Your subplots will need to start moving toward resolution or be fully resolved in the 70 to 90 percent mark of your story.

If you have more than one subplot to introduce, make sure you are weaving each of them into your main story in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the reader and cause them to forget the focus of the main plot altogether. Since subplots help to move the story along through the dreaded middle zone, introduce subplots around the 30 percent mark of your novel. Both approaches ensure you have a full story for each subplot and allows them to be woven seamlessly into your main story. Or, as you write your main story, you can leave notes in brackets for yourself to mark where you’ll weave in subplots later. You can do this by using scene breaks or simply starting a new chapter. It may be helpful to write subplots in a separate document and then incorporate them into your main story file where they fit best. Treat each subplot as a mini-story, meaning they need a beginning, middle, and end.

While short stories or children’s books under 8,000 words rely on a basic, linear plot structure (one plotline), any story over that 8,000-word mark should have one or more subplots (depending on the story’s length) woven into it. Subplots should not overpower the main plot, but instead, strengthen the story and more develop the theme of your novel. While your main plot is solely focused on your protagonist and his or her outcome, subplots serve as side stories to the main plot and tend to focus on secondary characters.

Novel plot subplot