Subplot, Parallel Narrative, Ensemble Cast.
Three narrative story thread structures that can get muddled fast. Keep your scripts sharp and reduce editing by knowing which is which and when to use them.
Let’s get into it.
Subplot
A subplot is a secondary separate storyline, that doesn’t stand on its own, but exists in service to the primary plot. It’s not there for a separate take, it’s there as a different take, to reinforce the main narrative.
Example: A blacksmith leads a rebellion against a tyrant king. A story about oppression, resistance and revolution.
A subplot might be the blacksmith’s son joining the king’s army as a means to escape his peasant life forcing the blacksmith to change his relationship with his son, always keeping him at a distance so son and rebellion never collide.
Every scene where the son appears adds pressure to the main plot, the blacksmith’s personal stakes escalate, the rebellion’s plans and timeline get stressed, the secrecy of everything costs more. The son’s ambition complicates the revolution without ever becoming its own separate story. The reader never wonders about the son independently of the bigger context, they don’t ponder if he’s going to go off to a far away war, or find a new love, or whatever, but they will wonder “how the son’s latest exploits are gonna fuck up the rebellion.”
That’s a subplot.
If you remove it, the rebellion still functions as the main narrative, it’s just thinner and less personal, but the thematic argument is NOT diminished.
Parallel Narrative
Unlike a subplot that exists solely to support the main narrative, parallel narratives are two or more storylines running simultaneously, connected thematically, causally, or through shared characters, but each following its own trajectory. They land with equal weight and structural importance.
The key distinction from subplot is that in parallel narratives, the storylines bring clarity, deeper meaning, and resonance to the thematic argument.
Example: Same world, same tyrant king. The blacksmith still leads the rebellion from the peasant side, but now the son’s story in the king’s army becomes its own narrative. He rises through the ranks, discovers the corruption from inside, faces his own moral tests, builds his own alliances, and eventually has to decide whether to betray the institution that gave him everything he has or his father; both cannot coexist in his world.
The reader follows both stories.
The blacksmith fighting the system from outside, the son being consumed by it from the inside.
Each narrative has its own arc, its own stakes, its own turns and reveals. Unlike the subplot, the son is no longer simply complicates his father’s rebellion, he’s living a complete story about what it means to gain everything he wanted, to pull him completely out of peasant class, only to realize it’s just as rotten at the top.
The reader cares about what happens to the son independently of whether the rebellion succeeds.
If you remove one of the parallel story threads, the main narrative loses exactly what the parallel narrative brings to the table: clarity, deeper meaning, and resonance to the thematic argument. Cutting a parallel story in a parallel narrative can quickly break the entire story.
Ensemble Cast
An ensemble cast calls on multiple characters rather than centering on a single protagonist. No one character dominates the narrative, instead, several characters share roughly equal page time, development, and importance to the plot.
Example: The blacksmith plans the rebellion. The son rises in the king’s army and sees the rot. The king’s advisor quietly undermines the throne, not out of conscience but ambition. A healer in the lower quarter treats victims of the king’s brutality and decides moral neutrality has vanished, you either support an evil tyrant or actively work to dethrone him. A member of the king’s guard begins to suspect the kings orders are no longer about keeping peace, but about keeping power.
Each character doesn’t represent a separate story, but an individual take on the same story.
These takes of course can vary wildly, having different depths, outlooks, and governed by totally different emotions. That’s what makes the ensemble piece so compelling. The reader’s investment isn’t in one person’s outcome but in how all five perspectives reveal different facets of the same oppression.
The culmination isn’t one storyline serving another, it’s a combination of perspectives facing the climax, where the individual parts become greater than the whole. The blacksmith’s revolt, the son’s betrayal, the advisor’s coup, the healer’s choice to act, the guard’s refusal to follow an order, they all hit in the third act from different directions. The story’s full scope only comes from the sum of those choices.
If you remove a cast member from as ensemble story, the story doesn’t fall apart, the thematic argument isn’t lost, but you lose a perspective that shapes the depth of the narrative, you lose narrative dimension and weight. Remove too many perspectives and you deliver what feels like a single protagonist story, that can’t make up its mind who the protagonist actually is.
How many threads do you weave?
Subplots, Parallel Narratives and Ensemble Casts are really defined by other elements than scope or breadth. However, size does matter, and not recognizing that can lead to some narrative mishaps.
A subplot must be smaller than 50% of the story. If it’s 50%, then you’ve split the narrative down the middle and you’re really running a parallel narrative. A secondary story, with just as much relevance as the main narrative.
In fact, any subplot of considerable size begins to compete with the main story.
Consider the follow guide based on percentage of the overall story:
5-10% = Minor Subplot
11-15% = Significant Subplot / Minor Parallel Narrative
15-20% = Major Subplot / Significant Parallel Narrative / Minor Ensemble Cast
21-50% = Major Parallel Narrative / Major Ensemble Cast
Ok, here’s the scoop with the ensemble cast.
3 characters are difficult to pull off as an ensemble, because the cast is small enough for many readers to assign a hierarchy. At the same time, the larger the cast gets, the more difficult it gets to hold together. At some point additional vantage points just become superficial, rather than dimensional actually adding something tangible.
4-5 characters, giving them each 20-25% of the narrative is the sweet spot. Integrating 6 or 7 perspectives is a challenge above most writers’ pay grade. And more than 7 breaks all but crazy schizo writers built specifically for ensemble cast narratives.
