Subplot Intervals

If you’ve ever sketched a drawing using one-point perspective, you’ll know what I mean about certain novels in which the ending can be seen from a long way off. A sense of inevitability starts to mount—we know he’s going to get his man!—until it becomes unbearable, and the book becomes put-downable. Part of the craft of writing is keeping the reader confused, off balance, so that the ending cannot be predicted. That way we might actually want to read the whole book.

The best way to sow confusion is creating multiple plot lines. When readers finish a chapter featuring Line 1, they do not necessarily turn the page to another scene in Line 1. They become diverted onto Line 2, or 3, which may or may not have anything to do with Line 1—although as a reader you really hope that the two threads are tied together by the end of the book. 

Your reader’s enjoyment depends on how well you alternate between a main plot and a subplot. Once you have decided what the subplot is about, you then need to consider dramatic weight. How important is the subplot? How often do I want to interrupt the main plot? In other words, where in the present draft should these new subplot scenes be inserted?

Let’s say you have already finished your first draft, and you want to insert a new plot line.  How do you do that? You should consider two factors: the length of the manuscript and the number of scenes. You can then insert these scenes using a simple mathematical technique. Let’s say you want to write seven scenes in the subplot. How many pages do you have in the manuscript? Let’s say you have written 350 pages. You can do the math. If 350 is divided by 7, you should insert a subplot scene every 50 pages. 

Yet you have another important consideration. You must keep major characters on the reader’s radar screen enough that they don’t seem to pop up out of nowhere. Subplot characters often suffer when they are absent for lengthy stretches, so is 50 pages too long to keep these characters fresh and vital in the reader’s mind? 

Luckily, your intervals don’t have to be so far apart. That’s because you want the main plot to dominate the climax. How long should a strong climax sequence be? It depends on the writer, but I would guess 50 pages. That allows the climax to build to a crest that will leave the reader remembering the book afterward. So you subtract 50 from that 350 and then divide by 7. Now that interval is only 40+ pages. If even that seems like too much, create more subplot scenes. Dividing 300 by 9, for instance, cuts those gaps down to 30+ pages. The reader isn’t going to forget your guys if they’re showing up every 30 pages.

“When I was a young boy they called me a liar.  Now that I'm all grown up, they call me a writer.”  —Isaac Bashevis Singer

Copyright @ 2026, John Paine