: Re: Which plot should I use while outlining my plot beats? I'm writing a crime/mystery fiction novel. The main plot involves a murder at the start, a case that my protagonist, a police detective,

@Samaraweera193

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I think that the two plot lines must be related if the novel, taken as a unit, is to make sense to the reader. But "related" could mean many different things.

The question does not provide much in the way of context about the disappearance of the detective's wife. Was the marriage happy or not before the disappearance? Was it possible that the wife's departure was voluntary? Does the detective have feelings of guilt or failure regarding his behavior related to the disappearance? To simplify my answer, I am going to assume that the couple fought repeatedly, her disappearance was messy (maybe it was voluntary and maybe it was not), and that the detective is conflicted about his role in all of this.

Given these assumptions, the most obvious way of relating the two plot lines is to have them be parallel. In that case, the parallel case could have have a similar departure but one followed by the discovery of the murdered body of the genre plot. The questions that the detective must answer in the genre plot could also be questions that could have (or should have) been answered for his wife's disappearance. Step by step, he is forced to confront the issues which he has been avoiding about the disappearance.

The relationship between the two plots could also involve similar themes, locations, people who knew some or all of the players in the two plots, and so on. It could also involve differences. For example, the two crimes (or a specific aspect of them) are similar in almost all respects except for this little detail that should not matter but we all know by the end of the book will be the key clue.

Regardless of how you relate the two plots, the trick is to avoid being too on-the-nose with the comparisons. Perhaps, the two plots are comparable only at specific points while most of the plots are noise to keep the readers (at least partially) in the dark. Perhaps, the two plots take place in different cultures that mirror each other; where one is light the other is dark; where one gives power to this class/group/sect the other denies it.

Obviously, the two plots complicates the writing but there can be rewards.

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