A Classroom Lesson

Spoilers in the service of craft…sorry!

I’m anticipating writing some classroom scenes in my current manuscript, and deep in the middle of Brandy Colbert’s Pointe, I found a stellar example of how to execute a purposeful classroom scene ripe with tension.  Colbert’s Chapter Twelve features protagonist Theo, who has just learned her recently-returned best friend’s kidnapper was her four-years-ago, much-older boyfriend.  Mr. Jacobsen, her world gov teacher, is conducting a lesson on Stolkholm syndrome.  

BEFORE

Colbert includes not only the classroom scene, but also three pages of anticipation.  Mr. Jacobsen stops Theo in the hallway to gives her a heads up about the discussion to come.  This serves several purposes.  The reader understands this discussion will threaten Theo’s precarious perspective of the kidnapper as her boyfriend, not to mention we anticipate a variety of opinions, which may not be supportive of Theo’s position.  But Theo agrees to attend.  So the tension is on.  Additionally, Colbert wins our sympathy for the sensitive, straight-talking teacher –a set-up for an end-of-scene, accidental betrayal.

STRUCTURE WITH A PURPOSE

Colbert also moves us through four distinct high points.

First, the device.  Mr. Jacobsen explains to Theo the principal has asked him to help the students process the return of Theo’s friend, Donovan, kidnapped four years prior, and to do this Mr. Jacobsen is conducting a lesson on Stolkholm syndrome.  It’s a believable device to give the cast a new filter for the situation.

Second, Colbert lets the classroom discussion build point (Donovan ran away willingly.) by counterpoint (He was a victim.) until Mr. Jacobsen picks up a point to accentuate.  He phrases this point as a focus-building question: Is the extent of the victim’s danger diminished when we learn that he had a seemingly normal relationship with the defendant prior to the abduction?  The question is a high point because it is the question Theo is asking about herself.  Indeed, in the next paragraph, Theo thinks to herself: Bingo.  Is it?  I will give one million dollars to whoever can answer that question right now. 

Third and finally, the discussion ends on an answer to that question which makes Theo feel “like someone drove their knuckles square into [her] stomach,” when classmate Klein lets fly: “…I think if some dude was trying to fuck me every night, I’d find a way to get out of that situation a little faster than he did.”  This hits Theo hard, again, because Colbert stages the discussion so Theo can apply the Stolkhom syndrome concept to herself.  She’s left to wonder, albeit subconsciously, Did I let Chris abuse me and like it?  A dangerous question for an isolated girl.

Lastly, Mr. Jacobsen slips, when he reminds Klein this is a sensitive subject, letting his eyes drift to Theo.  The teacher’s faux-pas not only makes us catch our breath because we like him so much, but now, unavoidably, everyone in that classroom has made some connection between Theo, Donovan, and this kidnapper.  It is as close as Theo has come in the story to seeing herself as a victim.

TENSION

In addition to building on this strong four-point structure, Colbert maintains constant tension throughout the discussion.  Theo agreeing to be present sets Mr. Jacobsen up to protect her throughout the class.  The point-counterpoint between Phil and Klein is accentuated by their tenuous friendship.  Also several times, Colbert has Theo consider what would happen if she just came out and asked what she’s really wondering; this hypothetical veneer-rending contrasts with Theo’s need to mask how much the discussion upsets her.  There is also the juxtaposition of how much each cast member knows –the classmates know very little about Theo’s involvement, Mr. Jacobsen knows some, Theo knows more, but even her knowledge of herself is skewed.  Then, of course, affected by the discussion, Theo vacillates between whether she will testify at Chris’ trial or not, which is really a vacillation between views of herself.

