plot in literature essay

• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Write a Plot

I. What is Plot?

In a narrative or creative writing, a plot is the sequence of events that make up a story, whether it’s told, written, filmed, or sung. The plot is the story, and more specifically, how the story develops, unfolds, and moves in time. Plots are typically made up of five main elements:

1. Exposition: At the beginning of the story, characters , setting, and the main conflict are typically introduced.

2. Rising Action: The main character is in crisis and events leading up to facing the conflict begin to unfold. The story becomes complicated.

3. Climax: At the peak of the story, a major event occurs in which the main character faces a major enemy, fear, challenge, or other source of conflict. The most action, drama, change, and excitement occurs here.

4. Falling Action: The story begins to slow down and work towards its end, tying up loose ends.

5. Resolution/ Denoument: Also known as the denouement, the resolution is like a concluding paragraph that resolves any remaining issues and ends the story.

Plots, also known as storylines, include the most significant events of the story and how the characters and their problems change over time.

II. Examples of Plot

Here are a few very short stories with sample plots:

Kaitlin wants to buy a puppy. She goes to the pound and begins looking through the cages for her future pet. At the end of the hallway, she sees a small, sweet brown dog with a white spot on its nose. At that instant, she knows she wants to adopt him. After he receives shots and a medical check, she and the dog, Berkley, go home together.

In this example, the exposition introduces us to Kaitlin and her conflict. She wants a puppy but does not have one. The rising action occurs as she enters the pound and begins looking. The climax is when she sees the dog of her dreams and decides to adopt him. The falling action consists of a quick medical check before the resolution, or ending, when Kaitlin and Berkley happily head home.

Scott wants to be on the football team, but he’s worried he won’t make the team. He spends weeks working out as hard as possible, preparing for try outs. At try outs, he amazes coaches with his skill as a quarterback. They ask him to be their starting quarterback that year and give him a jersey. Scott leaves the field, ecstatic!

The exposition introduces Scott and his conflict: he wants to be on the team but he doubts his ability to make it. The rising action consists of his training and tryout; the climax occurs when the coaches tell him he’s been chosen to be quarterback. The falling action is when Scott takes a jersey and the resolution is him leaving the try-outs as a new, happy quarterback.

Each of these stories has

• an exposition as characters and conflicts are introduced
• a rising action which brings the character to the climax as conflicts are developed and faced, and
• a falling action and resolution as the story concludes.

III. Types of Plot

There are many types of plots in the world! But, realistically, most of them fit some pattern that we can see in more than one story. Here are some classic plots that can be seen in numerous stories all over the world and throughout history.

a. Overcoming the Monster

The protagonist must defeat a monster or force in order to save some people—usually everybody! Most often, the protagonist is forced into this conflict, and comes out of it as a hero, or even a king. This is one version of the world’s most universal and compelling plot—the ‘monomyth’ described by the great thinker Joseph Campbell.

  Examples:

Beowulf, Harry Potter, and Star Wars.

b. Rags to Riches:

This story can begin with the protagonist being poor or rich, but at some point, the protagonist will have everything, lose everything, and then gain it all back by the end of the story, after experiencing great personal growth.

The Count of Monte Cristo, Cinderella, and Jane Eyre.

c. The Quest:

The protagonist embarks on a quest involving travel and dangerous adventures in order to find treasure or solve a huge problem. Usually, the protagonist is forced to begin the quest but makes friends that help face the many tests and obstacles along the way. This is also a version of Campbell’s monomyth.

The Iliad, The Lord of the Rings, and Eragon

d. Voyage and Return:

The protagonist goes on a journey to a strange or unknown place, facing danger and adventures along the way, returning home with experience and understanding. This is also a version of the monomyth.

Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Wizard of Oz

A happy and fun character finds a happy ending after triumphing over difficulties and adversities.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Home Alone

f. Tragedy:

The protagonist experiences a conflict which leads to very bad ending, typically death.

Romeo and Juliet, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Macbeth

g. Rebirth:

The protagonist is a villain who becomes a good person through the experience of the story’s conflict.

