Plot, Story, and Storyline
Does Your Story Have Legs That Go All the Way Up?
Think about your story. It could be a story you already wrote, short or long; it could be a story you want to write or tell; it could even be the story of your life. Is it a love story? An action-packed adventure? A space opera? Mine is a shaggy dog story. It’s inconsequential, rambles all over the place, and also there’s a dog that has not been to the groomer since February.
The Nature of Story
Maybe this has happened to you: Out of the clear blue sky, you came up with an amazing story. Maybe it came to you in a dream. Maybe you chanced upon an inspiring writing prompt. Maybe something you saw or heard touched a nerve and your brain went bananapants supplying details and fleshing out the idea and you didn’t sleep for two days. Been there. Here—I’ll share one from my vault.
After a thousand years in self-imposed isolation, a legendary warrior from a long-lived elder race must abandon her hermitage to intervene in the affairs of humans. Their king has grown power mad, allying with the mysterious northern clans to expand his rule beyond the borders of the known world. Her gateway into human society? A forgotten treaty made a millennium past that gives her the right to marry into the ruling family. Her only chance to save humankind—and the world they inconveniently share with her people—is to exercise that prerogative and forge a partnership with the king’s recalcitrant youngest son, who hides secrets of his own. Now they must bridge the chasm of their different life experiences, value systems, and strengths; earn one another’s respect and trust; and join forces to prevent his father from setting their world on the path to annihilation.
That’s a great story. You want to read this book. I often wish someone else would write this book, so I could read it. The problem? There’s no plot. I haven’t included a single plot point to drive that story. You know plenty about what’s going to happen but you’re completely in the dark about how it’s going to happen. What is the series of dramatic events that allows my characters to tell this story? No idea.
It’s not enough to have a story—no matter how interesting, original, or detailed. You also need a plot. And your plot has to go the whole distance—tell your entire story—before it runs out of steam and takes a nap (#me).
The Necessity of Plot
Before you can create a solid plot, you need a good grasp of the difference between a plot and a story. Look, I went to college for this and I still didn’t come away with a full understanding. Some of my professors did not understand it well (including those who were trying to teach it). To illustrate, I’m going to use three classic examples (none of them my own): a plot with no story; a story with no plot; and a plot and story together (a storyline).
This may be controversial because I’m going to paraphrase an example from E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel while disagreeing with Forster's analysis on the fundamental difference between plot and story. I’m probably harming your writing development. You can go ahead and cancel me.
The king died and then the queen cried.
Forster calls this a story, but I disagree. This is a plot without a story. A plot is a sequence of related dramatic events. That’s it. An event happens [the king died]; another event [the queen cried] proceeds from the first; they happen in sequence [and then]. You can take this plot and make it into a story, which we’ll do in a moment, but on its own it is only a brief account of two related events. We do not yet know how or why they are related. My Outlook calendar tells a better story.
Next, an example of a story that does not have a plot. It is often attributed to Hemingway, though there’s evidence that it predates his writing career. Behold, the shortest and saddest story ever told in the English language:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
That’s a story. A story is an account of something that is told to entertain. This one doesn’t have a plot. There’s no action taken; no sequence of events; no beginning, middle, or end.
Create a More Perfect Union
Back to Forster, who is spinning in his grave. How do we take the earlier plot (sequence of events) and turn it into a story (account that entertains)?
The king died and then the queen cried with grief.
Now the plot is telling a story. It could even tell a completely different story using the same plot:
The king died and then the queen cried with joy.
We united plot and story. Now it’s a storyline.
Plot carries story upon its broad shoulders. Plot does the heavy lifting while story basks in the glory. Plot is working hard behind the scenes while story is on stage. Plot : Ant :: Story : Grasshopper. Plot is the studs. Story is the drywall you paint on.
I can’t speak for everyone, but for me it’s harder to come up with a plot than a story. Maybe it’s because plot is inherently less interesting than story. Check out the example from my personal vault again, this time described as only a plot:
A Woman arrives in the human capital city accompanied by her entourage. They request an audience with the Human King. She demands the humans fulfill the terms of a treaty. The humans agree. The King’s Middle Son declines to marry the Woman. The Youngest Son is betrothed to her instead. The Human King schedules their wedding a fortnight hence. The Human King summons his Eldest Daughter to travel from her Husband’s kingdom to attend. The Woman and the Youngest Son attempt to become acquainted.
