Other forms: subplots
A subplot is a second story running alongside the main one. A romantic subplot, the subplot resolves, cut the subplot.
A good one comments on the main story rather than merely filling time, which is why Shakespeare's subplots repeat the main theme in a lower key. Editors cut them first when a book runs long.
1nounsubplotA second story running alongside the main one.
“The main story is a murder mystery, but there's also a romantic subplot.”
subplot is a story.
Sub-, under, plus plot, from a nineteenth-century critical vocabulary for the parts of a drama.
Proto-Germanic
*plataz
Old English
plot — a plot of ground
Middle English
plot
English
plot
English, today
subplot
Built from
From sub + plot. plot comes from Middle English plot, plotte, from late Old English plot (“a plot of ground”), of unknown origin. Perhaps from Proto-Germanic plataz, platjaz (“a patch”); or alternatively, perhaps from a rebracketing of landsplott (“small portion, or plot, of ground”) taken as landes-plot (“plot of land”). Compare Middle Low German plet (“patch, strip of cloth, rags”), German Bletz (“rags, bits, strip of land”), and possibly Gothic 𐍀𐌻𐌰𐍄 (“a patch, rags”). See also plat. See also complot for an influence and reinforcement of secret plan. attractive physical attributes is a a back-formation from for the plot.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA