What is plot?

I returned to my MOOC this afternoon; Start Writing Fiction with the Open University. Today's exercise asked us to consider the question, what is plot? This is how the question was framed.

How do you get from making notes for a story in your journal to thinking up a suitable plot line? The novelist E.M. Forster (1927) explains this very clearly. 

He describes a story as ‘a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence’ and a plot as ‘also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.’ (Forster, E. (1927) Aspects of the Novel, Harmondsworth: Pelican. p. 87.) 

For example, ‘The king died, and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot. 

This is because there is a reason given for the queen dying. In a story, someone dying is not in itself interesting. It is the reason for the death that fascinates the reader, especially if the reason is connected with something that has happened to, or been done by, another character. 

Readers are well tuned to guessing and imagining causes just from the details they perceive in the story. With this in mind, even the smallest recorded observations can be relevant.

For example: ‘A woman on a bus today carried her Pekinese dog inside her handbag. It had a red bow on its head that matched her sweater.’ 

This short description of a real person could be the starting point for a fictional character. Imagine:

• Who might she have been?
• Where was she going?
• What did her appearance suggest about her mood or state of mind?
• How old was she?
• How did she live?

In answering these questions you are starting to build a concrete sense of character. You are starting to get a story.

I read the contributions of some of my fellow students. A few of them were very good; well-written, imaginative, precisely drawn portraits of a woman - almost invariably older rather than younger - and her toy dog. One of the responses (from the highly talented Andrew Dobson, retired Professor of Politics) was quite brilliant; original, witty, with an almost Poe-like sense of the macabre, I sat for a while puzzling over ways to approach the exercise from a different angle. Then I landed on an idea, which I worked at for a couple of hours. Three hundred and eighty-five words later I submitted this piece. I hope it works.

We make this trip once a week you know. Old Patsy there and me. Dressed to the nines we are for a special day out. Splash of red this morning … makes bit of a statement, don't you think? 

You can tell we get noticed when we sit ourselves down. Mind you, there’s those as says, it’s not becoming of ladies of a certain age. But I say, hang ‘em Duchess. If you can’t put on a spot of red when you’re 69, when can you put on a spot of red? 

We caught the Number 10 again. Latymer Court to Kensington High Street in eighteen minutes. Five more minutes’ walk to Kensington Gardens for a bit of grass and a stroll. The truth is, though, her legs aint what they was once. Sometimes takes us nearly fifteen to reach her favourite bench. Next to that chestnut tree she likes so much. 

But I cannot lie. This is a come down for a lady like me. Riding on a bus. 

My family was born to higher ranks. I know folks don’t think it so to look at us but I’m used to limousines and drivers and the very finest of sorts visiting the houses here in London, the Hampshire Estate. Why ... my great-great-grandparents were actually born in Apsely House. I kid you not. There’s not so many that can lay claim to those bona fides.

Although … between you, me and the doorpost … even the apartments of an English Duke are a bit of a decline for a lineage with our distinction. Dare I say it? With our pedigree. 

You’ll think I’m a little snob when I say this. But when one of your family has served as lapdog to the aunt of the Xienfeng Emperor himself – a Lion Dog in the Imperial Palace no less – it’s a fall from grace to be presented as a gift … even to the wife of the 3rd Duke of Wellington. 

And now? 

All those generations gone and me being carried in the handbag of sweet old Patsy there. She’s a retired short hand secretary and typist from Chiswick, you know. And here the two of us are … riding on a double-decked bus in West London. 

What can I tell you? 

It’s a dog’s life.