Episode: 2776
Title: HPR2776: Sub-Plots In Storytelling
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2776/hpr2776.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 16:41:44

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This is HPR Episode 2776 entitled Subplots in Storytelling and is part of the series Random
Elements on Storytelling.
It is hosted by Lost in Drunks and in about 18 minutes long and Karima Clean Flag.
The summary is Lost in Drunks looks at the importance of title structure and Subplots
in Storytelling.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Watch Universal Access to All Knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash
Hello, this is Lost in Drunks and you'll have to forgive the audio quality I'm in the
car right now.
Today I would like to talk to you about Subplots in Storytelling.
Now I've already talked probably at Nazium about the plot and what the function of a plot
is and why you might want to have a complicated one versus a simple one, etc., etc.
But the subplot is worthy of examination.
Larger stories will often have several.
It's not unusual to see two or even three subplots in a movie or in a novel depending
on the size of the novel and the complexity you can have quite a few subplots.
This will often but not always involve secondary characters.
Characters other than the main ones, ones that we do like, we do care about them and they're
probably directly involved in the main plot but then they have a story, a mini story effectively
that involves just them and that is kind of turned into this subplot.
Now what's the function of a subplot?
Well a subplot can be used for different effects.
There are many stories that have subplots, probably only to fill up space, quite frankly.
Because the main story isn't going to be the size of a novel or a full-size movie or
won't even get them through an entire season of a television show, that sort of thing.
So they have all these subplots to kind of be everything up.
That's a really cheap way of using one.
It's not a great way of using it.
It's almost a waste, in fact.
If that's the kind of thing you're doing, you may as well just be doing an anthology
story or a short story, just do a short story maybe and cut the subplot out entirely.
I believe that at its finest, the subplot will expand upon the characters, who they are,
what they are, the things they want.
It will properly dovetail into the main plot.
It will support it, it will beef that up on its own, not by filling up the space.
But by enhancing the structure of the main plot.
And finally, it will be emotionally satisfying.
And in the end, that is the most important criteria of a subplot.
That's why subplots that are essentially just there as filler, that's why they can work
because they're emotionally satisfying.
If the subplots are attached to characters that we really enjoy, characters that matter
to us as the audience, secondary characters, main characters, it doesn't really matter
at this point.
If we really care about them, then the storyline that involves them primarily, if it gets
wrapped up in an emotionally satisfying way, we tend to look at that subplot as being
valid, useful, and well done.
But as I say, I think there are even better ways to manage a subplot.
In the end, a subplot should probably also be used to wrap up or could be used to wrap
up any plot holes or dangling elements to a storyline that there's just no other way
to satisfy it within the main plot.
You have a secondary storyline, you have a subplot that will help you wrap up those little
plot details that maybe you can get to in the main storyline.
So in other words, a subplot can do way more than simply throw a little light on secondary
characters.
That is probably the simplest way to use a subplot, but a subplot that expands upon the whole
texture of the story, helping to build the main plot, helping to build up the characters,
helping to tie up all of the plot details, character details, themes, et cetera.
That's what your subplot could be doing for you.
So I talk about using a subplot simply to fill up spaces if that's a terrible thing.
It's a lazy thing.
That's all it is.
It's just lazy.
It's not terrible.
On occasion, it's exactly what you want and nothing more.
But by and large, you can use it for more than simply that.
When these things tie all together, you automatically get the bonus.
If you have a subplot that does help build on the main plot and does include secondary
character, possibly a secondary character could be the main one, but not the main story
for that main character.
If you have one that touches on all those things, it will in the end be emotionally satisfying.
If you solve all the problems, you can't help but have an emotionally satisfying subplot,
which in the end helps make the entire story emotionally satisfying.
It has to be integral to the story itself.
When you're creating the plot, you have to be creating subplots that will build up the
story that way.
And probably that's why you don't see as many that are as fully functional as other types
of subplots, subplots that do nothing but add some emotional or character texture.
Those are easy to tack on.
You can just throw subplots like that on as ornaments to the story at the very end.
You can cut entire story lines out that way and it won't damage the major central plot
of the story.
But if you have one that is built into the story, you cannot cut it out.
It becomes as important to the story as the major plot.
