1. Plot What’s Happening?

2. What Is Plot? Plot is the series of related events in a story or play. The plot is sometimes called the story line. A plot has four main parts: exposition complications climax denouement

3. The Parts of a Plot Here is how the four parts of a plot work together. Climax Complications Exposition Denouement

4. Exposition The exposition introduces a story’s main characters, setting, and conflict. The Nortons have just finished dinner. Then Sara starts the conflict: She tells her brother that she’s going to ask for the family car tonight. Her brother, knowing that Sara disobeyed her parents and kept the car out too late the night before, feels a sense of dread and warns Sara not to ask for it. But Sara is going ahead. It is important to her. She fears she’ll lose her friends if she can’t drive them – she promised.

5. Complications Complications are the events making up the rising action of a story and leading to its climax. Rising action builds as the characters try to deal with the conflict. Sara goes to her ally, her mother, and tells her that she wants the car. Her mother says no: The roads are slick with ice. Then, in irritation, the mother adds something else: She doesn’t care for Sara’s friends. Sara ignores what her brother and mother say and she asks her father.

6. Climax The climax is the point in the plot with the greatest intensity, suspense, or interest. The climax may reveal how the conflict will turn out. Sara makes her request. The battle begins. Her father not only says no because the roads are bad, but he goes on to reveal other feelings; he says that Sara is showing poor judgment and has become irresponsible. Under the pressure of the situation, Mr. Norton, like Mrs. Norton, reveals what he never would have said under other circumstances. Now an argument may follow. The mother at first sides with the father; then she starts to defend her daughter. The brother may run away from the argument, or join in on Sara’s side. “You don’t understand her. You don’t understand either of us.” Blowup. Tears. The situation has exposed all the characters to themselves and to one another. Sara storms out of the house.

7. Denouement The denouement is the conclusion of a story. In it, the conflict is resolved (happily or unhappily) and any remaining questions are answered. Some modern fiction ends without a denouement. The question asked at the beginning of the story is answered: Sara does not get the car. In most homes the daughter would return and some compromise would be worked out. In a serious drama Sara might be gone forever.

8. Plot Organization A story’s plot is usually organized in chronological order—starting at the beginning of the story and telling about each event in the order that it happened. Beginning Sara wants the family car to go out with her friends. End Sara does not get the car to go out with her friends.

9. Plot Organization Writers sometimes interrupt the chronological order of events with flashbacks. Sara remembered when she first took her driving test. She was so happy when she received her drivers license that day. A flashback shows a scene from the past that is relevant to what is currently happening in the story.

10. Plot Organization Writers may use foreshadowing to hint at events that will occur later in the plot. Sara thought about all the fun things that she and her friends could do that evening if she had a car. In fact, her friend Missy called her and asked what time were they leaving for the movies. Foreshadowing gives readers clues in order to arouse their curiosity and increase suspense.

11. Match the terms in the box with the correct definitions. _____________— The events making up the rising action of a story and leading to its climax. _____________— Hints about later events in a story given to increase suspense or arouse curiosity. _____________— The conclusion of a plot, which resolves the story’s conflict. Foreshadowing Complications Denouement What Have You Learned? Complications Denouement Foreshadowing

12. The End