The Secret Garden, A Christmas Carol, The Grinch

As these seven examples show, many stories follow a common pattern. In fact, according to many thinkers, such as the great novelist Kurt Vonnegut, and Joseph Campbell, there are only a few basic patterns, which are mixed and combined to form all stories.

IV. The Importance of Using Plot

The plot is what makes a story a  story. It gives the story character development, suspense, energy, and emotional release (also known as ‘catharsis’). It allows an author to develop themes and most importantly, conflict that makes a story emotionally engaging; everybody knows how hard it is to stop watching a movie before the conflict is resolved.

V. Examples of Plot in Literature

Plots can be found in all kinds of fiction. Here are a few examples.

The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham

In The Razor’s Edge, Larry Darrell returns from World War I disillusioned. His fiancée, friends, and family urge him to find work, but he does not want to. He embarks on a voyage through Europe and Asia seeking higher truth. Finally, in Asia, he finds a more meaningful way of life.

In this novel, the plot follows the protagonist Larry as he seeks meaningful experiences. The story begins with the exposition of a disillusioned young man who does not want to work. The rising action occurs as he travels seeking an education. The story climaxes when he becomes a man perfectly at peace in meditation.

The Road not Taken’ by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could … Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim … And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. … I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken,” has a very clear plot: The exposition occurs when a man stands at the fork of two roads, his conflict being which road to take. The climax occurs when he chooses the unique path. The resolution announces that “that has made all the difference,” meaning the man has made a significant and meaningful decision.

VI. Examples of Plot in Pop Culture

Plots can also be found in television shows, movies, thoughtful storytelling advertisements, and song lyrics. Below are a few examples of plot in pop culture.

“Love Story” (excerpts) by Taylor Swift:

I’m standing there on a balcony in summer air. See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns. See you make your way through the crowd And say, “Hello, ” Little did I know… That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles, And my daddy said, “Stay away from Juliet” And I was crying on the staircase Begging you, “Please don’t go”   So I sneak out to the garden to see you. We keep quiet ’cause we’re dead if they knew So close your eyes… escape this town for a little while. . . . He knelts to the ground and pulled out a ring and said…   “Marry me, Juliet, you’ll never have to be alone. I love you, and that’s all I really know. I talked to your dad – go pick out a white dress It’s a love story, baby, just say, ‘Yes.'”

These excerpts reveal the plot of this song: the exposition occurs when we see two characters: a young woman and young man falling in love. The rising action occurs as the father forbids her from seeing the man and they continue see one another in secret. Finally, the climax occurs when the young man asks her to marry him and the two agree to make their love story come true.

Minions have a goal to serve the most despicable master. Their rising action is their search for the best leader, the conflict being that they cannot keep one. Movie trailers encourage viewers to see the movie by showing the conflict but not the climax or resolution.

VII. Related Terms

Many people use outlines which to create complex plots, or arguments in formal essays . In a story, an outline is a list of the scenes in the plot with brief descriptions. Like the skeleton is to the body, an outline is the framework upon which the rest of the story is built when it is written. In essays, outlines are used to help organize ideas into strong arguments and paragraphs that connect to each other in sensible ways.

The climax is considered the most important element of the plot. It contains the highest point of tension, drama, and change. The climax is when the conflict is finally faced and overcome. Without a climax, a plot does not exist.

For example, consider this simple plot:

The good army is about to face the evil army in a terrible battle. During this battle, the good army prevails and wins the war at last. After the war has ended, the two sides make piece and begin rebuilding the countryside which was ruined by the years-long war.

The climax occurred when the good army defeated the bad army. Without this climax, the story would simply be a never-ending war between a good army and bad army, with no happy or sad ending in sight. Here, the climax is absolutely necessary for a meaningful story with a clear ending.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

Definition of Plot

Plot is a literary device that writers use to structure what happens in a story . However, there is more to this device than combining a sequence of events. Plots must present an event, action, or turning point that creates conflict or raises a dramatic question, leading to subsequent events that are connected to each other as a means of “answering” the dramatic question and conflict. The arc of a story’s plot features a causal relationship between a beginning, middle, and end in which the conflict is built to a climax and resolved in conclusion .