And occasionally you'll hear about, it happens in movies a lot because there's a lot of
media surrounding the production of films.
So we hear about these kinds of stories with that.
But it happens in novel writing, story writing, television, all of the types of storytelling
that exist in modern times.
This sort of thing happens all the time, but you don't always hear about it.
But when it comes to movies, you'll often hear how the story was destroyed in the editing
room.
They cut things out to the point where the story made no sense.
Now sometimes that happens because you have incompetence at the helm, sometimes it happens
because whatever it was that cut out was actually worse than if they let it stay in.
But occasionally it's because someone didn't understand that some subplots can get cut
away, but some cannot.
Some are integral to the story.
And they didn't quite understand that.
In their mind, all subplots are superfluous.
They are things that can be added or not.
They can be kept or not.
And that was someone who just really didn't understand storytelling.
So it does happen sometimes that people will make that mistake.
They don't really realize that subplots can be far more than time-filters.
So that I think is important to understand right off the bat.
Now the emotional part of it, as I say, that is important.
You have to tie your storyline together to get that.
You have to tie your subplot together, whether or not it's an integral part of the central
plot.
It doesn't really matter.
It has to satisfy emotionally, and that comes by tying up things for the characters
and what it is they care about.
If you can pull that off, then you get it.
And that's fine.
That's fine.
We'll put that aside for the moment.
I think that if you have a subplot that is integrated into the larger story, it needs
more time than the major plot can allow for without it becoming kind of distracting.
You have, say, a hero who's investigating a mystery.
This mystery has an element to it that will hopefully allow the hero to solve the problem
later on, but will take too much time to fully flesh out when the hero has other villains
trying to stop them.
And there's action that they have to perform in the story in order to solve whatever the
issue happens to be, and in the end, solve the mystery.
That's when it becomes handy to have secondary characters.
They can go in and explore this stuff.
Perhaps they meet another secondary character, and there's a romantic spark there.
So now you have a secondary character that we like, who's not our main hero.
And this secondary character has a romantic interest.
You know, that's a very classic thing.
You see that all the time in subplots.
And you could leave it at that.
You could just leave it at that.
And there you go.
You have something that you could cut out entirely and it probably won't affect the larger
story except in tone.
However, what if the information that the new romantic interest is providing turns out
to be vital to the main story somewhere along the line?
Now this secondary plot can't be cut out.
You can't get rid of this.
You can't just chop it out for time because that's a detail that comes in only there.
If you chop it out later on, people will say, well, how the hero find out about this?
Where'd that come from?
That came out of nowhere.
So now you have something that's integrated more closely into the plot.
Maybe the new romantic interest has this information because that character once had an extensive
relationship with the villain, right?
Now, they're even more closely associated with the story.
And in the end, they can have crucial information about the villain that will help.
They can do what they can to distract the villain.
They become very closely tied to the major plot of the story.
The more closely integrated your subplots are, the less they're subplots and more just
branches of the main plot.
Things that can't be cut out.
If you cut them out, the story dies.
It doesn't work.
To me, that makes for a more powerful storytelling.
It's far less modular that way because you can't just chop things out for time to make
all of this work because there are elements in those branches of the story that you can't
find anywhere else in their vital to tell the tale.
You can say, well, that's not good writing, then, if I can't chop for time, that's not
good writing.
Well, you should be writing for time to begin with.
And if it is a matter of timing, like, say, for film or television, that has to be shot
a certain way.
And all of it needs to be integrated properly.
The production end starts with the writing.
So all of this stuff has to be integrated in order to get a story that's well written.
But if you have a story with these branches tightly woven into the main tale, they can't
just simply be discounted.
They can't be cut for time.
You don't end up on the cutting room floor.
If you have the only clue people need to solve the story.
And by cutting room floor, I'm speaking figuratively because that includes the blue pencil
when you're writing a novel.
That includes some element of the story that even in songwriting, you may have a whole
stand that talks about somebody else and besides the main love interest, or some emotional
quality of the story that you're telling in verse that cannot simply be chopped away.
It's tightly woven into the tale.
Now again, as I say, it's far less modular, you can't just chop things away.
However, you have less reason to chop things out when you work that way.
If everything is tightly woven, it doesn't seem superfluous.
If it's not superfluous, it can't go away.
