Writing Help 129 | - ☆ Freelance Writer
Apr 05, 2013 | #1
Terms You Need for Writing about the Novel
In common usage these terms are interchangeable, and if someone asks you for the plot of a movie or the story of what happened to you last weekend, in both cases you will be recounting the events you saw or experienced as thoroughly and completely as possible. In this way, you will be recreating events in a way that is as true to their actual unfolding as possible, which will make what happened clear to your friend and simple to present for yourself. However, as you might have expected if you have been reading this series from the beginning, these terms take on distinct meanings when used to describe aspects of the novel, and should be used carefully by anyone performing a thorough and precise analysis (which should be you if you are looking for a solid grade on your next essay or presentation for English class).
Although scholars can characterize the terms somewhat differently in their specifics, I have found it most useful to define the terms plot and story as two related and interwoven layers of the same tapestry, each of which is absolutely necessary for the other to exist in any way. Beginning with story will be easiest, since that corresponds to the most simple and intuitive definition described in the first paragraph above. The story of a given novel includes all of the events that take place within it, in their full detail, in the order in which they occur chronologically. To take a well known classic example, the Odyssey is a story of a man who upon his return from the Trojan War gets captured by a cyclops, escapes through trickery, and then gets cursed by the god of the sea for taunting and injuring the cyclops with such arrogance. He wanders, doomed, for ten years, coming close but never able to reach his homeland, as one terrible incident after another befalls him and his crew. Finally, he reaches his home, kills those who have been trying to marry his wife and inherit his lands and titles, and flees with his family to escape the vengeance of the men's irate relatives. This is an outline of the story Homer presents, and although it possesses much greater detail than I have had space for here, this is the essence of what story is.
Plot, on the other hand, is a less natural, more artistic designation, and describes the selection and ordering of events from the story rather than the events themselves. Plot is concerned not so much with what happens, as with how those events are presented to the reader. In the above example of the Odyssey, we do not begin reading at the point where Odysseus is setting sail for home right after the Trojan War is concluded. Instead, the action begins at a point much further along in the action of the story, where Odysseus has been kept (half-willing) captive to a beautiful nymph. After continuing from this point for a short time, Odysseus eventually arrives at a welcoming kingdom and tells his whole story to his host, simultaneously filling us in on what has gone before. He eventually catches up to the point in the story where he began telling the tale, and thus the plot catches up with the story once again. This serves as a kind of flashback, which is a common device used in conjunction with in medias res to tell us what has gone on before. Also, it is important to keep in mind that the choice of which events to cover, and the time taken to describe each of them, is an important consideration of plot. An author's choice to include a given event increases its significance, and the time spent covering it does so even further. As a result, an event which might not seem greatly significant to the story as a whole may become the centre of the action based on how it is treated in the unfolding of the plot. In this way, plot can mould story to create a vast array of literary effects, and as any good historian will tell you, the same story can be told in many different ways, resulting in dozens or hundreds of variations on "the truth" of the original story.
Plot versus Story
In common usage these terms are interchangeable, and if someone asks you for the plot of a movie or the story of what happened to you last weekend, in both cases you will be recounting the events you saw or experienced as thoroughly and completely as possible. In this way, you will be recreating events in a way that is as true to their actual unfolding as possible, which will make what happened clear to your friend and simple to present for yourself. However, as you might have expected if you have been reading this series from the beginning, these terms take on distinct meanings when used to describe aspects of the novel, and should be used carefully by anyone performing a thorough and precise analysis (which should be you if you are looking for a solid grade on your next essay or presentation for English class).
Although scholars can characterize the terms somewhat differently in their specifics, I have found it most useful to define the terms plot and story as two related and interwoven layers of the same tapestry, each of which is absolutely necessary for the other to exist in any way. Beginning with story will be easiest, since that corresponds to the most simple and intuitive definition described in the first paragraph above. The story of a given novel includes all of the events that take place within it, in their full detail, in the order in which they occur chronologically. To take a well known classic example, the Odyssey is a story of a man who upon his return from the Trojan War gets captured by a cyclops, escapes through trickery, and then gets cursed by the god of the sea for taunting and injuring the cyclops with such arrogance. He wanders, doomed, for ten years, coming close but never able to reach his homeland, as one terrible incident after another befalls him and his crew. Finally, he reaches his home, kills those who have been trying to marry his wife and inherit his lands and titles, and flees with his family to escape the vengeance of the men's irate relatives. This is an outline of the story Homer presents, and although it possesses much greater detail than I have had space for here, this is the essence of what story is.Plot, on the other hand, is a less natural, more artistic designation, and describes the selection and ordering of events from the story rather than the events themselves. Plot is concerned not so much with what happens, as with how those events are presented to the reader. In the above example of the Odyssey, we do not begin reading at the point where Odysseus is setting sail for home right after the Trojan War is concluded. Instead, the action begins at a point much further along in the action of the story, where Odysseus has been kept (half-willing) captive to a beautiful nymph. After continuing from this point for a short time, Odysseus eventually arrives at a welcoming kingdom and tells his whole story to his host, simultaneously filling us in on what has gone before. He eventually catches up to the point in the story where he began telling the tale, and thus the plot catches up with the story once again. This serves as a kind of flashback, which is a common device used in conjunction with in medias res to tell us what has gone on before. Also, it is important to keep in mind that the choice of which events to cover, and the time taken to describe each of them, is an important consideration of plot. An author's choice to include a given event increases its significance, and the time spent covering it does so even further. As a result, an event which might not seem greatly significant to the story as a whole may become the centre of the action based on how it is treated in the unfolding of the plot. In this way, plot can mould story to create a vast array of literary effects, and as any good historian will tell you, the same story can be told in many different ways, resulting in dozens or hundreds of variations on "the truth" of the original story.