Plot vs Story | Know The Difference (Fiction Writing Advice)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- Plot and Story are two different ideas, but nobody can seem to agree on what's what. In this video I provide a simple, clear breakdown of each.
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0:00 Intro
0:47 What is Plot?
2:00 Plot vs. Story
2:50 Who?/What?
3:08 When?
4:06 Where?
4:58 Why?
6:07 Outro
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Credit to SkyDilen for my video intro.
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Plot vs story
Plot
- A Sequence of related events that are caused by characters and their choices
- What happens in fiction
- Dry, bare bones events
- A sequence of events inside a story
Story (5 W’s)
- Who (Characters)
- What (Plot events, driven by the characters)
- Where (Setting, worldbuilding, character pov)
- When (Time period the story takes place, lore, pacing and structure)
- Why (Emotional stakes within the heart of the story)
Your channel is so much better than most authortubers out there; why hasn't it exploded yet????
I have theories why, but I'm not gonna complain. Just gotta hope one day people catch on
Because YT's algorithm actively suppresses small channels.
To me, plot is what happens to the protag. It is external and like you say, is connected to the protag's want. Story is why, what happens, matters. It is internal.
That's a pretty good was of looking at it, but I'd say story encompasses more than just the internal
Which of the 5 Story Elements that I mentioned are YOU most comfortable with? Let us know!
I am comfortable with all of them.but i wasnt comfortable executing on the ideas but now im working on a comic and im actually truthful to myself and accepting not being comfortable with execution and just doing my god danm story.the thing was i spent 2 or 3 years of my time in the idea stage of the story instad of actually working on it.
@@potatomanboooi3105 Great that you finally started doing the work. Too many stories die in the "I have an idea..." stage
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty yep.I'm just getting over messing dialoque.like thats the spot i'm most unsure of but i feel like i am doing fine but not my best.
For me the plot and setting are very easy. The characters, a bit harder. The hardest thing for me is dialogue. No matter what I write, it sounds unnatural.
@@satana8157 Try typing up stretches of dialogue from one of your favorite books. That will help if you do it every day for a week or two. Just take a page and write
Great video, Brandon! I've struggled with this distinction before, and this video really cleared things up. I think your definition of plot/story is as good as any out there. Loved the NES soccer footage BTW haha
Hahah I wanted to put NES Ice Hockey but they had names for the teams, and that would've ruined my point
I read in Writing for emotional impact that:
Plot is what the author wants the characters to do while story is what the characters want to do
That accurately defines a struggle that I have while writing a novel. If the characters do whatever they want, the story will become too messy; if the characters do whatever I want, the story will become too boring. Gotta find balance.
Good stuff, Brandon! I enjoyed this. Cheers!
Thanks man! Hope you had a good Thanksgiving
Plot - character gets provoked by the world and those in it
Character - how they recieve and express and subsequently co-ordinate within it
I think a good succinct way to think about the When is the story's CONTEXT: what took place before the story started. This covered the characters' personal backstory, as well as the lore of the setting.
Character. When something is adapted, the character must still resonate.
I'm interested in learning more about character development. Specifically I'm wondering about the effort to make the characters relatable to the reader. It seems logical that anyone would empathise with someone who is like themself, or like people they know. And I wonder if there is any guiding philosophy or common wisdom to strategically creating characters, beyond simple intuition. Perhaps you can explore that in future.
Good idea for a video--or maybe even two videos because character development and character relatability are two different things (at least in my mind)
Hey your comment on my 10 Pieces of Bad Writing advice video got auto-deleted by TH-cam for some reason. Not sure if you wanted to re-post it. I was actually interested in where you were taking it but it got cut off: "I feel like a lot of the terrible television writing today grows out of this idea of writing what you know. Hollywood wants everyone to tell their story. Which sounds great. But people are
Thanks ❤
Thanks for watching!
For the Who image alone this gets a thumbs up!
A good novel has both a great plot and a story!
100% agree
Well I'm more comfortable with the plot. Awzum vid 😎👏👏👏
Thanks! And I enjoy plot as long as I have a few good anchor points to work with
As far as I understand, the problem with plot is how intuitive it actually is. You don't know the best possible events that are needed to tell the best possible story out of it and can only make good guesses and ideas we take out of it into execution of the writing. They are so heavily interconnected that events even start to change as you go through the story. Story to me, always triumphs over plot, no matter what the conflict is that's involved. But what is important is that the conflict between the two makes sense, both thematically and stylistically.
A story is what you get when you have two floors. :)
You just won the comments section
Brandon.i have an interesting idea for a story.what if you criticise comments in a video if they are fine with it.also i actually never used plot before if i remember i mostly used main ideas
Critiquing comments? Like for fun or for proper grammar or something like that?
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty like critiqing their story ideas
@@potatomanboooi3105 Hmm, interesting... The only problem is that I don't want to crush somebody's story idea publicly. Critiques can be brutal, after all
Being really good at understanding 99 out if a hundred people one on one, I have no problems with character, but everything else is a struggle.