Thanks for sharing your knowledge & insight so freely. You've helped me maneuver around many pitfalls of writing my first book. I'm currently on my 3rd draft & couldn't have done it without you! You're awesome!
With story consistance, i would say. If you subplot have no little things to do with your main plot (in a strict general way) well maybe it will seem just as a filler or non-sens, a good subplot in my opinion give new information and new context or experience about the main plot or the characters or the setting of your story, while focusing on a smaller problem than the actual problem of the main plot, and that's it after all those little rules applied it's just a basic story structure, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, dénouement, and voilà! You got a subplot ! You can also keep them as long as you want during your story, it dosent need to end in the same chapter as you introduce them, it can follow trough the whole story, i even personally recomand it, it give more time and space to give them depht and importance.
But did you know that you could hire the editor of the Hunger Games? Ok. Jokes aside, I've found it to be common that authors (myself included) spend too much time on subplots. You may have covered this before, but it seems to happen often that writers become more invested in their supporting cast than fleshing out their story's protagonist. One of the ways I've seen this play out is by fleshing out the lore (settings, character backgrounds, item history etc., etc., etc.) which may serve a theme in the protagonist's journey, that ultimately doesn't get the hero anywhere closer toward the next step on their journey. Has this happened for you? Have you found an antidote?
Hey, I don't know if you will read this, but I was watching your playlist "how to develop a book" and it's not appearing anymore, you deleted it? If so, I'm a little sad.😅😅
Absolutely. As long as the backstory braids into the main story and makes the main story even stronger, and as long as the timing structure is correct (it should be 'just-in-time' backstory-info the reader needs just before the moment they need it). Backstory does not 'halt' the forward motion of a story, as some claim. If done well, it is still forward motion, it's just a part of the story revealed, later, to have been a part of the timeline, earlier. It feels to the reader that things are still moving forward, bc they are.
@@tomlewis4748 thnx, i'm slightly gun shy about both backstory and subplots so i only try either if i'm convinced i can pull it off. this backstory i'm thinking or making a subplot that goes back a generation. it shines light on the prime storyline. i'm still not sure what is the best way to go about it