For example, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens features one of the most well-known and satisfying plots of English literature.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

Dickens introduces the protagonist , Ebenezer Scrooge, who is problematic in his lack of generosity and participation in humanity–especially during the Christmas season. This conflict results in three visitations by spirits that help Scrooge’s character and the reader understand the causes for the conflict. The climax occurs as Scrooge’s dismal future is foretold. The above passage reflects the second chance given to Scrooge as a means of changing his future as well as his present life. As the plot of Dickens’s story ends, the reader finds resolution in Scrooge’s changed attitude and behavior. However, if any of the causal events were removed from this plot, the story would be far less valuable and effective.

Common Examples of Plot Types

In general, the plot of a literary work is determined by the kind of story the writer intends to tell. Some elements that influence the plot are genre , setting , characters, dramatic situation, theme , etc. However, there are seven basic, common examples of plot types:

• Tragedy : In a tragic story, the protagonist typically experiences suffering and a downfall, The plot of the tragedy almost always includes a reversal of fortune, from good to bad or happy to sad.
• Comedy : In a comedic story, the ending is generally not tragic. Though characters in comic plots may be flawed, their outcomes are not usually painful or destructive.
• Journey of the Hero : In general, the plot of a hero’s journey features two elements: recognition and a situation reversal. Typically, something happens from the outside to inspire the hero, bringing about recognition and realization. Then, the hero undertakes a quest to solve or reverse the situation.
• Rebirth : This plot type generally features a character’s transformation from bad to good. Typically, the protagonist carries their tragic past with them which results in negative views of life and poor behavior. The transformation occurs when events in the story help them see a better worldview.
• Rags-to-Riches : In this common plot type, the protagonist begins in an impoverished, downtrodden, or struggling state. Then, story events take place (magical or realistic) that lead to the protagonist’s success and usually a happy ending.
• Good versus Evil : This plot type features a generally “good” protagonist that fights a typically “evil” antagonist . However, both the protagonist and antagonist can be groups of characters rather than simply individuals, all with the same goal or mission.
• Voyage/Return : In this plot type, the main character goes from point A to point B and back to point A. In general, the protagonist sets off on a journey and returns to the start of their voyage, having gained wisdom and/or experience.

Aristotle’s Plot Structure Formula

Though this principle may seem obvious to modern readers, in his work  Poetics , Aristotle first developed the formula for plot structure as three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Each of these parts is purposeful, integral, and challenging for writers. It

can be difficult for writers to create an effective plot device in terms of making decisions about how a story begins, what happens in the middle, and how it ends. Here is a further explanation of Aristotle’s plot structure formula:

• Beginning : The beginning of a story holds great value. It has to capture the reader’s attention, introduce the characters, setting, and the central conflict.
• Middle : The middle of a plot requires movement toward the conclusion of the story, as well as plot points, obstacles, or various subplots along the way to maintain the reader’s interest and infuse value and meaning into the story.
• End : The end of a story brings about the conclusion and resolution of the conflict, generally leaving the reader with a sense of satisfaction, value, and deeper understanding.

Freytag’s Pyramid

In 1863, Gustav Freytag (a German novelist) published a book that expanded Aristotle’s concept of plot. Freytag added two components: rising action and falling action . This dramatic arc of plot structure, termed Freytag’s Pyramid, is the most prevalent depiction of plot as a literary device. Here are the elements of Freytag’s Pyramid:

• Exposition : the beginning of the story, in which the writer establishes or introduces pertinent information such as setting, characters, dramatic situation, etc.
• Rising Action : increased tension as a result of the central conflict.
• Climax (middle) : pinnacle and/or turning point of the plot.
• Falling Action : also referred to as denouement , begins with consequences resulting from the climax and moves towards the conclusion.
• Resolution : end of the story.

Differences Between Narrative and Plot

Plot and narrative are both literary devices that are often used interchangeably. However, there is a distinction between them when it comes to storytelling. Plot involves causality and a connected series of events that make up a story. Plot refers to what actions and/or events take place in a story and the causal relationship between them.