Whew. That is not as compelling as it was the first time. You can admit it. It won’t hurt my feelings. I lost interest in what I was doing twice while writing it. Those are the events, the actions, that drive the story. The plot points don’t hint at the reasons why anything is happening, how any of the characters feel about the events, or what their motivations are. We don’t know the conflict or the stakes. And we are definitely not feeling entertained.
Now we know that we need to have a plot and we need to have a story in order to write something that people are going to want to read. What’s the big deal about having enough plot?
Write Enough Plot to Go Around
If you jump into drafting without hammering out your whole plot first, you can find yourself in trouble. Some of us are planners who like to outline, make a lot of notes, write detailed character sheets, and so on. Some of us are fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pantsers, who prefer to dive right into the draft and see where things go. Both strategies are valid—as long as you know a few basics about your plot. Do you need a six-level-deep outline listing every plot point and every action in every single scene? Definitely not.
But here are some things I’ve heard from friends, seen in action in client manuscripts, and most of all told myself:
I figured out the beginning and the end, but the middle is kind of a question mark. I’ve got the important parts.
I’ve plotted through chapter 8 of my planned 20 chapters. That’s plenty to start. Once I get going, the rest will fall into place.
I have a really cool scene worked out, and I can envision where the story goes from that point, but I’m just way less interested in how the characters arrive at my big scene.
Tag yourself. I’m . . . all of the above.
You need a rough idea of your plot’s beginning, middle, and end. There are a lot of plot structures available to use as a model or visual aid if that helps you. Aristotle; Freytag (the one we all learned in elementary school with the five parts on an upside-down square-root symbol); Frye (the U and inverted U); the three-act structure; the four-act structure. Those work for a lot of people, but I have never realized success using them to plot a story. They feel too prescriptive, too restrictive, too formulaic, and I get discouraged trying to make my story conform to the right shape.
Five Steps to Knock It Out
Instead, I take five concrete actions when I sit down to plot:
Identify my primary protagonist(s) and antagonist(s). (Now I know my main characters.)
Spell out the ultimate goal(s) of each of those characters. (Now I understand their motivation.)
Recognize the obstacles that will prevent each of those characters from reaching each of their goals. (Now I’ve discerned the conflict.)
List the actions each character will take to achieve their goal and overcome the setbacks they encounter as a result of the other characters doing the same. (These actions are my plot points.)
Arrange this list into an interesting order, making sure it contains:
A beginning, wherein I introduce the characters, the setting they inhabit, and the conflict.
A middle, wherein my characters drive toward their goals, experience setbacks, adjust their plans, and drive forward again. I know I’m done plotting through the middle section when I see the turning point: the moment when my protagonist(s) are at their lowest point and can begin to move upward toward resolution; simultaneously, it is the moment when my primary antagonist is at their highest point and begins to move downward toward defeat or at least adjournment.
An ending, wherein the external conflict is resolved—for good or for now—in a satisfying way; the internal and interpersonal conflicts of my protagonist(s) are resolved as well; the action winds down; the dramatic question is answered.
Putting the points in order is the final element. Now I have a plot.
Here are some things that can happen (all of which have happened to me) when you don’t have the basics of your plot before you start drafting. You might:
Write yourself into a corner. Your character needed to be on Planet Xylophone-12 to battle the Magistrate of Time and Space in Chapter 7 but you don’t have a reason for them to have gotten on a space shuttle in Chapter 3.
Realize that you don’t have everybody you need. Your antagonist died halfway through the story but you have no one waiting in the wings to take their place as a bigger, badder antagonist.
Need to employ a deus ex machina or a series of illogical, out-of-character actions to get everyone to the physical, emotional, and mental places they need to be for the story to move forward. If your story needs the Love Interest to take a big risk on the Protagonist, then your Protagonist better have done something to earn the Love Interest’s trust.
Devising a great story is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing and storytelling. Working out that solid plot, one of the hardest. Sometimes plot will require you to change your story in ways that are uncomfortable for you. Something you envisioned for your story, like a scene that you were really invested in, may not have a place in the finished product because it doesn’t move the plot forward. Maybe a character you love and worked hard to develop has to die for the story to continue on the right track. It’s not easy. Plot is a harsh mistress, but she makes the story better.
Do you feel great about your hero’s motivation but not too clear on your villain? Are they falling into that evil-for-the-sake-of-evil trap? I have the solution and it’s coming soon, so stay tuned! Anyway, I got to bounce. The British Modernist Literary Movement is outside with torches and they are not happy about the E.M. Forster thing.
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