Subplots Quotes

The romance is the primary plot in a story that has two plots. The second plot is not a subplot, but one that is interwoven with the romance plot (if that makes sense.) A story needs compelling characters in a compelling plot. ~ Madeline Hunter

A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots. ~ Darin Strauss

At three and four and five, children may not be able to follow complicated plots and subplots. But the narrative form, psychologists now believe, is absolutely central to them. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

If God is an author and the universe is the biggest novel ever written, I may feel as if I'm the lead character in the story, but like every man and woman on Earth, I am a suporting player in one of billions of subplots. You know what happens to supporting players. Too often they are killed off in chapter 3, or in chapter 10, or in chapter 35. A supporting player always has to be looking over his shoulder. ~ Dean Koontz

A garden path,' write the landscape architects Charles W. Moore, William J. Mitchell, and William Turnbull, 'can become the thread of a plot, connecting moments and incidents into a narrative. The narrative structure might be a simple chain of events with a beginning, middle, and end. It might be embellished with diversions, digressions, and picaresque twists, be accompanied by parallel ways (subplots), or deceptively fork into blind alleys like the althernative scenerios explored in a detective novel. ~ Rebecca Solnit

People don't come to Marvel movies for personal life subplots, no. ~ Anthony Mackie

In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict. ~ Jeffery Deaver

YA heroines can have romances that are subplots: can have goals other than getting/keeping a man: can put their lovers second. JUST LIKE YAheroes DO! ~ Celine Kiernan

When I'm really entrenched in my writing, I seem to go through mini-writer's block cycles that usually last a week or so. They make me moody. My husband has a routine to help me get through the blocks. He forces me to take a day off, and he insists on my relaxing and taking in other forms of art to recharge my creativity. It actually works really well, but whenever I'm that into my work, I won't take a day off willingly.

I do have a system for when I have a novel idea. I like to research a whole lot first and take notes by hand, and then I outline and figure out the plot based on the history and research. Next, I write everything I can as quickly as I can without worrying about grammar or even writing well. Then, I go back and read through and start fixing things. It's kind of like a process to create the framework then I can go back in and make other layers shine.

Making the rest of the layers, really known as the editing process, is where things get crazy. I don't have a system for it because it's kind of a journey of discovery. I'll know things are wrong, but I won't always know how to fix them. When I discover the solution, it might take the story to a place I never would have guessed.

That happened a lot for A White Room. In the beginning I only had the idea for the first half of the story and just the story of Emeline – none of the subplots or stories of the other characters were there yet. Not even John's story. It was just Emeline u ~ Stephanie Carroll

In my own life I studied music, not creative writing; I see a novel as music - an opening as an overture, themes and subplots as lines in a fugue. The chance to write a novel about a musician boxed in by all kinds of limitations but who plays out his ultimate struggle for freedom at the piano was irresistible. ~ Nicole Mones

You're able to do things in novels: introduce subplots, other characters, thematic layers and so on, in a way that you simply can't in a movie. A movie really has to choose its battles. ~ Walter Kirn

All well and good, but for our purposes these otherwise-valuable insights are mere subplots almost designed to carry us down side trails while blithely humming a tune about the rough equivalence of forests and trees. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

Life doesn't have plots and subplots and denouements. It's just a big collection of loose ends and dangling threads that never get explained. ~ Grant Morrison

I think, in the grand epic, Jesus is the hero of our stories. And our stories, as they were, are subplots in a grand epic and our job is not to be the hero of any story. Our job is to be a saint in a story that he is telling. ~ Donald Miller

Although 'L.A. Confidential' is a long movie, there's never a moment when you think, 'I'm loving this ... but when's dinner?' Each time I see it, I discover something I hadn't noticed before. It has a tremendous skill in developing all the subplots. ~ Julian Fellowes

My friend Isabel says, When you're writing even a short novel, with at least a couple of subplots, and God only knows how many characters, your brain holds the volume of it beyond the ability of your consciousness.
Of course. ~ Sarah Manguso

The way that Dickens structured his books has a form that we most readily recognize now from, say, the great T.V. series, like 'The Wire' or 'The Sopranos.' There's one central plot line, but then from that spin off all kinds of subplots. ~ Jennifer Egan