You keep the whole thing and you have a much stronger story for it.
You've got this central story and you have one, two, three, four, maybe subplots, maybe
more if it's a big story, big novel or something, novel series.
But you have these subplots that are very important to the main story.
And finishing the main tale, these other things have to be there too.
And when you have that, this is not something that you can just chop up, patchwork.
And it doesn't feel like it is.
It feels like something integrative, feels like a single, whole story that solves all of
your problems, all of the challenges all the characters are meeting.
It solves them in one way or another, doesn't mean a happy ending, doesn't mean that the
characters are satisfied, but we, the viewer, the reader, we are emotionally satisfied
with these endings.
And because we are, all of it works.
All of it.
The entire story comes together and is much, much stronger for that reason.
If you don't have that, you've got things that can be cut away.
If they can be cut away, I'm going to say this.
If they can be cut away, they shouldn't have been there to begin with.
Or they should have been more tightly integrated into the tab.
You didn't need them.
If you can cut them out, you didn't need them to begin with, clearly, clearly.
And that just means it was extra work for you.
That's how films are made.
Films are made that way routinely.
Many novels are written that way.
Things are written and then they say, well, that doesn't work and get rid of it.
And that's because from a creative standpoint, you're going in a bunch of different directions
at once.
And through clever editing, you can weave these things together or make it seem as if
they're woven together.
But I stand by my statement, if you can cut it out without damaging the main tail, you
didn't need it.
And if you can cut it out in such a way that actually strengthens the main tail, that
was a complete waste of your time.
You shouldn't have even bothered.
It's also probably a missed opportunity.
There are different technical constraints for different types of storytelling.
And the more money is involved in something and a tighter schedule that is involved in
the production of something, probably the more modular your story needs to be because
it isn't just one vision that's producing this tail.
There are many, many, many people who have opinions that must be listened to, not just
because they're in charge, but because these are experts in their particular specialty.
And if they say a thing is working, it's working, and if they say it's not, it's probably
not.
And they need to be listened to if you want this end product to be as good as it could
be.
So, understanding that storytelling in certain contexts is a collaborative effort.
You have to be able to work within that context.
So maybe for certain types of storytelling, collaborative storytelling, such as filmmaking,
maybe the best way is a modular approach simply because it allows all these different visions
to have a lot more freedom in producing this final package.
Of course, as we know, films are hit and miss.
Very few, there are some, but very few filmmakers start off to make a piece of garbage.
Most of them think they're going to be making the best version of whatever it is they're
doing that they possibly can under the circumstances.
So I would even posit to say that average to below average films are the norm and the
really good ones are exceptions.
If that's the case, then I think an argument could be made that this method of production
is not very good, that it doesn't necessarily produce very high quality stuff on a regular
basis.
It's very hit and miss.
It's kind of a conversation for another day, but my point here is simply, if you take
your subplots and you hook them very, very carefully to the core of your story, then they
can't simply be discounted, they can't be chopped away, they can't be blue penciled,
they can't be ignored, they have to be present in the final story if the story is going
to make sense.
I believe that that is the best way to approach your tales.
I believe that that is how you want your story telling to go because it makes the entire
story stronger.
You end up with a major plot that has a great deal of strength.
It has plot points, characters, emotionally satisfying endings, assuming you actually
did end them emotionally correct, and again, that's another subject, really a nice emotionally
satisfying ending for these sorts of stories.
It's a technique and it's something that probably can be worked on and done consistently
if you're careful.
But that being said, if you have all of those things put together, you end up with a solid
story that really can't be torn apart.
You can't cut it to pieces, you can't just ignore certain parts of it.
All of it is vital.
And when you have a story where everything is important, you've got a strong tale.
You're telling a very strong story when everything, every part of it, every character
storyline that you've got going simultaneously, you've got something that simply cannot
be taken to pieces.
It can't be torn apart.
Well, at any rate, that's just a few thoughts about subplots and how I believe, and again,
this is just my opinion, but how I believe they ought to be integrated into the major
tale that you're trying to tell.
If you've got any opinions about this, please leave them in the comments for this episode
on Hacker Public Radio, or better yet, do your own episode.
Because you've got opinions, you've got interests, and we want to hear about them.
This has been Lost in Bronx.
Thank you for listening.
Take care.
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