The HEA Cafe

BRAIDING SUBPLOTS TO CREATE A SEAMLESS WHOLE.

Lecture #2

Cathy Clamp

If you remember from the last lecture, our hero is a cop who is trying to stay alive long enough to both testify against a Mafia don, and be the best man at his friend’s wedding. Now, how does the writer go about braiding the wedding through the primary plot, and what does “braiding” mean, anyway?

Well, consider how you braid hair. You have a main bunch of hair and two or three smaller bunches. By turning them in and through the others, you create a stronger, visually pleasing whole. In the case of the wedding, let’s say the best friend informs the hero he needs to get fitted for a tux, and tonight is the ONLY night the tailor can do the job. You can have the hero sneak in the back door of the tailor, parking blocks down and walking in the shadows to avoid the goons that nearly caught him finding a critical file folder or flash drive. Getting to the church on time might take on new meaning as the mob gets closer to finding him and/or the heroine. He might have to dive in the back door of the church when everyone’s waiting at the altar, or make progress calls to the groom so the poor guy doesn’t panic. This is subplot #1—survive to become the best man.

Then, maybe he has to referee a fight between the bride and groom so the wedding can even happen, and winds up with his buddy sleeping on his couch for a night or two–disrupting his planned night alone with the heroine. The fight, while a PART of subplot #1, actually can become subplot #2, because there might be more going on with the best friend than meets the eye. Perhaps it blends back in with the primary plot far more than the hero could have imagined. The bride might have a secret she’s been keeping, like maybe she’s the Mafia don’s favorite niece.

There can be other plots, too—family obligations like a weekly dinner with the heroine’s parents, or a sick pet that causes emotional angst. They are the “life threads” that make your people just like people you know in real life. The reader WANTS your characters to be just like real people, and the more bits and pieces of reality you can scatter in, the better your reader will like it.

If you discover you’ve gone several chapters into the romance without a “life” thread, you might consider a “plot complication.” This isn’t precisely a subplot, but still gives some beef to the character’s background or real life, and it wraps up quickly—meaning you don’t have to braid. It’s in and done with no fuss. You could have her get her nails done like clockwork every week and be so faithful about it that she nearly misses an important lunch with the hero. Or have him drop the coffee pot on his way out the door to work, and wind up missing the bus because he was sweeping glass. Or, have a bird fly in the window behind him as he’s sneaking in to avoid the car watching the house, and have the cat chase it all over the house . . . trashing the living room just when the bride is coming over to show him color schemes. Main plot blends into plot complication, blends into subplot. Etc., etc.

Weave things in and out to add complications. But always make sure the majority of subplots resolve themselves by the end of the book (e.g., the wedding has to actually HAPPEN, with the hero in attendance, for the subplot to have been effective.) Even if it’s just a lick and a promise for a plot complication, such as hiring a maid service and leaving the key under the mat . . . praying that the mob’s goons won’t find it. He can either be pleasantly surprised at a clean house just as the bride arrives, or horrified to find a dead maid in the living room. Your choice.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss using subplots to actually CREATE your character’s world, ideal for alternate reality, paranormal, or fantasy.