Studying prose. Plot and story

The plot of a novel (story, film) is what happens in it. When describing what happens, it is important to specify certain things. These can be summed up in four questions: Who? Where? What? When?
A summary of a plot is called a synopsis.
Two literary terms - plot and story - are frequently used interchangeably. The difference is not crucial: a story is just a set of events, whereas a plot is a set of events which the reader can see as related to each other. The main difference consists in causes. One more point that a plot is literary; that is to say, it is something that is made by the author arranging the events in a particular order. For instance, if you think about the events of “Jane Eyre”, you will see that they did not happen in the same order in which the reader learns of them. Mr. Rochester must have married Bertha Mason when Jane was a child but because C. Brontё wants to arouse our expectation and then surprise us, she does not disclose this until over half way through.
Elements of the plot design.
Plots have to start somewhere. For ex., Huck. Finn wants to escape from his father, Jay Gatsby wants to win Daisy back. What follows arises out of those wishes and aspirations. This starting point we call the situation of the novel.
Disjunction is usually how thrillers, mystery and detective fiction opens. There is a smooth pattern of life and then something disturbs it (it could be a murder or something extraordinary) and this something springs the events that will puzzle and intrigue the reader.
Trajectory is plot movement. There are cases when a novel has two contrasting and even contradictory trajectories. This can make a novel very exciting, because the reader wonders how the author is going to reconcile two movements.
Proleptic events are events the real meaning of which is only fully seen in later (sometimes quite distant) events. For ex., in C. Doyle’s “The Hound of Baskervilles” there is a minor occurrence - missing of sir Henry’s boots. Only at the end it is revealed that the theft of the boot was a vital stage in the murderer’s plans.
Reversal climax and discovery in novels are crucial to the plot. They are pivotal moments, turning points. Different kinds of stories have them in different places. Inevitably, the reversal in a short story is likely to come to the end (as well as in thrillers and detective stories).
Wind-up, resolution and denouement - each of those words expresses something of what happens as a novel closes. Denouement is a word taken from French. It means the untying of a knot.

When you think about how a novelist plots a novel, you can ask yourself a number of questions:
- is there an important disjunction that gives rise to the plot?
- in what direction do the trajectories of the plot go?
- are there any important diversions from the expected trajectory?
- are there crucial moments around which the plot pivots?