The Difference Between Plot and Story
When looking at some sites about plot and story, I ran across this quote (or misquote?) a few times:
The king died and then the queen died.
The king died and then the queen died of grief.
The first sentence is a story, while the second is a plot. Apparently this example comes from E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel. According to this review, the book is 175 pages of must-read material!
Anyway, I do like that example of his. I also like this explanation:
A story is a series of events recorded in their chronological order.
A plot is a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance.
The way I think of it, a plain story is like history: boring. 
But a plot is someone’s telling of the story. It may be biased or inaccurate, but it’s more interesting! Many works of fiction are based on the same basic stories or actual events. Is there even such a thing as a truly original story? I doubt it.
I’m sure I’m not the only one that gets frustrated when trying to come up with an original story. Everything’s been done before! I need to constantly remind myself that the originality is all in the plot, the telling of the story.
August 15th, 2007
yeh i think the same
July 27th, 2008
I think this thing is just confusing I wish we didnt have to distinguish between the two the meanings overlap and its all the same to me. In theory it appears as though its easy to differentiate but when analysing a story to find the plot and story its virtually impossible to sift out the different things. Anyway thats wat I think
September 14th, 2008
wow tnx for the definitions. Easier to understand than my film textbook.
October 17th, 2008
To my own understanding, there is no diff btw a plot and a story. Both is a form of narrating an event bcos both have characters.
November 23rd, 2008
To Gladys:
No, you are quite wrong. The Story is events in chronological order, and a plot is events both diegetic and non, that are told in a certain form (or order) that is deliberately constructed to highlight certain meanings, motifs, symbols, and feelings. If you have ever seen a movie with a flashback, or even many flashbacks, say “Flags of our Fathers” then you will see that chronologically it is a few brief war scenes and the war bond campaign trail that followed, while its complicated flashback narrative tells us that the film is really about a question of heroism exploitation. How there is no intrinsically heroic action, and the creation of heroes and icons is a practice that strips the humanity and the consequence of human memory of meaning from those involved.
In short, your “own understanding” is just so uninformed and poorly stated that the film critic in me is crying inside.
November 27th, 2008
whalemenace did you take that straight from a textbook (I’m sure you know which one)? Anyway good example with a film like Flags of our fathers. citizen Kane is the definitive film with regards to analysing plot and story though.
November 30th, 2008
I did not take it directly from a textbook… but I did regurgitate it from film class, which is about the same thing. I had to write a paper on flags/letters and how their narrative structure changed the focus of the films despite centering around the same event. Contemplating that is actually what lead me to this page.
Also were you insinuating that you know the textbook? in our class we used “looking at movies”, but I never bought it.
December 1st, 2008
Wow, here I thought this little blurb I wrote would never see the light of day, but it turns out people are running across it somehow!
This is an interesting discussion, too. The dictionary definitions of plot and story don’t really indicate any significant differences between the two. And in everyday usage, plot and story are just synonyms.
So I wonder… did these two words have overlapping meanings first, and then they got picked up by the film and literature world? Or did they start with the more precise meanings, only to be mixed up by the general public?
December 2nd, 2008
Flags of our fathers was a good example, i wish id though of it, i was in a rush to do my coursework, and ended up using i robot as my example text…
September 14th, 2009
wav!!!very simple and helpful explanation that i needed…
November 16th, 2009
I’m not sure if i quite get the difference with plot and story.
Is the story just all the events that happen in order without details such as emotions and reasons why things happened.
Is the plot how the story is told in a film. So it doesn’t have to be in order.
November 28th, 2009
The only thing that seems to perk my interest is if they started out with the same meaning or not.
You may say they have different meaning, but do they really? Is it possible for me to tell the plot without telling the story? Is it possible for me to have a sqaure without a rectangle?
(well technicly a rectangle is not necessarily a sqaure so you could have a rectangle without a sqaure) I wonder if thats the only real difference between plot and story to this day. So by telling the plot you will reveal the story. Also if story is simply a ’series of events in order’ then what about story tellers?
December 21st, 2009
So story is a story and the plot is an arrangement of events in the story. Am I understanding it correctly? Even if not, it didn’t prevent me from completing a novel. I don’t think you need to be consciously aware of the difference when you write.
In short you don’t have to know what are you doing? Writing a story or a plot.
God, I am getting a headache.
January 16th, 2010
The world of film theory seems to have jargonised a number of terms, to fit with rather self-aggrandising notions of the methods and skills used in film production, and perhaps even more those of film criticism.
For instance, it would be quite easy to make a case from their everyday meanings that ‘plot’ is the structure of events and relations whether linear or not, and ’story’ the exposition and explanation of connecting themes, motivations and contexts. Or again, the word ‘diegetic’ is used in a sense radically different from, and in part opposite to, its traditional one - ‘diegesis’ means ‘narration’ or ‘telling the story’ everywhere else, as opposed to ‘drama’ or ’showing the story’ which is ‘mimesis’.
It’s both easy and common for specialists (whether professionals or priests or pundits) to try to elevate and demarcate their area of interest through obfuscation of language and the use of terms with meanings different from or opposite to those in general use. Unfortunately these jargons tend to encapsulate and propagate the theoretical analyses or perspectives which gave birth to them, making orthodoxy hard to debate in its own language.
So classes give you the terms of debate whilst circumscribing the ways in which you can approach your subject.
March 12th, 2010
the difference is a story is written chronologically while a plot is a series of events arranged to bring out the authors intended meaning
July 4th, 2010
[…] series of events, which will seem far less engrossing to the reader. E.M. Forster created an example in which he stated that “The king died and then the queen died” is an example of a […]
July 19th, 2010
Very good explanation. It is sad that some people attack the explanation because of laziness.
July 19th, 2010
Pasta are the dry ones in the box.
Pasta Alfredo are the ones with the sauce in the plate.