On Story, Plot, and Narrative
"'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."
Introduction
The terms story, narrative, and plot are often used interchangeably when describing, well, a narrative, story, or tale. However, when trying to speak about the mechanics of storytelling and of a specific story, story, narrative, and plot are different concepts entirely. But because all three terms either share the word or have become shorthand for a work’s story, which I will refer to as story-qua-story from now on to avoid confusion, understanding the differences has become needlessly complicated.
Nonetheless, it is still essential to understand what separates story-qua-story, story, narrative, and plot if you want to either make or talk about stories. So join me as I try to provide an easy explanation for each and the purposes they serve.
Definitions are in order, so let’s start with story-qua-story. In this case, the story-qua-story is simply the story of a work as a whole. In other words, it’s what most people mean when they use story, plot, or narrative colloquially. It is the combination of story, narrative, and plot. All three elements exist to support story-qua-story.
Story
Story answers the who and what of a story-qua-story; basically, who is the story-qua-story about and what did they do? Story establishes the character or subject and their actions. When summarizing the story of a story-qua-story, it is usually the linear sequence of events of the story-qua-story, i.e. “and then and then and then.”
For example, when recounting the story and story only of Moby-Dick, you would recount the actions of the story-qua-story’s protagonist—its subject—Captain Ahab in a linear order. A summary of story separate from narrative and plot sticks solely to the facts and is in linear order. A truncated summary of the story of Moby-Dick would thus be that Ahab lost his leg to the white whale Moby Dick and then he hires a new crew of sailors and then he tells his crew to look for the white whale and then and then and then, etc.
If you’ve read Moby-Dick, then you’d know that while the above summary may be the story of the novel, it isn’t how the story-qua-story is presented to the reader. The story-qua-story is told by the sailor Ishmael and we learn as Ishmael does about Ahab and his history and motivation second-hand from other sailors or Ahab himself. Likewise, when explaining solely the story of a story-qua-story, things such as motivations, chronology, perspective, etc. aren’t included. That’s where our next element of story-qua-story comes in: narrative.
Narrative
Narrative answers why the story is being told. Narrative is tied into the form of the story-qua-story itself, hence its association with narration and narrator, which both fall under the narrative mode of a story-qua-story. So, it’s best to think about narrative as how the telling of the story-qua-story makes you feel, i.e. how and why is the narrative trying to make you feel, and how the story-qua-story is being presented to you, i.e. who is telling the narrative and in what order and way.
Narrative answers the why a story-qua-story is being told by understanding how the narrative is coloring the audience’s perception or experience of the story-qua-story. This can be through word choice, symbolism, perspective, chronology, imagery, framing, etc. depending on the genre and form. In other words, the narrative answers why this specific story is being told, in which way, and for what reason.
Narrative is when you start to consider stylistic choices such as perspective, tense, structure, form, chronology, tone, mood, etc. Returning to the example of Moby-Dick, it’s when discussing its narrative we bring up that the narrator isn’t the protagonist Ahab but the sailor Ishmael and that we—the audience and Ishmael—learn the scope of the story second-hand, not in a linear order.
Story-qua-stories that are more linear and have a narrator follow the protagonist (whether first- or third-person) can make story and narrative seem inseparable, but there are still differences. Just because the narrator is the protagonist doesn’t mean their narration is objective and thus isn’t trying to color the audience’s perception of a story-qua-story. Neither is a third-person perspective objective nor free of biases, even when it is limited or omniscient. Form, tone, mood, word choice, framing, etc. all play a part in coloring an audience’s experience of the story-qua-story.
So, it’s best to remember that even in linear narratives that follow the protagonist’s perspective: story is solely the linear series of actions of the subject of a story-qua-story, and narrative is the form, structure, perspective, chronology, and stylistic choices of how the story-qua-story is presented to its audience. But neither account for the cause-and-effect and inner logic of the story-qua-story, which brings us to our next element: plot.
Plot
Plot answers how a story-qua-story happens. Plot is about the cause-and-effect of a story-qua-story. For example, character A is hungry and opens their fridge, but they are out of food, so they go to the grocery store. Plot makes sure the events of a story connect and are the result of one another. I often summarize plot as “and, but, so,” i.e. and A wants B, but can’t because of C, so A does D and… but… so…
Good plot ensures good continuity and logical progression. It is also more satisfying for audiences when the story-qua-story happens as a result of the actions of the characters and the consequences of said actions. Plot adds reason, consistency, logic, continuity, and consequence to a story-qua-story. It’s what gives us insight into the motivations and inner workings of the characters and their actions. Why does Ahab hire a new crew after losing his leg on the last voyage? Because he wants to find Moby Dick. Why does he want to find Moby Dick? Revenge.
This is why you usually see writers, critics, and academics discuss plot points more than story beats. As a writer, knowing the plot points of your story-qua-story and when they happen is what helps writers flesh out their story-qua-story. For example, Syd Field wrote in his influential book Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting that most three-act story-qua-stories have a plot point that transitions the screenplay from one act to the next.
Conclusion
If you’ve noticed that all the classic question words (who, what, when, where, why, and how) have been used except when and where, you're pretty observant! But the reason when and where aren’t present in this explanation is because they’re answered by setting. However, setting is usually explained in story for context and isn’t fully explored mechanically through story because setting is its own topic.
Story, narrative, and plot all make up a story-qua-story. Story is the linear sequence of actions by the protagonist or subject of the story-qua-story and answers who the story-qua-story is about and what happened during it. Narrative encompasses how the story-qua-story is being presented to its audience via form, structure, chronology, perspective, narrative mode, mood, tone, style, etc. It answers why the story-qua-story is being told in the first place. Plot is the cause-and-effect of the story-qua-story—providing the inner logic and mechanical consistency for the story-qua-story to move forward—and tells us how the story-qua-story progresses, i.e. for what reason does character A do action B and why plot point X happens in the middle of act II.
Hopefully, this post helped those who confuse the three terms understand their differences better and gave those who were unaware there were any differences a sense of newfound knowledge.
Further Reading
Poetics by Aristotle
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, Revised Edition by Syd Field
The Art of Perspective: Who Tells The Story by Christopher Castellani