Ozoneocean at 6:20PM, June 28, 2022

First person stories can have just an A plot. Banes and I talked about longer stories and we thought that Indiana Jones and Starwars (the first movie) and just A stories essentially

PaulEberhardt at 11:56AM, June 28, 2022

Short stories typically have just an A plot and nothing more - at least that's what I'm supposed to teach in class as part of their definition (typical textbook example: "Greyhound Tragedy" by Richard Brautigan). Novellas and novels, on the other hand, are kind of defined by typically having more than one plot, like dpat57 said. In practice, I've a feeling that that can't be really true. After all, many good writers like trying to break or at least bend the rules in the hope that it MAY yield interesting results. Not sure if I'd want to read a novel with just one A-plot, though, and in fact I can't actually think of an example for a short story with a clearly defined A- and B-plot separation right now.

usedbooks at 7:55AM, June 28, 2022

I do it all the time because I have an ensemble cast following a variety of character arcs. It helps break up a long story and give some suspense/thinking time to readers (or just a mood change).

dpat57 at 2:34AM, June 28, 2022

I think it's essential for longer stories, so you can leap to another thread when the current one reaches a good cliffhanger moment (and needs to recharge).

MOrgan at 2:01AM, June 28, 2022

I tried it with the Where the Nuts Come From story... and got confused about which character was in which plot. Whoops!