What the heck is plot anyway?

And what is the difference between story, plot, and narrative?

Have you ever noticed how many different meanings of plot people use?

Your cousin tells you about a recent film and uses plot to convey it had a lot of action, while you remember your high school teachers using it to refer to the technical structure of a boring novel you’d been forced to read.

The writing world is no different. Some writers claim plot is the most important part of your story whereas others tell you to forget all about it and focus on the characters instead.

What gives?

Let’s look at what’s going on and try to gain some clarity.

Contrasting definitions

Plot, story, and narrative are such commonly used words that it’s easy to assume we all know what we mean by them. After all, it seems so self-evident, right?

It isn’t.

A quick browse through writing craft books and internet blogs will reveal that when it comes to the basics, even the “experts” disagree on the specific distinctions between these terms.

Here are just a few of them:

“Plot is an accurate term that names the internally consistent, interrelated pattern of events that move through time to shape and design a story.” (Robert McKee)¹

“The plot is what happens in the film. The story is what it does to the who it happens to. […] The plot provides the action: the film’s motion. And the story provides the reaction: the film’s emotion.” (Peter Dunne)²

“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence.  A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.  “The king died, and then the queen died” is a story.  “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot.  The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.” (E. M. Forster)³

“Plot is the main story of your book or short story.” (Anne Lamott)⁴

“At its simplest level, a plot is the sequence of events that make up a story. […]In contrast, a story is the overarching narrative that encompasses the plot, characters, themes, and emotions of the book. […][T]he plot is the “what” of the story, while the story is the “why.” The plot tells us what happens, while the story tells us why it matters.” (Nisha Tuli, dabblewriter.com)⁵

“The plot of a story is the sequence of events that shape a broader narrative, with every event causing or affecting each other. In other words, story plot is a series of causes-and-effects which shape the story as a whole.” (Sean Glatch, writers.com)⁶

“Story is what your book is about, plot is the sequence of events that helps you tell the story.” (BBC Maestro)⁷

“Story covers the who, what, and where. […] Plot covers the how, when, and why.” (Ken Miyamoto, screencraft.org)⁸

“A ‘story’ is, in simplest terms, a sequence of events. So when thinking of a story it is A then B then C then D, the set of relevant events in chronological order. […] Plot describes a set of events as they relate to each other. The term is concerned with how to sequence and select the events of a story as a structure for its telling and how that telling can find maximum effect. […] The concept of narrative deals more with how the events are told. Narrative is the ordering of events into a consumable format.” (Aram Zucker-Scharff, hacktext.com)⁹

Several structure-focused craft books never even take the time to define plot; they use it under the assumption that “we all know what it is”. Sometimes, that’s fine. But sometimes, it creates misunderstandings and even frustration.

As someone who wants to dedicate an entire Substack to the nature and mechanics of various plots, I find it imperative to clarify these terms to establish the foundations of our Playground.

Two main perspectives

Upon closer look, we can observe that all these different approaches to plot can be expressed in one of two ways:

1. Plot refers to the sequence of external events in a story, separated from the psychological development of characters, the story’s theme, context, and other elements. In other words, plot is one of the elements of the story. This is the colloquial use you will mostly find in casual everyday conversations and occasionally in professional discussions. There is nothing wrong with this approach as it does make sense in certain contexts. But I find it insufficient for really getting to the heart of discussing stories.

2. Plot refers to the web of causality that connects events and other story elements and holds everything together. In other words, plot is not really one of the elements of the story; it is actually the way these elements relate to each other. This is what we are truly talking about when we are talking about plot in the context of the craft of storytelling as this is the most significant factor of well-crafted stories. That is also how I will be using the term on this Substack.

Defining story, plot, narrative

Now that we’ve cleared the main dilemma about the meaning of plot, let’s take a closer look at the definitions of story, plot, and narrative.

Story is a comprehensive whole comprised of various elements. That includes the events, situations, characters, setting, theme(s), motifs, etc.

Plot is the interconnectedness of all these elements and how they relate to each other. It is the glue holding it all together. Plot transforms a story idea from a series of random pieces of information thrown on the page into a cohesive and comprehensive whole.

Here is a visual representation of the difference between story and plot:

Plot is about logic, intelligence and depth.

The more you can demonstrate the interconnectedness of everything in the story, the stronger, tighter, and better its plot is.

At its basic level plot will refer to the cause-and-effect sequence of the events in the story. But you may have noticed I was referring to all elements, not just events. That’s because plot is actually about the interconnectedness of everything within a story, which includes characters’ personalities, quirks, objects, the story’s setting, context, and so on.

Once you know your story and its plot, it’s time to put it into some sort of form. That brings us to narrative.

Narrative is the way the story is told. It refers to the choice of point of view, linearity, the sequence of presenting elements of the story, etc.¹⁰

Why this matters

Ultimately, words are just words. The purpose of this post was not to convince you there is only one correct definition of these terms but to explain how I will be using them. It is my way of laying the foundation and establishing the basics for further posts.

It’s not about getting nitty-gritty with terminology. It is about understanding the material we are working with. It’s about really getting to the core of what we are talking about when we are talking about the elements of storytelling, analysing them, and using them in our own writing.

Hopefully, it has made some sense. I’m playing with an idea for a writing exercise based on what we’ve talked about today and if I manage to put it into some sort of coherent form, I’ll share it with you next week.

Otherwise, join me again in two weeks for a deep dive into Memento’s narrative structure. I can hardly wait!

Stay creative ✨

Katja

1. McKee, R. (1997) Story: substance, structure, style, and the principles of screenwriting. New York, USA: HarperCollins.

2. Dunne, P. (2007) Emotional structure: creating the story beneath the plot: a guide for screenwriters. Fresno, USA: Quill Driver Books.

3. Forster, E.M. (1927) Aspects of the novel. USA: Harcourt.

4. Lemmot, A. (1994) Bird by Bird: some instructions on writing and life. New York: Pantheon Books.

5. Tuli, N. Story versus Plot: Is there a Difference? https://www.dabblewriter.com/articles/story-versus-plot-is-there-a-difference (accessed 4 May 2024)

6. Glatch, S. What is the plot of a story? https://writers.com/what-is-the-plot-of-a-story (accessed 4 May 2024)

7. BBC Maestro. Plot vs story: what’s the difference? https://www.bbcmaestro.com/blog/difference-between-plot-and-story (accessed 4 May 2024)

8. Miyamoto, K. Plot vs. Story: What’s the difference? https://screencraft.org/blog/plot-vs-story-whats-the-difference/ (accessed 4 May 2024)

9. Zucker-Scharff A. Story vs Narrative vs Plot https://hacktext.com/2011/09/story-vs-narrative-vs-plot-1205/ (accessed 4 May 2024)

10. Narrative is another term that can be used in different ways. To avoid confusion, I will be using the term storyline to refer to a narrative (or multiple narratives) within a story and use the term narrative to refer to the way the story is told.

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Cover Photo by Sean Benesh on Unsplash