PROTAGONIST’S REACTIONS

Colbert also does an expert job of building in Theo’s silent reactions to the discussion.  She never participates out loud, but we read her thoughts which include surprise that everyone has an opinion on the topic, anger at how little people know, a brief but disturbing memory of what she was doing at thirteen, as well as both questioning Chris and remembering him which turns into a list of grooming behaviors she, herself, does not recognize.  After Klein asks the question “everyone’s thinking,” Colbert adds Theo’s physical reactions –she feels the knuckle-punch to her stomach, she doesn’t move, she stares at the words Stockholm syndrome on the board, she tries to look away from all the eyes on her.  Additionally, Theo’s reactions serve to expand the discussion beyond a black-and-white debate –it is not just a matter of whether Donovan was a victim or ran away willingly –he can be both.  And, because the whole discussion applies to Theo, so can she.

Other things Colbert does well in her execution of the classroom scene:

• SETTING: She establishes setting, carefully pinpointing the location of each speaker in relation to Theo.  We know where Theo sits, where each character is in relation to her, and what she observes about each person.  It’s all about how this discussion affects Theo.

• CAST: She limits the players in the discussion to characters we know –Klein, Phil, and Sarah who can represent viewpoints from judgmental to understanding to naïve.  But Colbert also fleshes out the class.  She drops three other student names with spot-on adolescent reactions to Klein stomach-punch comment, including a painfully realistic cough-laugh.

• INFORMATION: Notably, Colbert also slips in the definition of two key words: Stockholm syndrome and grooming without forcing the teacher “teach” them in a contrived way.  Just as Mr. Jacobsen is about the clarify what Stockholm syndrome is for Theo, she interrupts him –“I know what it is,” and Colbert slips the definition into Theo’s private thoughts.  The term grooming appears between Phil’s surmising on Donovan’s prior relationship with Chris and Theo’s dismissive thoughts about grooming seeming “so textbook.”  Giving our protagonist the benefit of this knowledge affords respect to the readers who travel the story through her eyes, while at the same time demonstrating how this knowledge is not necessarily a match for an abuser’s grooming process.

And that’s just Chapter Twelve.  Yeah, buy this book.  You’ll need to write in it.

Thank you, Jandy Part II (Overt Actions)

So I’ve spent the summer exploring the premise for a new manuscript, and this has included a lot of plotting.  Plotting for me is a combination of note-taking alternated with exploratory writing.  But plotting before a first draft can only go so far.  There are some anchor points, like the climax, which I can already visualize, but there are others, like my protagonist and antagonist’s momentous turning point.  A moment like this I am sure should be realized through an overt action, but I just don’t know what it should be yet.  So I thought I’d reread the crown jewel of YA novels which realize important plot moments through overt actions –Jandy Nelson’s The Sky Is Everywhere.

As always, this post is full of spoiler alerts, but if you haven’t read TSIE, you should stop reading this and go get the book immediately anyway!

I could write a doctoral thesis on the countless ways Nelson uses characters’ overt actions to realize key plot moments.  The characters’ interactions with plants, Lennie’s poem-writing, Gram’s box of letters to Lennie’s mother, and, of course, Lennie’s relationship with her clarinet are just a few.  Notably, each time a character executes an overt action, it is attached to a motif like the plants, poems, letters, or clarinet.  So much so that I’ve come to think of them as motif-actions.  For this post, I’ll focus on what Lennie does with her beloved copy of Wuthering Heights.  Interestingly enough, this is also a turning point scene.

After her ploy to cut a bouquet of Gram’s prized roses fails to win Joe back, Lennie is finally having her heart to heart with Gram.  Lennie realizes how foolish choices, including her own, prevent us from experiencing great big love while we can (Life is short.  For Bailey, it is already too late.)  But Lennie and Gram don’t just talk about it; Nelson realizes this turning point by having Lennie execute an overt action.  Lennie uses Gram’s garden shears to chop up her copy of Wuthering Heights.  This is Lennie’s favorite book, annotated and dog-eared over twenty-three readings!  Here is what I learned by highlighting all of Jandy Nelson’s references to Lennie’s doomed novel.

First, when it comes to big motif-actions like this, Nelson seeds them almost from page one.  The first reference to Lennie’s Wuthering Heights is right at the top of page two where she is scribbling a poem in the margin as Gram and Big worry over the Lennie plant.

