Cross-posted from the Teachers' Group...

What is a story? What is a plot?

I know the E.M. Forster distinction: the king died and then the queen died is a story; the king died and then the queen died of grief is a plot, with the difference being that a story is a mere list of events, but when linked with causality it becomes a plot. But that seems a very unsatisfying definition of story.

When a child, or indeed an adult, says, "Tell me a story" they don't mean "Tell me a list of events". They mean something much bigger and greater than that. And they don't just want a plot, either - they want a convincing world, with a main character who has a goal that matters, plenty of conflict, and a satisfying ending. To me, this is story - the full achievement of all this.

A boy woke up, brushed his teeth, went to school, had an English lesson, had a maths lesson, played football, scored a goal, came home, watched TV, went to bed. is not in my view, a story; not even a boring story. It's a list of events.

So is there a case for making a distinction between small, Forsterian 'story' and big, rich STORY?



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It isn't even a boring story, in my view, because there is no problem to solve. A boring story would be:

A boy got up and made himself a boiled egg but the dog ate it. The boy didn't like eggs much anyway so he just got himself some toast instead.

There's a problem and a solution, but the stakes are low and there's no conflict. It's a story, but it's pointless.

I would have thought, the King died, the Queen mourned, is a story; Was the king murdered? is a plot.

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As for the boy: The boy was starving and stole an egg; a dog ate it; the dog was caught and whipped; the boy owned up to stealing the egg, to save the dog, is a story.

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...it's not a plot because we know who did it, we're just waiting to see if the boy does the right thing by the dog.

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There are plenty of plot-less character-driven novels out there, eg, in Chick-lit and Romance, where the reader is led round the houses as they wait for a resolution to the 'will she/won't she marry the love interest?'

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There are also plenty of plot-less childrens stories churned out by childrens writers. However, Agents are crying out for plot-driven ones.

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...even if it's only a few hundred word Picture Book.

This is a personal differentiation but I identify the story as 'what happened' and plot as how you choose to tell what happened. So plot veers into structure at this point, but that's no bad thing for new writers to realise: that plotting, i.e. the organisation of events, pov, what you omit, what you expand on, is separate from the overall linear sequence of events which makes up story.

But as I said, this separation is one I've come up with that helps me so I pass it onto students. I've not seen an identical definition of the two elsewher.

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Sorry should have added in 'story' definition that inherent in the word story is a sequence of events that add up to matter, to engage and involve the reader.

An aside, but Robert Mckee makes the lovely succinct comment: if you show us a familiar world you must swiftly lead us to something within it which is unfamiliar (kitchen sink/chick lit etc). If you take us somewhere unfamiliar (sci-fi, fantasy worlds) then you must show ius the familiar. If you fail to do this readers will get bored by familiarity or switch off from the incomprehensible. Which I think connects with your original comments on story, Leila.

I identify the story as 'what happened' and plot as how you choose to tell what happened. So plot veers into structure at this point,

That works very well as a definition for writing crime, which is what I'm doing at the moment. It's all very well to have the plot in your head - in my case, girl disappears and then a series of events occur involving lots of red herrings and sub-plots but in the end she is reunited with her family - but it's the ordering of those events and what you reveal and keep back that make the story either readable or flat.

What a fascinating question.

Love that McKee quote...

I think of plot as the mechanics of what happens: how all the different wheels turn and lead to other wheels turning, and so on. If you think of each character as a wheel, it ends up looking like one of those toys where you rearrange the cogs to interlock. In principle you can work out a plot using lay figures A, B & C, and make sure all the bits work.

Whereas story is what happens with its significance: why it mattered, and why I cared enough to tell it and you cared enough to read it. Making that mattering happen will be partly about which parts of the plot you handle how (through whose eyes, how written, what told quickly and what shown full-bloodely, and so on) and partly about how you structure the telling - pace, weight and significant. You couldn't possibly do that with lay figures.

Emma

I identify the story as 'what happened' and plot as how you choose to tell what happened.

I really like that, but if you read a book and by the end of it you're left wondering what the plot was, then is that 'no plot', or just 'bad plotting'? Surely it can't be lack of a story because there's character and setting and stuff happening.

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If there's nothing driving the story, then isn't that 'no plot', regardless of how the story is structured?

Fascinating and thought-provoking comments here. So there doesn't seem to be a water-tight definition of 'story' then? I too would put plot closer to structure, Cherys. Amd yes, the Mckee comment is bang on.

what happens with its significance

A sequence of events must HAVE significance, then, to be a story, would you say? Significance to the main character, that is.

But you could have a character-driven story, where plot is secondary to character development (driven by the choices the character makes).
Or a plot-driven story, where character development is secondary to the plot (or, in a Dan Brown novel, practically non-existant), where the character is driven by external forces.
Both have structure but that doesn't necessarily make it plot.

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Sometimes you can get over-plotting, where the writer is trying to tell more than one story, one of which is unnecessary or may even have elements of a different genre resulting in 2 competing genres in the one novel (and, no, that doesn't make it crossover ).

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And then you can get the Story which is purely Theme, and that is neither characterisation nor plot.

I dunno. I think you can over think this stuff. It makes my head hurt.

plot is secondary to character development

But there must be a plot. It may not be a plot which depends on physical actions, but there are things which happen - even if those things are: 'Main character changes her mind about getting married' or 'Main character decides to make an effort to love her mother'.