Write Compelling Plots

STORY

If someone asked you to give an overview of what your fictional piece is about, you’d tell them the STORY – the entirety of what happens to your characters who inhabit the world you have created. The who, the what and the where. Put simply, story is a series of events recorded in their chronological order.

PLOT

Now if that same person asked you more – the why, or how, or when (sounds like they might be invested in it, doesn’t it), and you told them the series of events that were necessary for that story to unfold, and how the story is delivered, then you are telling them the PLOT. Put simply, a plot is a series of events deliberately arranged to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance.

E.M. Forster put it like this: The king died then the queen died. Story. The king died then the queen died of grief.

Before we immerse into conflict (I know, I know … sounds awful doesn’t it!), let’s distinguish between the terms: ‘story’ and ‘plot’.

it’s the conflicts that arise that make a story interesting.

. Are you literary, conversational, or colloquial in the way you write?