Plot Climax

STORY versus PLOT

Story is the chronological sequence of events. Plot is the logical and causal
structure of a story. The American author Forster suggested to distinguish
between story and plot by juxtaposing them with each other. “We can define
story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also
a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality”.

when we, for instance, say: “The king died, and then the queen died”, it’s a
story but when we say: “The king died and then the queen died of a grief”,
it’s a plot. if the information about the Queen’s death answers the question
“And then?”- it is rendered in a story, and if it answers the question “Why?” –
it’s rendered in a plot.

In the example above, the moment that grief is established as the motive for
the death of the Queen, two merely coincidental events become linked
together as cause effect. Consequently, what once was just a story – a direct,
unedited rendering of facts – has been rearranged into plots.

Thus, the plot shows the author’s skill in shaping mess of facts and arranging
them to make plots.

The Elements of plot

When we refer to the plot of a work of fiction, we are referring to the

deliberately arranged sequence of interrelated events that constitute
the basic narrative structure of a novel or a short story. Events of any kind,
of course, inevitably involve people, and for this reason it is virtually
impossible to discuss plot in isolation from character. Character and plot are,
in fact, intimately and reciprocally related, especially in modern fiction.
Generally speaking, a literary character is nothing but the determination of
incident, and the incident is nothing but the illustration of character.
Consequently, the major function of plot can be defined as the
representation of characters in action which, in its turn, can be internal and
psychological as well as external and physical.

In order for a plot to begin, some kind of catalyst is necessary. It will

generate a sequence of events, provide direction to the plot, and focus the
reader’s attention. Most plots originate in some significant conflict. The
conflict may be either external, when the protagonist (also referred to as the
hero or the focal character) is pitted against some object outside himself, or
internal, when the issue to be resolved is the one within the protagonist’s
psyche or personality. External conflict may reflect a basic opposition
between man and nature (such as in Ernest Hemingway’s “the Old Man and
the sea”). It may also take a form of an opposition between man and man
(between protagonist and the antagonist – his human adversary), as for
example in most detective fiction. Internal conflict, on the other hand, is
confined to the protagonist. In this case, the opposition is between two or
more elements with – in his own character.

Most plots contain more than one conflict. the conflict of a story may exist
prior to the formal initiation of the plot itself. Some conflicts are never made
explicit and must be inferred by the reader from what the characters say or
do as the unfolds. Conflict, then, is the tension, that sets the plot of a novel
or short story in motion; it engages the reader and arouses expectation for
the events that are to follow.

The plot of the traditional short story is often built on five distinct stages or
elements, that can be diagramed as follows:

3.crisis

4. falling action
2. complication 5. resolution
(denouement)
1. exposition

beginning middle end

EXPOSITION: A work of fiction, as a rule, describes some significant events or

several- year –long periods of the character’s lives; it hardly ever starts “at
the very beginning”, i.e. with the moment they are born. Thus, the reader
always need some preliminary background information, which will help them
to easily “penetrate” into the characters’ problems at some particular stage
of their lives. This preliminary information is generally provided in the
beginning section of the plot, viz. exposition. The exposition sets the
scene, dates the action, establishes situation, or merely moulds the
profitable mood in the reader. It may also introduce character and the
conflict, or the potential for the conflict. The exposition may be accomplished
in a single sentence or paragraph, or, in the case of some novel, occupy an
entire chapter or more. Some plots require more exposition than others.
COMPLICATION: The complication (which is sometimes referred to as the
rising action) breacs the existing equilibrium and introduces the characters
and the the conflict (if they have not already been introduced by the
exposition). It also activates the conflict through some events or details that
help to develop it gradually and intensely.

CRISIS: The crisis (also referred to as the climax) is that moment at which the
plot reaches its point of the greatest emotional intensity; it is the turning
point of the plot, directly precipitating its resolution.

RESOLUTION: The final section of the plot is its resolution; it records the
outcome of the conflict and establishes some new equilibrium or stability.
The resolution is also referred to as the conclusion or denouement, the latter
is a French word meaning “unknotting” or “untying”.

Highly plotted works, such as detective novels and stories, which contain
distinct beginnings, middles, and ends, usually follow such conventional plot
development. In the case of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories,
for example, the exposition is usually presented by the faithful Dr. Watson:

“One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my

own hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day’s work
the work had been an exhausting one. My wife had already gone upstairs
and the sound of the locking of the door some time before told me that the
servants had also retired… I suddenly heard the clang of the bell… I opened
the door. To my astonishment, it was Sherlock Holmes who stood upon my
step.

‘Ah, Watson’, said he, ‘I hoped that I might not be too late to catch you”.

From “The Crooked Man”

The complication comes about almost at once. The crime is reported, and
with Holmes’s famous “come, Watson, the game is afoot” the period of rising
action and suspense begins. Holmes, of course, is the hero-protagonist, the
villain is the antagonist. For a time at least, the conflict or will and intellect
seem almost even. Once Holmes solves mystery, the crisis has been
reached. The suspense and tension drop away, and the plot enters into the
falling action, which is developed to Holmes’s detained explanation of his
method of detection. The resolution is short and belongs either to Watson or
to Holmes:
“And that’s the story of the Musgrave Ritual, Watson. They have the crown
down at Hurlstone – though they had some legal brother, and a considerable
sum to pay before they were allowed to retain…of the woman nothing was
ever heard, and the probability is that she got away out of England…”

From “The Musgrave Ritual”

It should be noted, that all plots do not lend themselves to such neat and
exact formulations. Even when they do, it is not unusual for critics and
readers to disagree about, for example, where the major crisis, or turning
point, of the narrative actually occurs (as far as it can, in fact, occur at any
moment- at the beginning, near the middle or even at the very end of the
story). Besides, as it generally happens in the most of James Joyce’s
“Dubliners”, any of the plot elements (excluding climax!) can be omitted in
favor of the plot. In much modern and contemporary fiction the plot consists
of a “slice of life” into which we enter on the eve of crisis, and the readers
are left to guess the beginning and the end and the precise nature of the
conflict from what they are able to learn. This is the case in such famous
Hemingway’s short stories as “Hills Like White Elephants” and “A Clean,
Well-Lighted Place”, in which the author chooses to eliminate not only the
traditional beginning, but also the ending in order to focus our attention on a
more limited moment of time, the middle, which takes the form of a single,
self-contained episode. Conflict and complication in each case are neither
shown nor prepared for, but only revealed; the situation and the “story” are
to be understood and completed through the active participation of the
reader. Such stories are sometimes referred to as “plotless” in order to
suggest that the author’s emphasis and interests have been shifted
elsewhere, most frequently to character or idea.

in conclusion, highly plotted works, developed through the “happenings” (or

events), mostly contain all the plot elements (in other words, they have the
closed plot structure), whereas the plotless ones (with the emphasis on the
character’s psychics or some idea) lack some or the most of the plot
elements (in other words, they have the open plot structure).

Understanding the plot on a schematic level becomes even more difficult

when dealing with bigger works, usually novels, that have more than one
plot. Many of them contain several subplots, and some even develop a
double plot, as in Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” where we are asked to follow the
careers of two ladies – Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley.
 climax

rising action falling action

explosition denouement
Inciting incident resolution

The diagram above is called Freytag’s Pyramid

Gustav Freytag was a 19th Century German novelist who saw common
patterns in the plots of stories and novels and developed a diagram to
analyze them.

Narrative discourse does not have to present the story in chronological

order. A narrative may begin with action and then execute a flashback.