Story and Plot

[SkyBubble]

Saw this graphic on Facebook. I thought it might spark some interesting discussion here.

 

[BeechLeaf]

This seems to be a reversal of E.M. Forster's distinction, which I recall summarized as: Story is what happens, plot is why it happens.

 

[SimonDoom]

Saw this graphic on Facebook. I thought it might spark some interesting discussion here. View attachment 2608348

That sounds about right. A good story comes from blending plot and character, so the plot appears to emerge naturally from the character's personality and motives, in which, hopefully, the reader is invested enough to want to know what's going to happen to the character.

 

[SimonDoom]

This seems to be a reversal of E.M. Forster's distinction, which I recall summarized as: Story is what happens, plot is why it happens.

I looked that up, and you're right. That's how Foerster thought about it. I tend to think about those terms in the reverse. But it doesn't really matter what labels we attach. The key is understanding how a good story is constructed. It's not enough to be able to say what happens; you have to be able to make it compelling by tying the narration of events to character motivation.

 

[NotWise]

I don't think I gain much by trying to distinguish the story from the plot. In a lot of instances, you can use them interchangeably. The distinction I might make is that the story has a plot. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to reverse the hierarchy.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Spine + muscles = body.

I see it as much the same, whatever labels are used.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

This seems to be a reversal of E.M. Forster's distinction, which I recall summarized as: Story is what happens, plot is why it happens.

I think Forster and Facebook are saying the same thing (!). Forster's just taking it as a given that what 'happens' is the material that readers care about, ie it's what they're reading the work for.

 

[sijopunk]

I had always heard the labels the way SkyBubble's screenshot uses them, but they're so ambiguous they could go either way.

But the distinction between the events of a narrative (trying not to use the words "story" or "plot" here) and the characters' emotional impact to those events is a great one to make. Those are separate, but intimately connected, things.

These two things are in constant conflict for me during the drafting phase, and I feel both of them. I'll feel them tugging in different directions and those drafts often fail. Sometimes I'll come into a writing project with a clear picture of one of them, but the other takes over and squashes the first. Then I usually have two projects and I almost always write the one that was inspired by the characters' emotional journey.

I can see writers not needing to make this distinction because the events and the characters were designed to work together. Brandon Sanderson has often talked about how he designs characters as roles they play in the events, so those things are woven together from the start and this isn't something that he probably spends much time thinking about.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Typically, I am inspired to write a story by a plot bunny coming to me.

The characters and their involvement are driven by the needs and dynamics of that plot.

It's a cause and effect relationship as I see it.

 

[AG31]

I'm mildly fascinated by how some authors write plot driven stories and some write character driven stories. John Grisham for instance, keeps me turning pages, but on reflection, his characters don't have a lot of individuality. And that's just fine. I don't need the distraction. So I wouldn't subscribe to the meme in the OP without the addition of "for character driven stories."

 

[HordHolm]

I'm mildly fascinated by how some authors write plot driven stories and some write character driven stories. John Grisham for instance, keeps me turning pages, but on reflection, his characters don't have a lot of individuality. And that's just fine. I don't need the distraction. So I wouldn't subscribe to the meme in the OP without the addition of "for character driven stories."

Agreed. Character is great, but there's also the idea of the story that happens to the characters, rather than the one they make themselves (to add to the definition @SimonDoom put forward upthread). It becomes an interplay of 'do the characters react to the action, or does the action react to the characters?' A bit of both also works.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm mildly fascinated by how some authors write plot driven stories and some write character driven stories. John Grisham for instance, keeps me turning pages, but on reflection, his characters don't have a lot of individuality. And that's just fine. I don't need the distraction. So I wouldn't subscribe to the meme in the OP without the addition of "for character driven stories."

We've had some previous threads and discussions on this subject -- the interplay between plot and character, and which as an author do you put first. I start with plot, not character. I create characters to further the plot, after I've come up with the story idea. I think an ideal story has to be successful with both, and I think either approach can get you to the right mix.

I would acknowledge that if you are a plot-first author, there's the risk that you short-change the characters. I think I've done this sometimes in my stories, and it's one of the reasons I've taken a long break in writing more stories. I'm re-thinking the approach.

The best sort of story, IMO, is one where plot and character intertwine seamlessly. Where you don't see the wires moving the puppet, so to speak. There are multiple ways to reach that result, but that's the result you want to achieve, in my opinion.

 

[crookedletter]

Maybe it's obvious and irrelevant to call a meme reductive, because memes are kind of reductive by nature. But I think contrasting plot with story is misleading.

As other have alluded to, you can have a plot-driven story, you can have a character-driven story. You can also have an ideas-driven story, a sex-driven story, a story driven by experimental writing techniques.

Plot is a tool, an element to story. As are characterization and ideas and language and perspective and eroticism, among others. Story is what happens when you combine all of these things to make a whole.

Contrasting plot with story is a little like contrasting red paint with painting. (Speaking of reductive...)

 

[pink_silk_glove]

plot is why it happens.

No, that's motive. Plot is what happens. If the plot is driven by the motives of the characters to make choices, then generally it is a much more gripping plot. Motive driven plot as opposed to event driven plot, which is just a series of spectacles. How that pertains to lit in particular is all of the stroke stories purely being event/spectacle driven.