Plot VS. Story What’s the Difference

Before we move into developing and writing an idea for your book, we first must know the difference between plot and structure. Even if you are new to the writing process, you have probably heard of terms such as plot and story. Both terms are often used interchangeably, but they each have distinct differences.

Plot

Okay we’re going to start with a visualization.

Visualize anatomy.

I know, weird visualization, but stay with me.

Think of the human body; it has a skeleton, organs, veins, tendons, skin, etc. Well, the entire body is held up by the bones.  Without a skeleton, a body would simply be a fleshy, sinewy mess.

This is the same thing as a story’s plot. The plot is the backbone of the story that everything else is built upon. A plot is the basic sequence of events for your story where each event leads into the next all the way to the end.

The structure that forms this backbone are things like the Three Act Structure or the Freytag’s Pyramid.

(Note: There are many other structures and outlines you can follow, but these are the ones I use so I will be better able to explain them. Here is a Reedsy Article that has all the different types of plot methods.)

For us to fully understand this concept, we are going to look at the Three Act Structure.

This structure, as the name suggests is simply stating the beginning, middle, and end.

What will we find in each of these sections?

The beginning will introduce your world and include the inciting incident that shakes things up sending your characters on their journey.

The middle is made up of the entire rising action and climax.

The end will have the falling action and resolution.

(Author note: We will have a future blog about how you can use the basic plotline to create your book blurb.)

Story

Now that we know what the skeleton of our story is, let’s talk about the fleshy mess we talked about earlier. Your story is actually all the extra things that expand and build on the plot. These are things such as characters, description, nuances, scenes, dialogue, humor, subplots.

These are the extra pieces of a story that makes your story enjoyable to your readers and keep them engaged.

The way to visualize these things is with skin, tendons, muscles veins that are all built upon the skeleton.

Conclusion:

The plot and story are like a body working all together to create on cohesive piece. This is where your plot acts as the skeleton holding the story up. And your characters, description, scenes, etc make up the tendon, muscles organs, and skin.

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