How do you use subplots to add tension to your novel?

This post discusses major plot twists in Dial A for Aunties.

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. Even well-crafted novels can falter when an author relies on a minor misunderstanding that reasonable people could resolve quickly. (For example, Sally Thorne’s otherwise excellent romance Hating Game suffers from this problem, in my opinion.) I believe this narrative challenge is fueling the popularity of romance subgenres like romantic suspense, paranormal romance (or romantasy), and the rom-com, all of which rely on additional plot strands to keep the lovers apart, entertain readers, and increase the suspense that will provide extra energy for the inevitable happy ending.

Jesse Q. Sutanto’s rom-com Dial A for Aunties has four distinct plot strands, all of them with their own fireworks:

Note that two of these plots—the romance and family plots—are primarily internal, focused on character development, while the other two are primarily external, focused on action.

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 figure below shows the intensity of each plot strand across the three parts of the novel. Sutanto makes it feel effortless, but one glance at the tangled threads in the figure will show you just how much work it takes to balance this many plots. (We’ll see a similar balancing act, solved in a different way, in the chapter on Mick Herron’s The Secret Hours in the book.)

The first thing to notice is that the romance strand, seemingly so central to a rom-com, is the slowest to start and often gets put on the back burner, without a mention. The novel has thirty-six chapters; fifteen of them, just over 40 percent, don’t touch on the romance plot at all. Nathan doesn’t even appear in the novel until chapter eleven, at the very end of part one—until that point, we’ve only met him in four low-intensity backstory chapters, which are set seven years previously, during Meddy’s time at college. 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—look at its soaring plot arc in the figure as the other threads are just getting into gear. In addition to seeing the death itself and the reactions of Meddy and her family, which I analyzed in detail in my post on that scene, we also see them take action, deciding that they will pack the body in a cooler, leave it in Big Aunt’s bakery, and figure out what to do with it after the wedding. In chapter eleven, the last chapter of part one, they discover that the cooler has instead been delivered to the island wedding venue along with the rest of their supplies.

The beginning of part two has a much more intense start than the beginning of part one, now that Sutanto finally has all of her plot strands operating. From here on out, she is able to choose which strands carry the suspense and interest of the reader. There are, predictably, various mishaps getting the body into the wedding venue, and they aren’t able to dispose of it right away. Through part two, whenever the dead guy plot is on ice (sometimes literally!), the wedding plot takes center stage as we meet a new cast of characters who deliver all of the drama a wedding can bring.

If you look at part three in the figure, you’ll see that Sutanto turns up the intensity of all four strands in the climactic final chapters of the novel—although the romance 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. 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. 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 romance plot. Part one ends as Meddy realizes Nathan is one of the owners of the resort where the wedding is being held; part two 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 nineteen, right around the middle of the novel. After the revelations of chapters eleven to fourteen, 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 after the rehearsal dinner the night before—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 nineteen 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 name is Ah Guan, had planned to steal the pricey 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 any longer.

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 three. Unlike the romance plot, the family plot is rarely absent from the novel—there are only two chapters where it doesn’t appear as an element. And while the romance plot delivers the required happy ending, it’s the family plot that generates Meddy’s character arc and enables the happy ending. Ultimately, Meddy must confront the problems in her relationships 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.

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