Plot (narrative)

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Plot and Story. Plot is the cause‐and‐effect sequence of events in a story.[1]
Plot refers to the sequence of events inside a story which affect other events through the principle ofcause and effect. The causal events of a plot can be thought of as a series of sentences linked by "and so." Plots can vary from simple structures such as in a traditional ballad to complex interwoven structures sometimes referred to as an imbroglio. The term plot can serve as a verb and refer to a character planning future actions in the story.
In the narrative sense, the term highlights the important points which have important consequences within the story, according to Ansen Dibell.[1] The term is similar in meaning to the term storyline.[2][3]

Definition[edit]

English novelist E. M. Forster described plot as the cause-and-effect relationship between events in a story. According to Forster, "The king died, and then the queen died, is a story, while The king died, and then the queen died of grief, is a plot."[4][5][6] Consider the following:
  1. The prince searches for Cinderella with the glass shoe
  2. Cinderella's sisters tried the shoe on but it does not fit
  3. The shoe fits Cinderella's foot so the prince finds her
The first event is causally related to the third event, while the second event, though descriptive, does not directly impact the outcome. As a result, according to Dibell, the plot can be described numerically as 1⇢3 while the story can be described as 1⇢2⇢3. A story orders events from beginning to end in a time sequence.[1] Teri Shaffer Yamada agrees that a plot does not include memorable scenes within a story which do not relate directly to other events but only "major events that move the action in a narrative."[7]For example, in the 1997 film Titanic, when Rose climbs on the railing at the front of the ship and spreads her hands as if she's flying, this scene is memorable but does not directly influence other events, so it may not be considered as part of the plot. Another example of a memorable scene which is not part of the plot occurs in the 1980 film The Empire Strikes Back, when Han Solo is frozen in carbonite.[1] Steve Alcorn, a fiction-writing coach, said the main plot elements of The Wizard of Oz could be summarized as follows:[8]
A tornado picks up a house and drops it on a witch, a little girl meets some interesting traveling companions, a wizard sends them on a mission, and they melt a witch with a bucket of water.[8]

Fabula and syuzhet[edit]

The literary theory of Russian Formalism in the early 20th century divided a narrative into two elements: the fabula (фа́була) and the syuzhet (сюже́т). A fabula is the events in the fictional world, whereas a syuzhet is a perspective of those events. Formalist followers eventually translated the fabula/syuzhet to the concept of story/plot. This definition is usually used in narratology, in parallel with Forster's definition. The fabula (story) is what happened in chronological order. In contrast, the syuzhet (plot) means a unique sequence of discourse that was sorted out by the (implied) author. That is, the syuzhet can consist of picking up the fabula events in non-chronological order; for example, fabula is 1