Introduction
After boring (or terrifying) you with last week’s discussion of outlining your story, what exactly do you outline?
I promise (or threaten) we’ll get back there. The topics we cover for the next three weeks provide the elements for what you may want to include in your outline:
Plot
Story structure
Narrative arc
Up first, plot.
This will be a fairly cursory look at what might be the most important single element of a story. But we’ll build on this each week thereafter.
Plot: What happens
Plot answers the question “what happens.”
Plot is the series of events that make up the story about a character who desperately wants something that isn’t easy to achieve.
These events relate to each other in a pattern or sequence through a cause-and-effect relationship, and end in a satisfactory conclusion in which the character either achieves the goal or fails to achieve the goal, but ends up changed (for better or worse).
The plot of Cinderella is pretty straightforward:
Little girl’s mother has died, father has remarried to a wicked stepmother with two mean-girl daughters.
The king and queen are holding a ball to find a wife for the prince.
Cinderella has to stay home while the stepmother and stepsisters attend.
A fairy godmother shows up and gets Cinderella dressed and ready for the ball, including a unique pair of glass slippers, and magically provides transportation. The only stipulation is that Cinderella must leave by midnight when the spell ends.
Cinderella is the belle of the ball and dances with the prince, who falls in love with her.
When the clock begins striking midnight, she flees the castle before the spell ends. She throws a shoe as she runs away.
She returns home to her dysfunctional family where she continues to be bullied.
The prince, having found the glass slipper, sets out across the countryside in search of the woman he fell in love with, a woman whose dainty foot will fit in the glass slipper.
The prince eventually arrives at Cinderella’s home, the shoe fits, they fall deeply in love and get married, making Cinderella the princess.
That is a brief plot outline of Cinderella. It does not include every scene, and the events it does include are not in any level of detail. But it provides a general outline to the plot and tells “what happens.”
Of course, that’s a children’s story and it’s pretty simple and straightforward.
But that’s a great way to start your outline. Outline your plot. Stick to the major events, the turning points that describe the “what happens.”
Think if you had sixty seconds to tell someone the answer to that dreaded question, “What’s your story about?”
Plot can get much more complex than Cinderella. There are, of course, options to consider. There are always options.
There are books out there that claim there are only seven basic plots for all stories ever written. Other books claim there are only three. Or thirty-six. Or 1,462.
None of that matters. Okay, it matters, and if you’re interested, you can search for books on plotting.
That’s not what we’re here to discuss. I’m assuming you have an idea for a story and you know what your story is about. Which plot archetype it fits into isn’t the point of this discussion. And some of the “plots” that are listed in these books, I would consider as story structure, not plot.
We’ll get into structure next week.
Single plot
Many stories have one plot, like Cinderella. There may be one main character, and that character wants to achieve one primary goal or objective. All events and scenes are directly related to achieving that goal and overcoming obstacles along the way.
There’s nothing wrong with a single-plot story. It’s the standard. But that’s not the only plot choice.
Adding complexity to the plot can make for a more interesting, compelling story. More threads for the reader to follow. More characters for the reader to care about.
Dual plots
A story may have two separate plots of equal or nearly equal importance.
The main character might have two distinct goals, or there might be two characters, each with a distinct goal. Those goals probably conflict or interact.
Each plot has its own set of obstacles and conflicts.
The two plots should be interrelated and connected in some way, whether or not that is obvious at the beginning of the story. Otherwise, what you have isn’t a dual-plot story but two separate stories that should probably go in two separate books.
Going back to the book Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue, which we discussed in the article on perspective, there is one main character, Ravi.
The character appears in two different forms at two different times.
Ravi as a young woman striving to become a doctor in the 1920s, which has a lot of obstacles since women in that day did not normally become doctors. That was a man’s world; women became nurses. Or wives.
Ravi’s ghost in contemporary times who is occupying a house with a modern-day couple. She tries to help them overcome marital problems, without them knowing she exists.
The two stories—two dual plots—connect and tie together, not just because it’s the same character, but the threads come together.
Subplot
Subplots are different from dual plots. Dual plots can be of equal or nearly equal importance.
Subplots are secondary in nature to the main plot and support the main plot, enhance the characterization, and add to reader interest.
Perhaps the most common subplot is a romantic element.
Maybe you’re writing a sci-fi story where the captain and first officer of the spaceship have to make it back to Earth without getting blown to pieces by an alien enemy ship. But the captain and first officer, having worked in close quarters together for months, are falling in love with each other while trying to maintain a professional working relationship.
That romance is a subplot. The main plot is if they live or die.
Subplots should be interrelated to and connected to the main plot.