Second, Nelson’s use of Wuthering Heights is never forced because she takes the time to establish Lennie’s relationship with this book.  Lately, a lot of YA characters seem to have favorite classic books guiding them, but Nelson’s use is by far the most believable because she establishes Lennie as a literary person.  On only page seven, Lennie describes her best friend, Sarah, as a literary fanatic like her, delving into Sarah’s darker reading tastes.

Third, Nelson uses Lennie’s interactions with her copy of Wuthering Heights to create an arc of development.  Early on, Nelson uses road-reading to establish Lennie’s starting point: “I like love safe between the covers of my novel.”  As Lennie’s experiences with Joe and Toby compound, her comparisons of real-life erections and kisses with the Wuthering Heights world are funny.  The book also becomes a vehicle for Lennie and Joe to get to know each other over lunch in a tree.  Later “Heathcliff and Cathy have nothing on us.”

Fourth, I learned that once you find that motif-action for your big moment, extend it further than you imagine you can.  After Lennie chops up her Wuthering Heights, she rakes her fingers through the remains while ruminating on her regrets.  As the conversation with Gram continues, she wants to scoop a fistful of book scraps to throw at Gram.  She also rearranges the words into new sentences, reflecting the mood of the moment: under that benign sky and so eternally excluded.  Then she wishes she could put the words back together so Cathy and Heathcliff could make different choices.  Finally, as her understanding of life and love has evolved far beyond the novel, Lennie sweeps the whole thing into the trash.

Fifth, by watching Nelson I learned to look for ways motif-actions can cross subplots.  After Lennie chops up her book, she hands the shears to Gram, and Lennie sees Gram has her own reasons to be angry.  Gram also has her own reasons to be ashamed, which we see as she sweeps the book scraps toward herself.  The pile of scraps jumps when Gram pounds the table with her fist forcing Lennie to hear her reality.  Later, Lennie writes a poem in which Cathy and Heathcliff’s stronger-than-death love becomes about Lennie and Bailey.  So as motif-related actions cross subplots, their meaning reverberates out across the story.

The last thing I learned may be the most important of all.  I’ve written enough to imagine Nelson developing Lennie’s growing relationship with her copy of Wuthering Heights.  I’d bet Wuthering Heights popped up in a freewrite about Lennie, maybe just a matter of characterization.  As Nelson continued drafting maybe she saw opportunities to draw Wuthering Heights through.  Maybe she even took a break from the story to write about what Wuthering Heights meant to Lennie.  Maybe the image of the shredded pages occurred to her then.  Maybe during revision, she played around with the remains of the book left on the table.  Maybe she went back and reread Wuthering Heights, wrote about Lennie’s favorite book some more, and realized how it applied to her relationship with Bailey.  Whatever the case, as long as I keep looking for the motif-action that could become my turning point, as long as I keep mining my current draft for accidental gems, as long as I keep journaling about my characters, it’s okay to proceed without knowing exactly what that turning point’s overt action will be.

 Observing Nelson’s use of Wuthering Heights has taught me something about the nature of the overt motif-action.  Like any seed, you can’t force it to grow, you have to keep nurturing the soil, and it’s definitely worth waiting for.  So thanks, Jandy, for freeing Lennie and for freeing me!

Thank you, Jandy (Part I: Complications, Plot Layers, & Subplots)

Don’t be afraid to write in circles until you find your story.

Spend the necessary time with your premise. 

Words from wise writing teachers.  This summer I’ve taken them to heart.  Most mornings I sit down with a chocolate croissant, a cup of coffee, and Donald Maass’ Writing the Break Out Novel Workbook and learn something more about my characters, their conflicts, and their building tension.  It’s the middle of July, and I don’t have many pages.  You know, actual pages of the first draft.  Well, I have one I wrote this morning.  But, in six weeks, I’ve made more progress with this story than any of my other novels. 

