Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Aspects of the Novel

The novelist E.M. Forster (1927) explains a story is ‘a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence’ and a plot is ‘also a narrative of events, with the emphasis falling on causality.’ (Forster, E. (1927) Aspects of the Novel, Harmondsworth: Pelican. p. 87.)
For example, ‘The king died, and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot.
This is because there is a reason given for the queen dying. In a story, someone dying is not in itself interesting. It is the reason for the death that fascinates the reader, especially if the reason is connected with something that has happened to, or been done by, another character.