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For flashes, things are short and sweet. Only one story arc, one plot is needed.
For better short stories, a character development change and a plot makes a full narrative.
For novellas and novels, a sub-plot or two is needed on top of the narrative plot and the character development plot.
As you know, one of my favorite authors is Liana Brooks. Recently she has been reading author backlists. It’s something I do too. I don’t recommend it for everyone, but seeing the first attempts to explore an idea or writing genre can be instructive on how to make your own writing better. If nothing else, it helps you realize that “best-seller” spent 20 years learning the craft – which can really help if you are comparing where you are right now to someone with twice times your experience. You don’t expect a new hire to do what someone with 20 years experience will do; don’t beat yourself up with these comparisons.
But, I digress. What Ms. Brooks discovered is the earlier manuscripts didn’t have subplots, but the later products did. Experience led to stronger stories … which need subplots because they support the slower part of the story.
Need the thriller tension to slide back a couple notches, then have the parent-child family dynamic come out – a “side-quest” with the parent needing something from their adult child. Something from the side-quest may feed into the thriller later, like a car running out of gas because it had been used for the parent’s errand, or it may carry over to future books in the series, such as the parent bringing danger to our protagonists doorstep, or the subplot may just be something extra that could be cut if you book exceeds word count or pad things out is your word count is a little shy of genre expectations. The important things is to weave more into the story than just bare bones point-A-to-point-B plotting.
The full posting is here: – “It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledge That All The Great Novels Have Subplots” – Liana Brooks – August 1, 2019 – https://www.lianabrooks.com/it-is-a-truth-universally-acknowledge-that-all-the-great-novels-have-subplots-repost/