I think it’s because I’ve been working on the distinctions Maass makes between the protagonist’s main problem, and what he calls complications, plot layers, and subplots.  Maass uses a lot of adult novels to demonstrate these concepts, but I’m going to use Jandy Nelson’s The Sky Is Everywhere here to illustrate them.  I think Nelson’s understanding of how these elements work in her story account for the fully-felt reading experience.

Warning: Spoilers Abound!

Look, The Sky Is Everywhere could easily have turned into another great YA example of “girl must choose between Edward and Jacob.”  Lennie is caught between a romance with her recently dead sister’s boyfriend, with whom she can remember and grieve the past, and the new musical genius in town, with whom she can imagine and celebrate the future.  But the book is so much more than that.  And here is why.

No surprise, Nelson is crystal clear about Lennie’s MAIN PROBLEM.  And it is not just a choice between to boys.  Lennie wants to get through her grief for sister, Bailey.  Her Uncle Big actually says, “There’s no way but through.”  What that means gets complicated though.  Through means time to experience loss and pain, and through means being on the other side of loss and pain, able to embrace life again.

Maass defines COMPLICATIONS as the obstacles that get in the way of the protagonist’s main goal.  These not only abound in The Sky Is Everywhere, but remain incredibly focused on Lennie’s desire to get through her grief.  Toby, the now-dead Bailey’s boyfriend, helps Lennie remember Bailey in a way no one else can.  Joe, the new boy in town, and perfect counterpoint, enables Lennie to forget her grief.  The jacket copy doesn’t lie when it reads, “though she knows if the two of them collide her whole world will explode,” because when Joe sees Lennis kissing Toby Lennie breaks with Toby and Joe breaks with her.  Without either boy in her life, Lennie comes to realize that both relationships were masking her need to face that, without her sister, she is undeniably alone.  After this realization, it dawns on Lennie she has been focused on only her own grief.  So well does Nelson understand Lennie’s main problem that the complications can unfold and unfold.

Now Maass distinguishes complications from PLOT LAYERS, which he defines as additional problems the protagonist faces –not complications to the main problem, but altogether different problems.  Lennie has these too.  She has avoided her clarinet talent.  She writes audience-less poems which she scatters everywhere.  And Lennie learns about her missing mother.  These problems exist separately from Lennie’s need to get through her grief, but they are both compounded by Bailey’s death and come to inform Lennie’s journey through her grief.  The layering leaves Nelson levels of problems to utilize in Lennie’s inner arc, but because she finds nodes of conjunction between these layers and the main problem, the book holds together.  The layers are not random or scattered, they are purposeful.  If they do not exist because of Bailey’s death, they become touch-points that help Lennie make sense of things.

SUBPLOTS, Maass says, are something else.  While plot layers are given to the protagonist, subplots are narrative lines given to other characters.  Nelson nails these as well. Toby wants to hold on to Bailey, though he must let her go.  Joe wants an all-or-nothing romance, but life is more complicated than that.  Gram wants to talk about her own grief with Lennie, Big wants to bring the family –particularly Lennie— back to life, and Lennie’s best friend, Sarah, just wants their friendship back.  Each character is working to solve his/her own problem while the protagonist is working on the main problem, though, again, the secondary character’s issues are tightly woven to that main problem.  The result is not only a rich dynamic between characters, but also a meaning-making aesthetic.

The depth and breadth of Nelson’s work with the protagonist’s main problem, complications, and layers, as well as, the secondary characters’ subplots is encouraging to my work this summer.  Of course, it’s nice when the pages start to come, the actual pages of accumulating chapters, but Nelson’s work tells me something different.  It tells me it’s worth taking the time to understand your material with clarity.

I copied this quotation from The Sky is Everywhere down in my journal:

            Beside me, step for step, breath for breath, is the unbearable fact that I have a future and Bailey doesn’t.

                        This is when I know it.

            My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life.  Grief is forever.  It doesn’t go away; it becomes part of you, step for step, breath for breath.  I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her.  That’s just how it is.  Grief and love are cojoined, you don’t get one without the other.  All I can do its love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.

The reason I catch my breath when I read this passage is because Jandy Nelson earned that moment.  She earned that moment because she took the time to know her material with intense clarity.  I’m going to do that too.  Thank you, Jandy!

Characters who Tell a Story

Every once in a while, I’ll be working on a story where one of my characters has to tell someone a story.  This worries me.  First, I am worried about whether this might just be my need for an information dump, for backstory that may not, in that moment, advance the plot.  But, for the sake of this post, let’s say I’ve ruled out that concern.  The story the character has to tell is necessary in that moment, and I’m looking for a creative way to have this happen, something more than skipping a line, changing the font, and starting italics.  Say I want to keep this character’s storytelling in the scene?  Yeah, I know.  How to do that?  So while I’m reading I’m always keeping an eye out for ways authors might handle this.  Last week, I found two cool approaches in A. G. Howard’s fantasy, Splintered.

Artifacts, Play, and Animation

Alyssa has descended down the rabbit hole to solve the mystery of her mother’s connection to the Alice in Wonderland story, thus freeing her from her the asylum to which she is condemned.  In order to solve this mystery, Alyssa’s guide, Morpheus, needs to remind her of some history she’s forgotten from her childhood.  Instead of just retelling the story over tea, Morpheus, gets out the old chess set they use to play with when they were children.  We learn, in fact, that Morpheus used to practice the ensuing story with Alyssa when she was a child.  The chess set comes to life and reenacts a significantly chosen courtroom scene from a generation ago.  The scene cuts off, and Alyssa urges Morpheus to follow the fleeing characters.  “Follow them yourself,” Morpheus says, and she is armed with all the information she needs to start her Wonderland journey.

Howard uses several storytelling tools simultaneously which any writer could use individually or in combination.  First, she uses the artifact of the chess set.  An artifact strikes me as a great way to bring a story to life within a scene.  It evokes memories.  It grounds the scene in the physicality of the moment.  It evens provides opportunity for stage business and action for the characters in the scene during the retelling.  I’m even reminded of Holden’s use of a baseball mitt to a story in The Catcher in the Rye.  Second, she uses the concept that this story was a game they played in the past, a concrete memory in itself with which the characters can interact and to which they can have visceral emotional reactions.  Third, of course, the chess set is animated so that the story can be dramatized for us like a play within a play.  “Mind explaining?” Alyssa asks pushing Morpheus to fill her in on the necessary history.  “I would prefer to show you,” he says and the chess pieces come to life enabling Howard to show rather than tell.

Context of Conflict

Later in Splintered, Alyssa meets back up with Morpheus and he presses her to explain how she discovered his ulterior motives for her quest.  Howard sets up an interesting conflict dynamic here between the two.  Morpheus wants Alyssa to explain how she figured out his plan –not because her discovery incenses him, but because he delights in how well he manipulated her.  So in retelling the story of her discovery she is recounting his genius.  “Figured it out, did you?” he says.  “Make yourself comfortable, and enlighten me on how you came to be a netherling princess.”  His acid tone puts me on alert as a reader, and all of a sudden two things are happening at once, peeking my interest –the retelling which is helping me put the pieces together and this intense emotional conflict between two characters I care about.  Alyssa, on the other hand, is reluctant to explain because she realizes she played right into Morpheus’ hands and he is gloating.  She refuses to sit and “a bitter taste burns [her] tongue.”  Throughout her story, we are tuned into Alyssa’s very physical negative reaction to Morpheus, as when she says, “I can’t bring myself to watch his enthralled features”.  So as she retells her journey of discovery, the reader feels the tug and pull of this emotional conflict, heightening the experience of what could otherwise be a dull retelling, merely skimmed over.  Howard goes on to have the characters use the retelling to draw judgments about each other and where they now stand which advance the storyline, and the reader, thank goodness, avoids a Scooby-Doo-ending!

I’m definitely going to be watching for other techniques authors use to help their characters tell stories in compelling ways, but for now I thought I’d share a few that we could all try, regardless of genre.

Untangling Subplots (Part III of III)

*****spoilers ahead*****

This post concludes a look at the functions of tiered subplots.  As we move lower down the tiers of subplot types, their functions become less complex, which makes it easy for us to look at tiers 3, 4, and 5 together.  We’ll also continue our examination of subplots in Eleanor and Park, which makes them very easy to understand.

A story could probably exist without 3^rd Tier subplots, but it is better for them.  They clearly support the central conflict without any threat of overtaking it.  3^rd Tier Subplots may establish allies, set stages, provide vehicle for relationships to occur, or even function as thematic threads.  Eleanor and Park’s friends can be though of as 3^rd Tier Subplots.  Park and Eleanor can make their journey without Cal or DeNice and Beebi, but they enhance the story.  Cal’s crush on Kim provides a helpful contrast to the main romance, one which helps Park develop his true values about love.  DeNice and Beebi show Eleanor is a really nice girl.  So while Cal is kind of a negative example of how to conduct yourself romantically in high school, DeNice and Beebi support Eleanor in her struggle for real love.  Also, consider the comic books and music 3^rd Tier Subplots.  The X-men and Park’s mix tapes give Park and Eleanor a way to come together –they provide vehicles for the relationship, itself.  Another type of 3^rd Tier Subplot may be the thematic thread.  In E & P, Rowell paints these in with brushstrokes that are vivid but never heavy-handed.  This is why at the end of the book we realize we have also been reading about ethnicity and poverty, or more broadly –isolation.  It is my observation that the read may see 3^rd Tier Subplots arc gently in three to seven scenes throughout the story.  They may be dispersed liberally throughout the early parts of the novel, but taper off as more subplots more tightly tied to the central conflict take over in Part III of the Hero’s Journey.

4^th Tier Subplots repeat occasionally.  They can be used to provide a reality check, show character growth, reveal important knowledge, or add to setting, mood, or theme.  In E & P, these might be the classroom and counselor scenes.  They provide a stage for events to unfold.  Consider the honors student who chides Park in class.  She makes actual appearance in scenes, but demonstrates no real arc of change.  She is merely a reality check.  These scenes may be distributed occasionally throughout any section of the story as needed.

5^th Tier Subplots include people who are mentioned by name one or two times.  They are named so more than anonymous, but they exist merely to populate the character’s world, to give a sense of the community of people around the character.  In E & P these 5^th Tier Subplots include mention of Mikey, Junior, Eric, and Tina’s sidekick, Anette.

 Fantastic fan art by Simini Blocker!

When you’re working of the manuscript of something as big as a novel, it is hard to hold everything in your head at the same time.  Seeing subplots as tiered with unique functions helped me not only to understand their role in supporting the main conflict, but also to chart them as I revised, making sure I developed each and pulled its thread all the way through the story.  Thank you, Rainbow, for providing such a well-structured novel that I could finally see how this all worked.  In an effort to summarize the information from these last three posts in a useful way so you can think about your own manuscript and subplots, I put together this chart.  Hope it helps!

Untangling Subplots (Part II of III)

*****spoilers ahead*****

This post we continue to look at the idea of tiered subplots, their major distinctions, functions, modes of arcing, and prominence in different parts of the story.  While 1^st Tier subplots are very caught up in the story’s central conflict, 2^nd Tier Subplots play a different role.

In my eyes, a 2^nd Tier Subplot is often what I think of as a complication plot.  In Eleanor and Park, think Tina.  Where otherwise things might work out easily for Park and Eleanor, there is Tina.  She plays Eleanor’s bully, initially.  Her backstory, a former relationship with Park, gives him a socially successful reputation to overcome.  Dealing with Tina actually ends up bringing Eleanor and Park closer, and in the end Tina helps shepherd them to safety when on the run from Ritchie.  So a 2^nd Tier Plot often provides a challenge and an opportunity to grow for the main character(s).

So this 2^nd Tier Plot can be a catalyst for a protagonist’s arcing journey, helping him to see things in a new way.  It is because of Tina that Park is forced to face his own biases about popularity and choose what counts more for him –reputation or true passion.  Sometimes the supporting character involved also shows a small arc of change.  Though not developed nearly to the degree of the parental relationships discussed in my last post, Tina does change from a two-dimensional bully who sticks sanitary pads on Eleanor’s gym locker to someone who can show sympathy, someone who even has issues of her own when it comes to growing up, friendship, survival, and romance.  My observation has been, though a 2^nd Tier plot may be planted early with occasional reminders, it rears its head in Part III of the Hero’s Journey.  So though we meet Tina on the bus in Chapter 1, her story comes between Park and Eleanor in Part III just as things get serious for him with Eleanor.

Stay tuned next post for 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th Tier Subplots and a subplot-summarizing chart!

 

Great fan art by Simini Blocker!

Untangling Subplots (Part I of III)

Subplots worried me.  The whole time I was revising my manuscript, I was thinking, “I really do not have a handle on what is going on with these subplots.”  They were just running around my manuscript like unsupervised children.  Then I read Eleanor and Park, and I realized this was the book for studying subplots!  So I reread, took notes on what subplots I found, and made a diagram of where the different subplots appeared in a loosely interpreted hero’s journey.  What I found out helped me get a grip on how the subplots functioned to help the story.  With that understanding I felt like I could better guide the subplots in my own story.  Thank you, Rainbow!

The big discovery?  There are tiers of subplots.  Over the course of my next few posts let me tell you about the five tiers I found, how they work, and give you a picture of how they functioned in Eleanor and Park.

1^st Tier Subplots

*****spoilers ahead*****

The main struggle in the story could not exist without what I’ll call 1^st Tier Subplots.  1^st Tier Subplots are very wrapped up in the story’s central conflict.  Eleanor & Park begins and ends with Park, and Park’s central conflict is that though he wants to keep his head down, he’s in love with Eleanor (which makes a low profile a little impossible).  An example of a 1^st Tier Subplot, then, is Park’s relationship with his parents.  Eleanor’s relationship with her parents is also a 1^st Tier Subplot.  These subplots are necessary for the main struggle to happen, for the main character to reach his/her full arc.  For example, Eleanor’s family situation is necessary for Park to have a moment where he doesn’t care what even his family thinks.  1^st Tier Subplots do not overtake the main conflict because readers don’t feel these subplots for their own sake, but always through the main character’s viewpoint, struggle, and personal needs.  Eleanor’s relationship with her family is dire, but we feel the loss of Eleanor to her family always through Park, so this subplot does not outshine his central conflict.  In fact these 1^st Tier Subplots often become the actual grounds for the main character’s ordeal & climax.  It is in large part because of Eleanor’s family situation that Park kicks Steve for teasing Eleanor.  Similarly, without Eleanor’s family Park would have no opportunity to help her escape.

1^st Tier Subplots may function in a variety of ways.  The may be two, equal, opposing forces that build up and tear down the main character’s struggle.  Think of Park’s relationship with his parents, who help the young couple find their way, versus Eleanor’s relationship with her parents, whose very way of life continues to threaten any hope of Eleanor and Park staying together.  These subplots may echo the main struggle in different variations (ie. a similar struggle that fails, etc.).  They often contain mentors (Park’s dad), allies (Park’s mom), gatekeepers (Richie), etc. 

In 1^st Tier Subplots, full arcs develop for supporting characters.  Park’s relationship with his parents develops deeply.  He comes to see his parents as an example of a romantic relationship that can survive, and his parents come to a full acceptance of who Park wants to be as an individual.  It is possible, readers may not see all the events in this arc occur in scenes; some may be summarized.  As intensity mounts in Part III of the Hero’s Journey (as the hero moves from ordeal to climax), focus goes to higher tier subplots like these, and more time is spent on them.

Enjoy this great fan art by Simini Blocker !