I'm sure that there have been Threads on this before, and I'm pretty sure that I'm being too vague to really give you all much to work on. I send out my apologies in advance... I've been plotting out a story for the past two days, but I think that it may work better as a sub-plot to a larger story than an independant short-story. The problem is that I don't have any sub-plots that could connect with this one. This (,if it happens,) is going to be a fantasy, and I'm in the process of mapping out the town. They are currently at war with another, which I plan to do a sub-plot along those lines, and there are religious differences that I would also like to touch upon with a plot. So there could be maybe three different plot-lines going on in the same universe in this story, but I have no clue how to inter-connect them. Is this important to do, or could I have a cast of characters that never meet up with one-another? Advice? Please and thank 'ya.
Well, just think about what you have to do. You got maybe three stories that need to come together, so you have to find common ground. There are tons of examples of war and religion in real life to go on. Is there some way the characters in plot A can intersect with characters in plot B at any time?
if its a short story you can do subplots but depending on the word count you have to remember any subplots can steal away from the mainplot as you bring in more characters for the reader to remember and get attached to. you have to ask yourself, does the subplot help or hinder the story.
Unless it is somthing you are good at. Thomas Pynchon's short storys, Mortality and Mercy in Vienna and Under the Rose are literally littered with sub-plots, yet neitherone is longer than ten pages. If it's something you can do well, than there is no reason why you can't.
I originally wanted one of the sub-plots to be a short-story, but now I'd like to do a novel with all the sub-plots. There's no way that I could cram all of them into one ten-page story!
If they are completely unrelated and only take place in the same universe, it would be like a collection of three novellas. A good example of three stories merging into one is Sawn Song by McaCammon.
Thx. I was wondering if readers could accept three semi-unrelated stories taking place within the same universe or not.
That doesn't really-- that IS vague, to me. Couldn't it just be about two towns warring because of religious differences? You could make millions of subplots based upon that premise, alone. Frankly, most award-winning movies do just that: They take one single idea or concept, and stretch it to fill a three-hour movie, using minor subplots to fill in the spaces.
Subplots My advice is to have two or three major subplots and imply or make vauge references to any others. This builds up background detail about the world your creating. Also with major subplots use them to give information about character’s personalities and histories as well as additional information about the location of the story Most importantly try to avoid what I call the ‘Neverending conclusion’. This happens after the main story has finished but none of the subplots have leaving the reader to wade through pages and pages of wrap up.