Does the romance between the captain and first officer complicate their mission? What if the first officer is confronted with a choice? She could take some action that would save the ship and the crew but the captain would die, or she could try to save the man she loves by putting the entire crew at risk.
Subplots can often arise from the main character’s interactions with a secondary character, or some event transpiring in the life of a secondary character.
Other subplots can arise from one of the conflicts or obstacles the main character has to face in the main plot.
For example, if the main plot is about a woman struggling to become an actress, there will naturally be a lot of obstacles and conflicts for her to overcome, Hollywood being a tough business.
One of those obstacles might be meeting a producer who is kind and charming, and even a bit shy around her. He’s unlike any producer she has ever met, but she still doesn’t trust him due to her prior experiences with some slimy movie producers. She’s attracted to him, but she doesn’t trust her own judgment, and has vowed to resist any romantic entanglements while she pursues her dreams.
The main plot is still the struggle to become a successful actress.
The subplot is the potential romance and relationship.
The connection is how that relationship could positively or negatively impact her career as well as break her heart or make her happy ever after.
Multiple subplots
Often books have several subplots, not just one.
Keep in mind that subplots must support the main plot yet be interesting in their own right for readers.
Let’s go back to an illustration we used in a previous article in this series: the detective trying to catch a serial killer. Let’s make that plot more complex.
The detective works long hours in a high-stress job, dealing with vicious crimes. He self-medicates by stopping at the local bar after work and drinking too much. Meanwhile, his wife is frustrated with him—his long hours, his drinking—and their relationship is falling apart.
She orders the detective out of the house. He moves into a seedy motel a few miles away.
The serial killer is watching the news (he loves to hear about his latest crime on TV). The detective appears on the screen answering reporters’ questions. The killer remembers this detective. Years earlier (backstory), the detective had arrested the killer (before he was a killer) on an assault charge, and our bad guy had spent a couple years in prison.
Now he sees an opportunity for revenge. He tracks down where the detective lives and watches the house for days. He learns the detective has moved out and the wife lives alone.
So the killer breaks in one night, planning to make the detective’s wife his next victim.
Now the plot just got really complex:
Main plot: Detective wants to catch a serial killer before he strikes again.
Subplot A: Detective has personal issues, alcohol abuse, stress, marital relationship on the rocks.
Subplot B: His wife kicks him out, further depressing him as he tries to get his act together to save his marriage.
Subplot C: Serial killer plans to kill the detective’s wife out of vengeance.
Notice how each subplot directly impacts the main plot. Each subplot raises the tension, raises the stakes.
The wife is vulnerable in Subplot C because she is home alone because of Subplot B because she kicked her husband out because of Subplot A. Now all the subplots are moving toward a single climactic conclusion. It’s not just a standalone minor plot (detective after a killer, oh and by the way, his wife ain’t happy).
All subplots should be satisfactorily resolved by the end of the book. You don’t want to just leave readers hanging and wondering whatever happened to this that one story thread.
The detective decides to stop by the house to check on his wife because she’s not answering the phone. He gets there just in time to stop the killer.
But readers also want to know if he and his wife resolve their issues and get back together after the detective joins AA, quits the police force, and gets a stress-free job as a fishing guide.
Even if a subplot isn’t neatly wrapped up in a tidy little bow, there should be a vague sense that it’s on its way to completion. Maybe the wife tells the detective she’ll think about giving him another chance if he gets counseling, and that’s where the story is left.
Resolved, but still untidy.
Discussion and things to think about
1. Have you already outlined or sketched out your main plot points?
2. Are you working with single, dual, or subplots?
3. Do your dual or subplots intersect with or support the main plot?
4. Do all subplots get resolved? Whether they’re all happy endings or not doesn’t matter as long as they’re completed or on the way to completion.
Comments, questions? Does your work-in-progress have dual or subplots? Share with the group in the comments section.
Next up
Next week, we’ll talk about organizational structure of your story. If plot is ‘what happens,’ structure is ‘how it happens, how the story unfolds.’
The week after that, we’ll wrap up with narrative arc and lay out a process for outlining your story that ensures all the elements are there and in the right places.
I'm a plotter. Lately, I've been using the Romancing the Beat plot structure by Gwen Hayes. She takes the basic Save the Cat beat sheet by Blake Snyder and tailors it for romance. You can download the template and import it into Scrivener. I've plotted my current WIP. I tend to think in terms of the romance being the story, and what happens is the plot. I'm not entirely sure I have a subplot (yet). I'm gonna think more on that.
I like a good subplot and it is frustrating to the reader if it doesn't get resolved in the end (per your point #4)
"Think if you had sixty seconds to tell someone the answer to that dreaded question, “What’s your story about?”' This is a good takeaway for me. Just write a short synopsis and expand on it.