You’re starting to write your book or piece of short fiction. You know there’s a story to tell and you also know you need a plot. But aren’t story and plot the same thing?

No, they’re not. They are related, and you can’t have plot without story, but they are not the same, and you need to think about both of them.

Story is the timeline: the sequence of events in your narrative. Plot gives that story shape and meaning. The basic ‘story’ question is ‘what happens next?’

Plot is what happens: the structured sequence of events inside a story. The basic question we ask about a plot is why? Why does this event happen?

Here’s the fundamental difference as defined by EM Forster, the author of A Room With A View. He puts it succinctly: plot is ‘a narrative of events, with the emphasis on causality… The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died and the queen died of grief’ is a plot.’