: Re: Subplots better than the main plot The main plot follows the MC while travelling through the world trying to rescue his family. While doing this however, he must overcome a lot of difficulties.

@Carla500

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That's absolutely fine.

As other answers have said the concept of a fairly generic plot where the sub-stories are the real meat is very old indeed and can work very well. Especially with the rise of long form TV series (Netflix etc) where you're trying to balance an overall story arc with compelling individual episodes.

A good example is the radio play Pilgrim, which I suspect is inspired by the Canterbury Tales and has a lot of overt references to European Fairy Tales and strike a very good balance between an episodic format and an overall story arc and cumulative world building.

Equally a lot if very good TV series have a similar approach, Babylon 5, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and indeed Buffy and Firefly.

So yeah if you thing your sub-plots are your strength than play to that strength and write for an episodic format. It's a form I am a big fan of.

You could even argue that some of the most successful novel series like Sharpe, Hornblower, the Culture Series and even the Discworld series broadly follow this pattern.

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