- What's up, my friend? Abbie here and welcome back to WritersLife Wednesdays
where we come together to help you make your story matter and make your author dreams come true. If you clicked on this video, chances are you are
looking to craft seamless, memorable subplots into your story. You want to weave extra
layers of depth and meaning into your narrative through
your side characters to make your story that
much more impactful. Let's face it. Subplots can make or break a story. If you have no subplots, your story can turn out
feeling flat and lackluster. Like all of your side
characters were two-dimensional because they were only there to serve the protagonist's plot. Or if you have too many subplots, it can sometimes distract
from the main plot and divide your audience's attention in so many different directions
that we don't even know what we're supposed to care about anymore. I believe that you can find
balance between the two. You can cleverly craft subplots that add emotion and depth to your story while still keeping the focus anchored on the main character's journey. So if you want to write fantastic subplots but you have no idea where to start, you just have a messy pile of ideas and don't even know how
to begin organizing them or incorporating them into
your story, don't worry. I am here to help. In this video, we are going to explore
the science of subplots and unpack the storytelling principles that make great subplots shine. And in my upcoming live training, we're going to dive even
deep into this topic. And I'm super excited because I'm gonna show
you my whole process, start to finish, how I create subplots, how I organize them during the
outlining and writing process so that I can write with
ease and confidence. So in this live training,
we're going to dive deep into crafting subplots from scratch. And I'm basically going to hold your hand through this whole process, okay? So I'm very excited. I'll be giving you resources like templates and study guides, all kinds of valuable
tools that you can use for all your future writing projects. So if you want to dive
deeper into this whole topic of crafting compelling subplots, click the link below this video and save your at the live training. It's happening Sunday, March 27th at 1:00 pm Eastern standard time. And don't worry if you can't
make it to the live stream. You will still have access to the replay, which you can watch as
many times as you want. By the way, I host these
live training sessions in my Patreon community
every single month. And I give you guys voting power to choose the topic of each new session. So last week, I put up a poll. You guys voted and the subplots won. So that's what we're talking about today. How to craft amazing subplots? Grab a notebook and let's get started. Why does your story matter? Good question. What if I told you that there's a science
behind every great story? I don't just teach you how to write. I teach you how to change
the world with your story and make your author dreams come true. The biggest mistake most writers make with writing subplots
is they focus too much on what happens and not
enough on why it matters. They make the mistake of
thinking that a subplot is just a series of events
happening on the side, subordinate to the main
plot or main conflict. And while that may be true by definition, it's not a very helpful way to look at it from the writer's perspective. As I always emphasize on this channel, story is not just about the plot. It's not just about what
happens to the protagonist. It's about why it matters
to the protagonist. And when we start to understand why what's happening
matters to the protagonist, we start to empathize with them. We start to understand
their internal conflict. And once we understand that,
we start to feel for them. And then, the conflict no longer matters just to the protagonist. It also matters to us. If you're new to writing
conflicted characters, I recommend starting with this video here. Actually last month, I
did a whole live training on creating conflicted characters, which you can still watch
the replay of that as well. I will leave the link
below this video too. But basically, the most
important takeaway is this. If I don't know why
what's happening matters to the protagonist, I don't know why it matters to me. And that's why it's so vital to craft strong internal
conflict for your protagonist. But it doesn't end there. Your side characters need to
have internal conflict too. Why? Because they are the
anchor of every good subplot. So instead of asking yourself, "What happens with the side characters?" Try asking yourself, "What internal journey do my
side character's experience throughout the course of the story?" Now you might be thinking,
"Well, I'm not gonna be writing from my side character's perspectives." It doesn't matter. They still need internal conflict and you can still show us
their internal conflict without necessarily going
inside their point of view. This is where so many writers go wrong. Okay, they create a subplot without ever anchoring that
subplot to a subcharacter. And like I always say, it's
the characters we care about. It's the characters we can
relate to and empathize with. Remember, your side characters
don't enter the story because the plot needs them to. They enter the story because they need to. That's basically the difference
between a passive character and an active character. So the big question is this, how do we make our audience
care about our side characters? First, we have to make them
matter to the main character. Makes sense because this is
likely the first character we're introduced to, the first character we
start to care about. We start to learn their internal conflict. We can empathize with them. The protagonist is the measuring device that we subconsciously use
to understand the importance of everything that happens in the story. In other words, everything
gets its importance from how important it
is to the protagonist, side characters included. So basically you can ask
yourself one question to understand immediately whether or not your subplot matters. Does my subplot directly engage with or impact the main character in my story? See, there needs to be
this direct connection in order for us to
understand why it matters. You can think of it like this. The main character is the
first one we care about. The side characters are the
ones we learn to care about because the MC cares. When we don't see the direct connection between the protagonists
that we care about and the side characters, our subconscious starts
searching for meaning, searching for that connection. We want to care. We want to have a reason to care. And we care through the protagonist. We feel what they feel. We empathize with their internal conflict. We want to see them succeed. What matters to the
protagonist matters to us. Think about the last movie
you watched or book you read where the subplots started
to lose your interest, okay? I guarantee you that loss
of interest to you coincided with a loss of direct
impact to the character that you care the most about. So make your subplots
matter to your protagonist. "But wait, Abbie, I'm writing a story with
no real main character. And there's a lot of characters. There's a huge cast and
all kinds of subplots. And I want my audience
to care about everyone." Okay, cool. That's a bit trickier to pull
off, but it's totally doable. And the same rules apply. What is the direct connection? What is the central conflict that brings all of these
characters together? Or what do they all have in common? Answering those questions
is a good place to start. So what does this look like in action? How do you create subplots
that matter to the protagonists and balance them with
the main plot seamlessly? And how do you keep track of all of these and organize all these
subplots and side characters without wanting to rip your hair out? Those are big questions
and to answer them, we have to go deeper. That's why I am so excited to invite you to my live
training all about subplots. There's only so much that I
can unpack in a YouTube video. And this topic is so deep and complex, we've only scratched the surface. I want to give you not
just basic principles, but valuable tools that
you can take and use in your own story to make your subplots the best they can possibly be. In this live training, I'm going to share with
you my exact process of crafting subplots, start to finish, how I organize my subplots
in the outlining stage and the writing stage, the best way to visualize
your subplots coinciding with your main plot, how to outline subplots for
a large cast of characters, tips for pacing and side
character development, plus valuable templates and
study guides that you can use to sharpen your subplots and learn from the best stories out there. That's all in the live training and I'm so excited to
dive into this with you. So click the link below
this video to save your spot so you don't miss out. Remember, the training is happening on Sunday, March 27th at 1:00 pm Eastern. But again, if you can't
make it to the live stream, don't worry. You'll have access to the replay, which you can watch as
many times as you want. And if you're from the future, you can still click the link below and get access to the replay instantly. I hope to see you there. It's going to be fantastic. Smash that like button
if you liked this video and be sure to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already because I post writing
videos every single Wednesday and I would love to have
you here in the community. until next week, my friend. Rock on! (upbeat music)
