what they think are the dinosaurs), that’s how it was first invented
Of course we can’t use ALL of those subplots in the story, but weaving in a couple of them is a good way to take a simple idea and start forming it into something that’s book-length.
Be sure to check out the video for more comments, explanations, and great ideas from chat!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso