How do you use subplots to add tension to your novel?
Spoiler warning: This post is going to reveal a few of the plot twists of Dial A for Aunties. The story fireworks are one of the true joys of this novel, so I’ll clearly signal when you should stop reading if you don’t want to know key plot elements. Note that neither the graphic nor the first four paragraphs of analysis after it contain any spoilers, so you can read those safely.
The final act of a romance novel is particularly tricky to plot since the author needs to stoke suspense by keeping the lovers apart without doing anything that will make readers question the relationship. Otherwise excellent novels can be undermined when an author relies on a minor misunderstanding that could, between reasonable people, be cleared up in a matter of minutes.
I think the difficulty of this hat-trick is part of what is fueling the popularity of romance sub-genres like romantic suspense, paranormal romance, and the rom-com, all of which rely on other plot strands to keep the lovers apart, entertain readers, and increase the suspense that will provide extra spice for the inevitable happy ending. Let’s look at the rom-com Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto to see how this works.
Sutanto’s novel has four distinct strands, all of them with their own plot fireworks:
The dead guy plot: The protagonist, Meddy, accidentally kills her blind date (who had it coming) early in the novel and then must spend the rest of the novel figuring out what to do with the body. (This isn’t a spoiler since it’s revealed in the book description.)
The relationship plot: This is a second-chance romance, with Part 1 giving us the backstory between Meddy and her college boyfriend, Nathan.
The wedding plot: Meddy is a photographer, part of a family wedding business with her mother and aunts. They’ve been hired for an enormous wedding involving two wealthy Indo Chinese families—an event that could make or break their business. This wedding turns out to be a reliable source of chaos and plot shenanigans.
The family plot: The relationship between Meddy’s mother and three sisters is loving but also full of sibling rivalries that stoke tension. In addition, Meddy must reconcile her desire to please her family with her desire to follow her own heart.
Note that two of these plots—the relationship and family plots—are primarily internal, while the other two are primarily external.
Let’s take a close look at how Sutanto balances these four strands and plays them against one another to keep the energy and suspense of the novel at a high pitch all the way through. The graphic below shows each plot strand coded by intensity for each chapter in the novel. White squares are chapters in which that plot strand doesn’t get any page time at all, and pale-blue squares represent backstory chapters, which are set seven years previously, during Meddy’s time at college.
The first thing to notice is that the relationships strand, seemingly so central to a romance novel, is entirely absent from a high proportion of chapters. Fifteen of the novel’s thirty-six chapters don’t focus on this plot, and four of those fifteen are entirely backstory. Sutanto can get away with this in part because of the romance trope she has chosen: with second-chance romance, we don’t need to see the lovers spend a lot of time getting to know one another to feel sure that they are meant to be together.
Sutanto compensates for that relatively slow, backward-looking start to the romance plot by providing a lot of intensity in the dead-guy plot, right through the first part of the novel. Also notice how, when the temperature does lower on the dead guy plot, the wedding plot takes over as the plot strand with a lot of intensity.
One of the most successful elements of the book is the family plot, which requires emotional growth from both Meddy and her mother and aunts to feel complete. These characters are a joy to see together, providing reliable punch lines, and you can see from the graphic that there are only two chapters that don’t address the tensions in their relationships to some extent.
Finally, note that Sutanto turns up the intensity of all four strands in the climactic final chapters of the novel—although the relationship strand is essentially put on pause for four chapters while she resolves the other plot lines. This is exactly the point where another novelist might stumble into an ill-advised plot twist to create a forced misunderstanding between her lovers. (In my opinion, Sally Thorne’s popular Hating Game suffers from this problem.) Sutanto doesn’t need to manufacture a new problem or diversion because her various plot strands provide plenty and she plays them like a master.
Let’s look at one sequence in detail to see how she does it. Spoilers ahead! If you want to read the book without knowing a couple of the plot twists in advance, stop reading here and return after you’ve read it. I promise you are in for a treat! If you’ve already read it or aren’t worried about spoilers, read on.
Sutanto is savvy about the way she uses the three-act structure, even giving playful titles to the three parts: “Girl Meets Boy,” “Girl Finds Boy,” “Girl Gets Boy.” The part breaks are also places where she positions key events in the relationship plot: Part 1 ends as Meddy realizes Nathan is one of the owners of the resort where the wedding is being held; Part 2 ends with Meddy forcing herself to pretend to Nathan that the dead guy in her hotel room is a quick fling; and the Epilogue is, of course, our happily ever after.
But a focus only on the three-act structure would cause us to miss the crucial pivot-point Sutanto has placed in chapter 19, right around the middle of the novel. After the revelations of chapters 11 to 14, Sutanto dials down the intensity for a few chapters. We’ve met the bride by now, the beautiful Jacqueline, and learned that the groom and groomsmen are all still drunk—the first of what will be many problems for this ill-starred wedding.
However, Jacqueline’s maid of honor, Maureen, comforts her and quickly whips the groom and groomsmen into shape. Meddy and her family have safely stashed the dead body in Meddy’s hotel room and have a plan to get rid of it later, so that aspect of the plot seems to be waning in intensity too. Sutanto draws our attention to the inherent drama of the penjemputan ceremony, which requires the groom and groomsmen to pass tests set by the bridesmaids in order to see the bride, and then the tea ceremony, during which the bridal couple are showered with over-the-top gifts.
Everything seems back on track as Meddy returns to her room in chapter 19 to confront a new but seemingly small problem: someone keeps calling the dead guy’s phone. Meddy works up the nerve to use his fingerprint to unlock the phone and that’s when our two external plot strands intersect: it’s the maid of honor, Maureen, who keeps calling, and we learn in the next chapter that she and the dead guy, whose real name is Ah Guan, had planned to steal the pricy haul from the tea ceremony. When Maureen can’t find Ah Guan to hand off the goods, she decides to frame Meddy—instantly ratcheting up the stakes for the whole family once again. Somehow (!) getting rid of a dead body isn’t their most pressing problem.
From this point forward, the two external plots are tied so closely together that increasing the intensity in one almost inevitably increases the intensity in the other, as you can see in the graphic at the end of Part 2 and through most of Part 3. I won’t reveal any more details of the plot, but I do want to call attention to the way Sutanto steadily increases the intensity of the family plot throughout the book until it is at a steady boil in Part 3. Ultimately, Meddy must confront the problems in her relationship with her mother and aunts—and become a more active participant in her own life—in order to set the whole story world to rights.
Want to read more about how Sutanto’s novel works? See our previous posts on the opening and on how to make a dialogue-focused scene feel active.