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creating subplots

I have just mapped out my main storyline using a mindmap program. I noticed that it is a pretty straight line without really any subplots.

How do you come up with subplots, cause I am looking and my main line seems interesting enough, but I don't want it to be like the railroad track it is right now.
 
Considering subplotting when you change venue. If your setting changes, likely there will be subplots in those locales that could ultimately affect your story arch...or not. But, every city has it's own issues; explore some of those, maybe.
 

pskelding

Troubadour
Subplots can also be born when you throw setbacks at your main character though may or may not involve your main character, they may only involve secondary protagonists and can affect them and their goals more. There is no requirement for subplots and be careful to make sure you have wrapped them all up by the end of the novel or you leave them at a suitable cliffhanger or suitable stopping point for the reader.
 
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Kevlar

Troubadour
I don't sweat about subplots, they just reveal themselves. My current version of my pet project, a complete rewrite, has only three chapters concerning a specific pair of young (15 and 16) outlaw-nobles. Two chapters use the fiteen year old for POV, one the sixteen year old. Those chapters have endless subplot possibilities, some of which will evolve over time into major plots. One of them won't even crop up again for 4 story years, at which point it will become hugely significant. Another, like that one, hasn't quite been revealed, but it plays importantly into the fifteen year old's harrowed past. I can't even put my finger on what's really a subplot or a plot in my story though, and this brings up an important point, albeit one steeped in opinion: subplots aren't sidequests. If I'm reading a book that has subplots just randomly plopped on like sidequests in an RPG I'd rather it didn't happen. I want the novel to flow, to be dynamic. Granted, many RPGs do a damn good job of incorporating sidequests into the main plot, or of at least not making them seem like a total different story, but think of the video games (if any) you've played where the sidequests seem more like filler than fun. "Oh yay, let's go gather potion ingredients for the wizard! We'll spend an hour (real life time) picking weeds and killing giant hornets, just to get a mediocre payment! But it won't delay us from saving the world! It's not like the enemy actually does anything until we trigger a cutscene..."

Now do you know what I'm talking about? If you're characters have the fate of the world in their hands, are they really going to help all the villagefolk with their chores? Not damn likely, unless the 'Dark Lord' decides, "Oh, they're doing goodly, mundane deeds, I think I'll sit here and let them finish."

If your subplots don't make sense, don't include them. If they flow well, and the main plot is progressing as the subplot does, it works. If the plot has to stomp on the brakes for the subplot to pass go it's better for it not to be there.

To sum it up, as afore mentioned: Subplots aren't side-quests.
 
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I remember when I read the books of amber by zelanzy, and how he kept me confused throughout by all the sub plots moving around between the other characters. Sub plots don't have to be about, or even including, your main character. You want to mislead the reader about what is really going on, a nice sub plot amongst the side characters can do that quite well to cause some distractions that work well...assuming that before the story is done you do let the reader in on what the sub plot was about so they won't get upset and feel you are cheating them.

Where you can create them from is pretty much anyone one or any situation that could spawn in a different direction than the main plot. Just be careful the sub plot doesn't take over the main plot.
 

Ophiucha

Auror
I like to work backwards with subplots; I'm a sucker for things that are very intertwined, where the ending is just... wow, everything comes together. In my own writing, I make that happen by working backwards from where I want my original ending to be. Say my story is about a woman questing to kill her father, who is King of the Dragonlords. The ending: she kills her father. Obviously, the easiest subplots to work into this would be ones of oppressive rule under this King, or of other nations who seek to conquer. I find people who have their own reasons to want the King dead and I include them. That's a rather simple one, though, so for the sake of expansion, I would also want to have the woman take over, become Queen of the Dragonlords. Then I could have characters who also want the throne, and I could have the would-be-Queen kill the King in a show of great power, to prove her might and her right to the throne. As I expand on the main story, I can give other characters - often ones who had to be there for one reason or another anyway - more purpose, more reason to accept the conclusion of the story as the conclusion to their own little plots. Helps me develop the main plot, too, since they play off of each other.
 

Shadoe

Sage
I've noticed that I have been including subplots in my stories lately. When you asked how to come up with them, my first thought was, "They just happen!" But on further thought, no, they come about usually from the characters. What do they want? What are they doing to get it? Do they have goals outside the big one?

I'll give an example using my latest story.

The main plot involves four of my Imperial Guards cleaning up the bad guy organization which they found in my last story. They still had to finish wiping out the stragglers and find the traitor in their own organization. Pretty one-track. But, I thought, why not tell some of the story from the POV of the bad guys? That gave me two subplots to weave in: one bad guy wanted to get enough money to appease his corporate masters-- er, his bad guy masters. :) Another one of the bad guys wanted to expose someone in the organization that he didn't like as a traitor. Of our good guys, though, I have one of them trying to get close to a woman he met in the course of the investigation. He has to talk to her to get information and now he's got another reason to see her. Alas, she doesn't survive, so now he's got a reason to go hard on the bad guys for revenge. My main character is actually taking a back seat while driving the whole plot - he's the reason everyone is looking for the McGuffin in this case. His assistant gets to go do all his legwork. She's looking for the thing while taking along another Imperial Guard, who she finds attractive and flirts with. They're chasing after this guy who is also after the McGuffin and they both want it for a number of different reasons - all of which have an effect on how they go about doing what they do. There's actually some more going on, but you get the general picture.

Basically, what I did was ask myself what the characters want, and what they're doing to get that. What else could they want, in addition to that McGuffin? Those wants can be personal things (one guy wants a date with a witness, another wants a promotion, another wants money, and another wants revenge), or they can be things that tie in with the plot (there's a hostage situation at one point). Now that they have those motivations, what can they do within the scope of the story to get those things?

Some subplots come about as part of the plot, too. Using the same story above, I have one guy who needs to find out about the plans the bad guys have. One of the bad guys was going to turn traitor, so he wrote down a lot of information which he was going to turn over to the good guys. Straightforward, right? Unfortunately, he died before he could turn it over, so now the good guys know the info exists but not where it is, so one plot is finding it. Still pretty straightforward. But the traitor didn't want the other bad guys to know he was compiling all this information, so he wrote it in code, and everyone needs the codebreaker to get the information. Now they have to look for the books AND the codebreaker - AND get it before the other side does. So what are they going to do to get these? In this way, we can create subplots by simply putting roadblocks in our characters' way.
 
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JCFarnham

Auror
Its not fantasy, but ...

In this years Nano, I'm basically writing a space opera-type story, secret government plots and a rebel element fighting against them [yes THAT old plot haha its a homage], the most important subplot is, at the start, a full on romance that's [almost] entirely not related to the main plot. Eventually you find out the two involved are Warships who end up aiding the main plotline rebels in the final confrontation. Odd stuff.

Yay sci-fi... haha

But you see, Subplots can at first seem unrelated and THEN converge, or the complete opposite, or you could take your cues from some Shakespeare works and have a completely parallel subplot that relates nearly only in theme.. lots of options! So I would just think what root I want to take, whether plot/character based, or theme-based, convergent, divergent, parallel and figure out character motivations from there; instant sub-plot material.
 
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