What’s a subplot?

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines a subplot as “a secondary sequence of actions in a dramatic or narrative work,” which is true enough, but not always much help when you’re having difficulty figuring out which parts of your manuscript are subplots and which aren’t.

For my money, the key to figuring out subplot is the second half of the word: plot. A subplot is still a plot; that is, at its core is some kind of problem that can eventually be checked off as a success or failure. Note that, unlike the central plot, a subplot doesn’t have to be checked off one way or the other; it can be left hanging. It just has to be possible for a subplot to be rated as a success or failure.

Also, the function of a subplot in the story has nothing to do with what it is. A writer can decide that his/her novel needs to be darker and more moody, so he/she throws in some thematic thunderstorms and a background haunted house. The scenes may succeed brilliantly at making the story darker, but they’re not a subplot. A different writer, with the same intention, decides that one of the characters suspects that the unseasonable storms are tied to the haunted house and starts investigating; suddenly, there’s a subplot mystery to be solved. Same elements and characters and situation, but with a plot question that will need to be resolved or acknowledged by the end of the story.

Subplots are the parts of the story that you reluctantly leave out when you are crafting your elevator pitch, and can only hint at in your two-paragraph query letter summary: “When a tornado carries young Dorothy off to the magical Land of Oz, she enlists the help of a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion to help her kill a wicked witch and persuade the mysterious Wizard of Oz to send her home.” The quest for the scarecrow’s brain, the tin man’s heart, and the lion’s courage are all subplots. Glinda and the ruby slippers are the solution to the main plot problem (getting Dorothy home); they’d show up in the two-paragraph summary.

Using a different metaphor, the main plot is the planet and the subplots are the stuff in orbit around it. The ones that are tied really tightly to the main plotline are the man-made satellites in low orbit that wouldn’t exist without the main plotline, but that aren’t strictly necessary to its existence. The more independent plotlines are different sizes of moons, and you could look at the really complex, closely interrelated multi-character subplots (usually political) as the rings of Saturn. OK, maybe that’s extending the metaphor a little too far…

The difference between a subplot and a subsidiary arc of the main plot is that you could theoretically remove the subplot and the main storyline would still work, but if you take out a subsidiary arc of the main plot, the story falls apart. You can take out the scarecrow’s quest for a brain, and the getting-Dorothy-home main plot still works, but you can’t call the journey from Munchkinland to the Emerald City a subplot, because if Dorothy stays in Munchkinland, the main plotline stops before it gets properly started. You can take out the subplot about Legolas and Gimli slowly becoming friends, but you can’t take out Gandalf curing Theodin without sending one of the main plotlines off in a totally different direction.

It can be hard to tell the difference between a closely-linked subplot and an arc or episode of the main plot. The thing is, you don’t have to be able to do this in order to write them. You really only need to be able to identify subplots accurately if a) you are taking a creative writing class, b) you want to talk to a bunch of writers about them, with examples, or c) you are having trouble with one or more subplots in your own work. In fact, I would argue that having trouble disentangling your subplots from your central plot is a sign of tight writing, which is a thing many writers have to work hard at learning.

What you can do with subplots is for the next post.