Plot of Story Is More Than What Happens

Studio Editorial | The Craft of Fiction

THE PREMISE

“ Events make a story move, but plot is what happens when those events matter to someone. This essay explores how character choices, consequences and discoveries give a story its direction, its structure and its meaning. ”

A story moves through events, but plot is created by the meaning those events have for the people living through them. When writers first begin planning a story, one of the easiest questions to ask is: What happens?

A man leaves home. A woman receives a letter. Two friends have an argument. Someone disappears. A family moves to another town. A detective discovers a body.

These are events. They may be interesting, but events alone do not necessarily make a plot. Plot begins when one event changes what can happen next.

In Brief

• Events give a story its movement.
• Choices give it direction.
• Consequences give it shape.
• Characters give it meaning.

Cause and Consequence

Imagine a character receiving an unexpected letter.

The letter itself is only an event. But suppose it contains information that changes what the character believes about her father. Because of that discovery, she decides to visit the town where he grew up. There she meets someone who knows more than they are willing to say. She begins asking questions, and those questions disturb an old secret.

A Sequence of Events

“The king died and then the queen died.”

One thing follows another in time, and nothing more.

A Plot

“The king died, and then the queen died of grief.”

One thing causes the next, and the reader begins to ask why.

The example is E. M. Forster’s, from Aspects of the Novel (1927).

Now the events are connected. The letter leads to a journey. The journey leads to a meeting. The meeting leads to questions. The questions lead to consequences. This is the beginning of plot.

The Chain of Cause

1

The letter changes what she believes.

2

The journey takes her to her father’s town.

3

The meeting with someone who knows more.

4

The questions disturb an old secret.

5

The consequences begin to arrive.

A useful way to think about plot is not as a list of things that happen, but as a sequence of choices, consequences and discoveries.

Characters Create Plot

Plot becomes much more interesting when characters are not simply carried from one event to another. A character should have reasons for acting. If someone walks into a room, the reader may wonder why. If the character walks into the room because they believe someone is hiding something there, the action has a purpose. If they then find something unexpected, their next decision becomes important.

Should they tell someone? Should they hide what they found? Should they investigate further? Should they leave?

The Moment

The character finds something unexpected.

Tell someone

A secret is shared, and can no longer be taken back.

Hide it

The character now carries a secret of their own.

Investigate

Every answer opens a more dangerous question.

Leave

The mystery stays behind, but so does the person who walked away.

Each choice can create the next part of the story. This is why character and plot cannot really be separated. A strong plot is often the result of putting a character with a particular desire, fear or belief into a situation that challenges it.

The Problem with Too Much Action

A story can contain car chases, arguments, discoveries, journeys and dramatic revelations and still feel strangely empty. The problem may be that the events do not change the characters or their circumstances. Consider a character who discovers an important secret but continues exactly as before. The discovery has no consequence. It becomes information rather than plot.

Now imagine that the secret forces the character to question someone they love. The relationship changes. The character makes a decision. That decision creates a new problem. The same discovery has now become part of the story’s movement. Good plotting does not require constant excitement. It requires meaningful change.

Information

A secret is discovered, and nothing changes

The character carries on exactly as before

The scene is exciting, but leaves no trace

Plot

The secret forces the character to question someone they love

A relationship changes, and a decision follows

The decision creates a new problem

Every Scene Should Leave Something Different

One useful question when writing a scene is: What is different at the end of this scene?

The answer does not have to be dramatic. A character may learn something. A relationship may become closer or more distant. A plan may succeed or fail. A suspicion may become stronger. A character may make a decision they cannot easily undo.

Ways a Scene Can Change Things

a character learns something a bond grows closer a bond grows distant a plan succeeds a plan fails a suspicion deepens a decision cannot be undone

Even a quiet conversation can alter the direction of a story. If absolutely nothing has changed, the scene may not yet have found its purpose.

Let Problems Grow Naturally

When a writer knows that the story needs a complication, there can be a temptation to introduce one simply because the plot requires it.

Readers can often feel this. A more natural approach is to allow problems to grow from the characters’ own actions. A character lies to protect a friend. The lie is discovered by someone else. To protect the first lie, the character tells another. Soon the character has created a situation that is much harder to escape.

How One Decision Creates the Next

A character lies to protect a friend.

Someone else discovers the lie.

A second lie is told to protect the first.

A situation that is much harder to escape.

The writer has not had to invent a series of unrelated problems. One decision has created the next. This gives the story a sense of inevitability while still allowing the reader to wonder what will happen.

Plot and the Unexpected

Good plotting does not mean making everything predictable. In fact, some of the best turns in a story occur when a character makes a choice that the reader did not expect but, once revealed, understands completely.

The surprise works because it belongs to the character.

1

A quiet person

finally loses their temper.

2

A dishonest character

tells the truth.

3

Someone who avoided home

suddenly decides to return.

The reader may not have predicted the action, but afterwards it feels right. That is one of the pleasures of a well-made plot: surprise and logic can exist together.

The Shape Beneath the Story

A plot does not have to follow a complicated formula.

At its simplest, a story might begin with a character who wants something. Something prevents them from getting it. They try to overcome the problem. Their attempts create new difficulties. Eventually they must make a choice that reveals who they have become.

The Shape Beneath the Story

1

Want. A character desires something.

2

Obstacle. Something stands in the way.

3

Attempt. They try to overcome it.

4

Complication. Their attempts create new difficulties.

5

Choice. They reveal who they have become.

The details can be as simple or as complicated as the writer wishes. What matters is movement. The character at the end of the story should not be standing in exactly the same place, emotionally or morally, as the character at the beginning.

Ask Better Questions

When a story seems to be losing its direction, writers often ask, “What should happen next?” Sometimes a better question is: What would this character do now? Or: What consequence would naturally follow from what has just happened?

?

What would this character do now?

?

What consequence would naturally follow?

These questions return the writer to the source of the story: the character and the choices they make. Plot is not a machine that moves characters around. It is the record of what happens when people want things, make choices, encounter consequences and discover that the world does not always respond as they hoped.

The Writer’s Signal

At the end of any scene, ask what is different. If the answer is “nothing,” look for the choice the character has not yet been forced to make.

Events give a story its movement. Choices give it direction. Consequences give it shape. And characters give it meaning.

Studio Editorial | The Craft of Fiction
Craft, plot and the architecture of storytelling

Editorial Note

This essay offers reflections on plotting for fiction writers. The approaches described are suggestions, not rules, and every writer will find their own way of shaping a story. The scenarios, such as the letter and the lie, are invented for illustration. The contrast between a sequence of events and a plot follows the well-known distinction made by E. M. Forster, whose works are listed below with other titles for further study.

References and further study

Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Malcolm Heath. London: Penguin Classics, 1996.

Forster, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. London: Edward Arnold, 1927.

Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.

McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York: ReganBooks, 1997.

Truby, John. The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. New York: Faber and Faber, 2007.