Plot (narrative)

Definition

E. M. Forster defined plot as the cause-and-effect relationship between events in a story, contrasting 'The king died, and then the queen died' (a story) with 'The king died, and then the queen died of grief' (a plot). Teri Shaffer Yamada noted that plot includes only major events that move the action, not memorable scenes without direct influence on other events, such as Rose on the railing in Titanic or Han Solo frozen in carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back. Russian Formalism divided narrative into fabula (chronology of the fictional world) and syuzhet (the perspective or plot thread of those events), later translated to story and plot.

In narratology, fabula is what happened in chronological order, while syuzhet is the unique sequence of discourse sorted by the implied author, which may present fabula events non-chronologically. Viktor Shklovsky viewed syuzhet as the fabula defamiliarized, a technique that upends familiar presentation, slows perception, and makes the story appear unfamiliar. He cited Tristram Shandy as an example, where temporal displacements, digressions, and causal disruptions defamiliarize the fabula.

Examples

A story orders events from beginning to end in time sequence. In 'Cinderella', the prince searches with the glass shoe, the sisters try the shoe without success, and the shoe fits Cinderella. The first event is causally related to the third, while the second does not directly impact the outcome; thus the plot can be described as the first event 'and so' the last. The story would contain other incidents, such as falling asleep in poppies or the dog causing problems with a neighbor.

Concepts

Dramatic structure is the philosophy by which a story is split and thought of, varying by ethnicity, region, and time period, and applied to books, plays, and films. Philosophers and critics discussing story structure include Aristotle, Horace, Aelius Donatus, Gustav Freytag, Kenneth Thorpe Rowe, Lajos Egri, Syd Field, and others; some structures, like ta'ziyeh, are so old the originator is unknown. To sell a script, plot structure is often made into a treatment; in Europe and the European diaspora, the three-act structure (set-up, confrontation, resolution) is common, with acts connected by two turning points.

The three-act structure for film analysis has been attributed to Syd Field. To sell a book in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, plot structure is often split into a synopsis. Aristotle, in his Poetics, argued a play should imitate a single whole action with a beginning, middle, and end, and split the play into complication and denouement.