Writerly Ways

Having a bad exhaustion day (sugar related thought not sure WHY it's so high) didn't accomplish much but I can do a writerly ways.

Let's talk about sub plots and do we need them? Obviously this will be a case by case sort of thing but the big thing to consider from my point of view is 'does the subplot add to or distract from the main action?' Lately I've read a couple mysteries (and seen a few friends running into this in their reads) where the subplot is only tangentially related. In one case it was obvious the author wanted to do something that paralleled the Amanda KNox case in Italy and literally had two separate mysteries running in one book. Yes he tried to tie it back in but it barely worked. I'm sure the reason he didn't make it two books is how would you get these detectives (NYC) in Italy for two books?

The one I'm on now I don't even see how they relate (as I'm not done) where we have a murder at the opera in Washington DC and some spy thriller nonsense in Jordan. How these two possibly relate I can not imagine but it's hugely distracting and I'm about to use these audio book cds as frisbees.

Some books will take multiple or greatly divergent subplots better than others. A sweeping fantasy series can probably handle it fairly well. Something like a mystery or romance, you might be better served to keep the story tighter.

Regardless of genre, for me subplots were better where you can see easily how the subplots tie into the main action. It's when you have subplots that leave you going what the hell does this have to do with anything that you're in trouble.

So how about you? Do you like subplots? Do they annoy you? Or like I suspect will be the case for most of us, the mileage will vary.


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