story vs. plot

okay. i just read gig's interview at stage & screen and she mentioned that most screenwriters don't know the difference between story and plot... and most playwrites do.

uhm. i'm not a paid writer... but i'm aspiring to be one... and i'd kind of like to know what the difference is... if someone would be so kind as to tell me... thanx. sar.

I don't know if GIG would agree with this but I think the simplest defintion is a story is what happens and plot is how it happens.

For example, a story might be a man sees a woman on a bus. Their eyes meet and he becomes convinced that she's "the one" and devotes his life to finding her.

To turn that into a plot, you need to figure out how he goes about searching for her, what the obstacles are that keep them apart, what the confict will be -- essentially the ways in which your particular version of that story will unfold.

If GIG posts a reply that begins with "um..." you'll know that I'm dead wrong about this.

A plot has a main character with a definitive GOAL and OBSTACLES in his way. A story is more pointless(Pulp Fiction was a story).

Pinocchio is the story of a wooden puppet who becomes a boy (+ much yadda).

Pinocchio's plot is that a kindly craftsman creates a puppet, which he loves dearly, and which is eventually turned into a real boy by the Blue Fairy (+ much yadda)

Please correct me if my own impression is wrong:

A story is the complete essence or meaningful relationship of events. Plot is the manner or order in which the story is presented.

In other words, story represents the whole picture as pieced together IN THE MIND OF THE AUDIENCE with plot elements ( beginning, middle and end -- not necessarily in that order) in the process of storytelling.

Whew! I hope that makes sense, at least.

Well Ferds said it.

Story is the entire scope of the tale being told, everything from the earliest event recounted to the latest event recounted.

Plot is the order in which you sequence events and reveal information, telling the story.

A pretty good (fast) exercise is pull out a short story and go through it looking for the absolute earliest event and absolute latest event that appear in the piece. If someone recounts being a little kid, mark it, if they talk about when their dad was a kid, mark that. If they talk about the Industrial Evolution, mark it. All of that is inclusive in the scope of the story.

Then look at what the story opens on. Usually it will not open at the beginning of the story because most writers don't plot that way.

If you really want to sweat it, you draw a timeline and a plotline, marking each event in its time sequence on the story line, and marking each scene in plot sequence on the plotline, and compare the two.

Gig,
Great article, sounds like a book I'd buy. Is it out yet? I'll start looking.

When I first got on DD, I said "Gig should write a book." I'm very glad to see that you have, and I'll add my 2 cents to your profit (sadly true, huh?) because you know your stuff. Glad you're a part of this forum and I have the chance to learn from you. Thanks, Sar, for posting this. I'm gettin' one.

Oh well thanks the book is out it has been out since March. It is not about writing though so nothing like plot vs. story is in there. It is about navigating Hollywood and selling.

That sounds like a book I could use. What's it called?

It is "The Screenwriter's Survival Guide Or Guerrilla Meeting Tactics and Other Acts of War."