The Textbook

Plot, Story and Structure

Friday, May 13

Chapter 8: Plot vs. Story

Viewing Assignment:

Big Hero 6

Let's talk about money.

No, we're not going to talk about how to make money from your writing (that's a big discussion for a different book.).

What we're going to talk about is actual, physical money. Chances are, you probably don't have any coins in your pocket right now. Across the world, we've switched more and more to virtual money, but (until everything goes digital) I bet you've held a coin in your hand.

Coins are remarkably universal. Whether it's a Bhat, a Quarter, a Euro or a Peso, it's got two sides. There is usually someone's face on one side and something else on the back. When you think about it, it's pretty much impossible to imagine a coin without two sides. You may picture one side most of the time, but you always know the other side is there.

And that's how we need to look at what we write...that all of our stories and novels have two sides.

In the last few chapters we've been really focused on one side of the writing coin. We've talked about what is going on inside the characters. As I've said before, this change that the character goes through is the Story (big S). But, I've also given you some hints about the other side of the coin...the plot.

We've talked a bit about how Story interacts with the plot (no need to capitalize this one as it almost always means the same thing), but now it's time to give you some details on how you can bring both sides of the coin together by making the plot and Story work together.

When most of us get an idea for a new story, we tend to get ideas for things that might happen. True, the first images we conjure up might be of a character, but it's generally a character doing something that the reader can see or hear. Our first impressions of a character or story tend not to be about how that character is changing, becoming something new.

That's why we've spent so much time talking about all the internal stuff. It takes time to consider all the aspects of theme and character arc and the internal whys that make up the Story of a story. But plot's relatively straightforward. Something happens that leads to the next thing. Characters do things and the plot builds until it's over.

Yes, there are lots of tools you can use to shape a great plot, and we will get into those in upcoming chapters, but we get rough ideas for plot pretty naturally.

So, to get started, let's go back to our money analogy. Go find a coin. Set its edge on the table and give it a good spin. While it spins, look at it.

You don't see one side or the other anymore, do you? When it's spinning fast, it all blurs together.

That's what reading a good story is like for your readers. When you put everything together well, the two different sides of character development and plot blur into one experience for the readers. They can't see the mechanics of how things fit together because you've made the two sides flow together so well.

But how? At the fundamental level it's pretty simple...the decisions or choices the character makes drive things that happen to form the plot. And the new situations in the plot give opportunities for new decisions and actions for the character to make.

And, by the end of the story, the plot has hopefully provided a situation where the character has to make a decision that she would not have made earlier in the story.