Narrative encompasses aspects of a story that include choices by the writer as to how the story is told, such as point of view , verb tense, tone , and voice . Therefore, the plot is a more objective literary device in terms of a story’s definitive events. Narrative is more subjective as a literary device in that there are many choices a writer can make as to how the same plot is told and revealed to the reader.

Three Basic Patterns of Plot – William Foster-Harris

In his book, The Basic Patterns of Plot, Foster-Harris presented three types of plot.

• Happy Ending Plot: These plots end on a happy note when the central character makes a sacrifice or resolves the conflict. Also, there is a positive and light-hearted ending to the story.
• Unhappy Ending: In this type of plot, the central character acts logically that seems right and fails to completely resolve the conflict. The story also might end with conflict resolution but one or more characters lose something or sacrifice something.
• Tragedy : This type of plot poses questions by the end about the sadness and its reason as the central character does not make a choice for a sacrifice, or otherwise.

Master Plots – Ronald R. Tobias

The term master plots occur in the book of Ronald R. Tobias, 20 Master Plots . Some of the important ones are Quest, Adventure , Pursuit, and Rescue. These are followed by Escape, Revenge, The riddle , Rivalry, and Underdog, while Temptation, Metamorphosis, and Transformation follow them. Some others are Maturing, Love, and Forbidden Love. Sacrifice and Discovery are two other master plots with Wretched Excess, Ascension, and Descension following them. The important feature of these plots is that they all follow the style their title suggests.

Seven Types of Plots – Jessamyn West

Besides thematic plots, Jessamyn West, a volunteer librarian has listed seven basic and major plots for a story. His argument seems based on the type of characters.

• A woman against nature
• A woman against another woman, or a man against another man
• A woman against the environment or vice versa
• A woman against technology
• A woman against self
• A woman against supernatural elements
• A woman against religion or gods

Why it is Good to Break Traditional Plot Structures

Although most critics are very strict about a story having a plot, it is quite unusual to break the conventional structures and create a new one. This creativity is the hallmarks of a literary piece as breaking the traditional plot structure makes the literary piece in the process a unique addition to the long list of such other pieces. This also makes the writer flout new ideas about plot structures, making him a pioneer in such plots. It often happens in postmodern fiction to break away from traditions in creating plots such as Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut presents a non-linear storyline.

Linear and Non-Linear Plots

These two very simple terms, linear and non-linear in the literary world with reference to plots, define how a plot has been structured. A linear plot is constructed on the idea of chronological order having a clear beginning, a defined middle, and a definite ending. However, when an author, such as the referred novel in the above example shows, breaks away from the normal plot structures, it becomes a non-linear plot. It does not have any beginning or for that matter any ending or middle. It just presents fractured and broken thoughts or incidents in a way that the readers have to construct their own story.

Examples of Plot in Literature

When readers remember a work of literature, whether it’s a novel, short story , play , or narrative poem , their lasting impression often is due to the plot. The cause and effect of events in a plot are the foundation of storytelling, as is the natural arc of a story’s beginning, middle, and end. Literary plots resonate with readers as entertainment, education, and elemental to the act of reading itself. Here are some examples of plot in literature:

Example 1:  Romeo and Juliet (Prologue) – William Shakespeare

Two households, both alike in dignity (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. The fearful passage of their death-marked love And the continuance of their parents’ rage, Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove, Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; The which, if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

In the prologue of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, the arc of the plot is told–including the outcome of the story. However, though the overall plot is revealed before the story begins, this does not detract from the portrayal of the events in the story and the relationship between their cause and effect. Each character’s action drives forward connected events that build to a climax and then a tragic resolution, so that even if the reader/viewer knows what will happen, the play remains an engaging and memorable literary work.

Example 2: Six-word-long story, often attributed to Ernest Hemingway

For sale, baby shoes, never worn.

This famous six-word short story is attributed to Ernest Hemingway , although there has been no indisputable substantiation that it is his creation. Aside from its authorship, this story demonstrates the power of plot as a literary device and in particular the effectiveness of Aristotle’s formula. Through just six words, the plot of this story has a beginning, middle, and end that readers can identify. In addition, the plot allows readers to interpret the causality of the story’s events depending on the manner in which they view and interpret the narrative.

