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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: hallowedthings on December 31, 2011, 05:01:39 AM
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How many plots and subplots would you say most of the DF books have (on average)?
I'm trying to estimate how many plots/subplots Jim uses each book. I'm hoping that doing this'll help me to sustain the same pace/level of action as the DF in my own books ;D Once I know this, I'll know if I'm including too few elements to keep the pace up. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble distinguishing whether different story threads are part of the main plot or subplots in the actual plot summaries of each book=_= . As it's 5AM and my brain is about to turn to mush, I'm kind of hoping that someone else here has already thought this through :P
Btw, HEY :) I've been a lurker for a while! Nice to meet you :)
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Usually around three by my estimation.
An A-Plot (The Case)
A B-Plot( something complicating Harry's day and therefore the Case)
and you guessed it
a C-Plot(An Arc that continues from book to book). The C-Plot is not really a big part of each individual story usually. It comes up maybe once or twice a book.
But that's just off the top of my head.
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Jim explains a lot of this in his livejournal, especially one part about using subplots to get through the big swampy middle, maybe that can help you:
http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/
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The longer the series and the more characters introduced the more the readers shout about their favourite character. There has been a lot of howling about The White Council, particularly Eb, and their lack of visibility in Ghost Story. Look at Calderon and HP as well as Dresden for examples of a series starting with 200-300 pages and ending with about 750 pages. We'll all need to see a chiropractor after we finish carrying the last book of the BAT around with us. The World's Postal Services will go and strike and you will have to collect your copy from the sorting office instead of them bringing it to you.
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*coughcoughmalazanbookofthefallencough* :)
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*coughcoughmalazanbookofthefallencough* :)
^^^^^^ ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D^^^^^^
especially if it falls on you from a passing plane.
BTW love the scene with Thomas in BR. "She was hit by a runaway car, killed instantly."
I shrugged "Don't mean to imply that I don't believe you, but that doesn't sound so odd."
"She was waterskiing at the time."
Some of deaths in BR are pure HitchHikers or Vincent Price depending on your age group.
Sorry to go off thread guys
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The longer the series and the more characters introduced the more the readers shout about their favourite character. There has been a lot of howling about The White Council, particularly Eb, and their lack of visibility in Ghost Story. Look at Calderon and HP as well as Dresden for examples of a series starting with 200-300 pages and ending with about 750 pages. We'll all need to see a chiropractor after we finish carrying the last book of the BAT around with us. The World's Postal Services will go and strike and you will have to collect your copy from the sorting office instead of them bringing it to you.
Honestly, from some research I did a while back, From about book 4 on The Dresden Files has maintained an almost constant word count, finishing right around 400 pages and I forget the word counts... I think Changes was the longest.
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BTW love the scene with Thomas in BR. "She was hit by a runaway car, killed instantly."
I shrugged "Don't mean to imply that I don't believe you, but that doesn't sound so odd."
"She was waterskiing at the time."
LOL
Thanks btw :) I'm starting to see that there aren't as many plots as I thought, just multiple layers to the ones that are in the books. Maaaan, this deconstruction stuff is hard. I think there are more plots than just the A, B and C plot though, but I'm not going to kill myself trying to figure it out. From now on I'll just use loose plot points and constantly apply Murphy's Law to make things worse :P