In the context of a 22 page comic;
20% Major Subplot 4.5 pages.
12% Significant Subplot 3 pages.
68% Main Narrative 14.5 pages.
The percentage breakdown above isn’t meant as a formula. I rounded up to get the page counts right here. But it is accurate as a guide.
Where do subplots belong?
The first act of the story is introducing the main players, setting and hitting your core structural beats that get the story started. Generally, if you start your subplots in the first act, you run the risk of muddling the main story and distracting or confusing the reader. So most of the time you don’t want to add your sub plots to the first act, or if you do, push them to later in the first act.
The third act of the story is where you wrap things up, showcasing the climax/resolution the entire story’s been building to, the repercussions or denouement, etc. Any subplot introduced in the third act will need to be rushed through to resolution, feel choppy or left unresolved. All of these should be avoided, making the third act the worst place to open a subplot.
So this leaves us with the second act, which as it turns out, is a great place to drop in your subplots.
Since second acts are generally meatier than first or third acts, the second act gives ample time to establish subplots earlier on, develop them and either bring them to resolution at the end of the second act or (more likely) carry their resolution into the final act (more on that in a minute).
What should a subplot showcase?
In theory subplots can be executed to support any core element(s) of the narrative.
- Want a subplot that ties into elevating the entire stakes of the story? Go for it.
- What about a subplot that focuses on the main character arc? Sure.
- Or a subplot that directly reinforces the Master Theme? Sounds good to me.
When working with subplots, just be sure you know what you want to say both structurally and narratively. The examples above are structural goals.
Let’s say we’re working on a superhero script… and we decide we want to have our subplot involve the hero and a teenage friend (platonic relationship) and that the purpose of the subplot is to elevate the entire stakes of the story. (Structural.)
Narratively speaking, perhaps our goal is to develop their friendship and tie the teenagers parents as hostages into the climax–elevating the emotional connection of the people in jeopardy and in turn elevating the stakes of the final hero showdown (and in turn main story).
Besides enriching the main narrative by adding more depth and dimension, subplots have another important role, as levers of narrative drive–progressing the story.
I often compare an outline (and story structure in general) to a road map. The main structural elements are all there to get you to your destination. Think of subplots as alternate routes or shortcuts on this map..
We’ve already established that a subplot must be relevant and tie into the narrative.
If it didn’t, your alternate route would lead you to a dead-end. In a similar vein of thinking, we can say, generally speaking, minor subplots while still supporting the narrative don’t contain as much narrative drive, as compared to major subplots.
Of course, we’re not talking about using a subplot to literally skip time and jump us further along the plot.
Though that’s possible, when we say “compress the narrative” we mean introduce elements that connect dots, create new dots that will soon be connected, or otherwise keep the story moving toward its conclusion.
// An overlapping concept here is your scene selection. There’s a few articles on that topic here worth checking out. //
For example. Working off this superhero concept;
Our subplot has to do with the hero’s sick aunt in the hospital.
At worst, this is a superflouous dead-end subplot.
The aunt adds nothing specific and has no other role in the story. The time spent here doesn’t progress or support the story in any meaningful way. If we remove this subplot completely the narrative doesn’t even notice.
Minor, as a small shortcut–used for some character development. This character development doesn’t turn the story in any major ways, but it does reinforce the character a bit. Since it’s not progressing the story too much, it’s not too impactful. If we remove this subplot completely the narrative loses a little something, but is otherwise intact.
// Note that you can certainly have a more effective minor subplot. This is just one example. //
Major, as a big shortcut–the aunt turns for the worse and dies. Before she dies, she reveals the secret of the hero’s father and his secret batcave filled with high-tech weapons and equipment. The hero uses this gear to defeat the MAF in the climax. If we remove this subplot completely, the narrative stops dead in its tracks.
You see by these examples, Active, direct effect consequences are more impactful, then subtle or indirect consequences.
You may have noticed the third example, ties directly into the resolution of the story. Since the climax of the story is generally the crescendo or pay-off of the entire narrative, most of the time, subplots that actively connect and support the climax of the story are the most impactful.
The reality is, minor subplots can punch above their weight class. You can have a tiny subplot deliver a knockout blow… but that lever can only be pulled once. If you go back and pull it over and over, the reader will immediately ask why does this small tiny subplot keep delivering seismic plot turns. It strains credibility.
In contrast, with major subplots, you can pull that lever over and over. The sheer weight of the major subplot justifies its influence on the narrative.
Just remember, subplots are never their own story and the main narrative shouldn’t ever be dependent on a subplot to exist. If you bake that into the cake, the subplot really promoted itself into the core story and isn’t a subplot any longer.
Ultimately, developing and integrating subplots is a matter of how many scenes your entire story has and how good you are a weaving your story threads together. Keep these subplot tips in mind during your next script and I guarantee you’re narrative will tighten up. If not, I owe you a coffee. But I’ll put odds you’ll be buying the drinks after finishing your next script. ▪
About the Author —
Nick Macari is a full-time freelance story consultant, developmental editor and writer, working primarily in the independent gaming and comic markets. His first published comic appeared on shelves via Diamond in the late 90’s. Today you can find his comic work on comixology, amazon and in select stores around the U.S. Visit NickMacari.com for social media contacts and news on his latest releases.