The Completion Club Module Twenty – Thinking about dual-narrative and subplot

“I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.” – Jim Jarmusch

Thinking about dual-narrative and subplot:

Although dual-narrative and subplot are two different subjects, they are related. It is worth considering them together here, as I believe that our characters often emerge in the organic process of writing a novel and thus, when they first appear, we may not always know what to do with them! The purpose of today’s module is to encourage you to think carefully about your cast of characters and to understand, in turn, their purpose in your work, where you might best place them and how you might use them, in order to maximize their effect on your story.

First, let’s define subplot. Essentially subplot is a secondary or minor plot, which acts as a contrast to the central plot. Its purpose is generally to highlight themes in the central plot but often, by considering the subplot, we gain an alternative slant on the ideas in the work, on the main characters and their actions. In a traditional subplot, characters are of lesser importance than the characters in the main plot. For example, in Shakespeare’s King Lear, the betrayal of Gloucester by his son Edmund forms a

1 parallel with the larger story of Lear’s betrayal by Goneril and Regan. In both cases we see how the faithful child (Cordelia and Edgar) is the victim of the more sinister children. Although both plots highlight the same theme, the stories resolve differently. The main plot is a tragedy but the subplot ends with a little more hope, as Edgar is restored to power (though his father dies in his arms). In addition to the thematic contrast here however, the subplot also serves as a complication to the main plot and the two storylines are woven closely together. A single example of the interrelation of the plots is that both Regan and Goneril try to marry Edmund when he is made Earl of Gloucester and this has negative consequences for them.

This is a simplification of how the subplot works and it is worth re-reading the play to study it carefully. However, this reading highlights three things:

1. The subplot resonates thematically with the main plot 2. The subplot reveals how the story might have resolved differently 3. The characters of the subplot complicate the main plot in terms of action

Should subplots be planned in advance?

The Jim Jarmusch quotation reminds us that whilst plot is a vital component of most novels, films etc. it does still often stem from character and often grows organically. Subplot can often seem like a complicated issue for writers – and sometimes a shift of perspective is necessary if we are to avoid overwhelm.

What would happen if we did approach the subplot differently? What if, during the natural growth stages of a novel, as new characters emerge, we simply ask ourselves – ‘who is this?’ and ‘where does s/he fit in the scheme of things?’ When we allow answers to emerge over time, a subplot can emerge quite naturally.

It’s important to remember that not all novels have a subplot, but most do in some form or another. Sometimes your subplot emerges when you are fifty or so pages into writing a novel and you suddenly realise that your story has gone a little flat. Before you know it, you are introducing new characters and these characters begin to people a subplot. If characters emerge unexpectedly, you might at some stage need to go back to the beginning of the novel and ask yourself whether these characters need to be introduced earlier and how they might be woven in. This is part of the editing process. Essentially you are adding layers of complexity or additional conflict. If you are not a great ‘planner’, you might find that a subplot emerges organically, but that you need to think more logically/structurally at a later stage in order to weave the strands of your subplot into the main narrative.

You can choose to weave your subplot in alternating chapters to the main plot (though this is more often used in dual narrative, see below) or more likely you might use the subplot as interludes that weave through the main thrust of the chapters. Sometimes your subplot might appear to take over for a short while, but it will always recede and allow the main plot to take centre stage in the end. In the traditional form, the two plots should come together in some way and the subplot becomes a necessary element in the resolution of the main plot.

However, I emphasise that what I am outlining here however is a tradition and not a

2 formula. Remember, it is useful to know the rules in order to break them and often simply having an awareness of subplot and what it is, is enough to make your ‘secondary story’ have resonance. You do NOT have to follow all of these rules in order to make your secondary cast of characters fully function in a novel. But it WILL help you to ask yourself questions about how your characters interrelate and I set out my own method in the exercise below.

What happens if the subplot seems to have nothing to do with the main plot? What happens if my subplot is set in a different time zone?

If characters emerge, during the writing of your novel, who do not relate in any way to the main plot of your work, then your job is to unravel the answer to this question: Do these characters actually belong in this novel? It might be that your subconscious is telling you that you should, in fact, be writing a different story altogether. You may have two novels here. Or, alternatively, you might have something very special but tricky: the dual narrative novel.

The dual narrative novel is one that has two entirely separate narrative strands. These usually come together in some way in the book but it might take some time before the reader perceives the connections. Usually there are parallels between the storylines, but the difference between a dual narrative novel and a novel that uses a conventional narrative with a subplot is that in a dual narrative novel, the narratives remain entirely separate for a good part of the novel and there will be two narrative voices or at least two entirely separate story strands. Often, one narrative strand is a historical strand and one is contemporary but this is by no means a rule. In an ideal world, each narrative is made equally compelling to the reader.

In Lindsay Clarke’s ‘The Chymical Wedding’ which won the Whitbread Prize in 1989, Clarke alternates chapters between the historical and the contemporary stories. Each chapter ends each with a cliff-hanger, so that we are longing to know more about that narrative but are then plunged back into the other story.

Emma Darwin’s ‘The Mathematics of Love’ contrasts the story of a girl Anna sent to live in the country with an uncle in the summer of 1976 with a soldier Stephen Fairhurst recovering from the horrors of Waterloo in 1819. At first, there is no apparent connection between the narratives, but the country house where Anna is living turns out to be the place where Fairhurst lived and thematic links soon emerge.

Taking on a dual narrative novel is clearly an ambitious task but it can also be an immensely rewarding one. If, as your new characters emerge, you can see thematic links and you feel up for the challenge, then do consider this route. But bear in mind that this is no mean undertaking and you need to be devoted to your craft if you are to weave two entirely different stories together and make them gel.

3 Exercise Twenty: A method of subplot development

Use your journal to answer the following questions about your secondary characters:

1. How do my secondary characters relate to my main characters? (In terms of their actual physical relationship – friend, relation, acquaintance, stranger?) 2. Why am I drawn to my secondary characters? 3. What do my secondary characters and my main characters have in common with each other? 4. How do my secondary characters differ from my main characters? 5. What happens to my secondary characters (that I already know)? 6. What might happen to my secondary characters? Make a list of twenty possibilities. 7. How might the lives of my secondary characters impact the lives of my main characters? 8. What themes pervade the lives/experiences of both characters? 9. How might these themes play out differently in the characters’ lives? 10. How might the secondary characters’ story resolve differently to the main narrative? 11. What am I resisting about my subplot? What feels natural to me and what parts do I feel that I’m only inserting because I feel the need to ‘have a subplot’? 12. What would happen if I removed those ideas that don’t feel inherently right and kept the aspects that gel for me – where would my story be then? 13. How might the actions of the secondary characters affect the main characters at the end of my book?

Put these notes aside and don’t look at them for a week or two and carry on with your novel as before. Don’t consciously try to work your new ideas into your novel.

At the end of a week-long/two-week period, ask yourself whether the subplot/secondary characters have developed in any way in your work? Now, read through your journal notes. Is there anything in these notes that you want to use? Feel free to discard what doesn’t work.

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