Example 3:  Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes

“Destiny guides our fortunes more favorably than we could have expected. Look there, Sancho Panza, my friend , and see those thirty or so wild giants, with whom I intend to do battle and kill each and all of them, so with their stolen booty we can begin to enrich ourselves. This is noble, righteous warfare, for it is wonderfully useful to God to have such an evil race wiped from the face of the earth.” “What giants?” Asked Sancho Panza. “The ones you can see over there,” answered his master, “with the huge arms, some of which are very nearly two leagues long.” “Now look, your grace,” said Sancho, “what you see over there aren’t giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind and turn the millstone.” “Obviously,” replied Don Quijote, “you don’t know much about adventures.”

Don Quixote is considered the first modern novel, and the complexity of its plot is one of the reasons for this distinction. Each event that takes place in this overall hero’s journey is connected to and causes other actions in the story, bringing about a resolution at the end. This novel by de Cervantes features subplots as well, yet the story arc of the character reflects all elements of both Aristotle’s plot formula and Freytag’s Pyramid.

Synonyms of Plot

There are several synonyms that come close to the plot in meanings such as narrative, theme, events, tales, mythos, and subject , yet they are all literary devices in their own right. They do not replace the plot.

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Plot Definition

What is plot? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

Plot is the sequence of interconnected events within the story of a play, novel, film, epic, or other narrative literary work. More than simply an account of what happened, plot reveals the cause-and-effect relationships between the events that occur.

Some additional key details about plot:

• The plot of a story explains not just what happens, but how and why the major events of the story take place.
• Plot is a key element of novels, plays, most works of nonfiction, and many (though not all) poems.
• Since ancient times, writers have worked to create theories that can help categorize different types of plot structures.

Plot Pronounciation

Here's how to pronounce plot: plaht

The Difference Between Plot and Story

Perhaps the best way to say what a plot is would be to compare it to a story. The two terms are closely related to one another, and as a result, many people often use the terms interchangeably—but they're actually different. A story is a series of events; it tells us what happened . A plot, on the other hand, tells us how the events are connected to one another and why the story unfolded in the way that it did. In Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster uses the following examples to distinguish between story and plot:

“The king died, and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it. Or again: “The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.” This is a plot with a mystery in it.

Therefore, when examining a plot, it's helpful to look for events that change the direction of the story and consider how one event leads to another.

The Structure of a Plot

For nearly as long as there have been narratives with plots, there have been people who have tried to analyze and describe the structure of plots. Below we describe two of the most well-known attempts to articulate the general structure of plot.

Freytag's Pyramid

One of the first and most influential people to create a framework for analyzing plots was 19th-century German writer Gustav Freytag, who argued that all plots can be broken down into five stages: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement. Freytag originally developed this theory as a way of describing the plots of plays at a time when most plays were divided into five acts, but his five-layered "pyramid" can also be used to analyze the plots of other kinds of stories, including novels, short stories, films, and television shows.

• Exposition is the first section of the plot. During the exposition, the audience is introduced to key background information, including characters and their relationships to one another, the setting (or time and place) of events, and any other relevant ideas, details, or historical context. In a five-act play, the exposition typically occurs in the first act.
• The rising action begins with the "inciting incident" or "complication"—an event that creates a problem or conflict for the characters, setting in motion a series of increasingly significant events. Some critics describe the rising action as the most important part of the plot because the climax and outcome of the story would not take place if the events of the rising action did not occur. In a five-act play, the rising action usually takes place over the course of act two and perhaps part of act three.
• The climax of a plot is the story's central turning point, which the exposition and the rising action have all been leading up to. The climax is the moment with the greatest tension or conflict. Though the climax is also sometimes called the crisis , it is not necessarily a negative event. In a tragedy , the climax will result in an unhappy ending; but in a comedy , the climax usually makes it clear that the story will have a happy ending. In a five-act play, the climax usually takes place at the end of the third act.
• Whereas the rising action is the series of events leading up to the climax, the falling action is the series of events that follow the climax, ending with the resolution, an event that indicates that the story is reaching its end. In a five-act play, the falling action usually takes place over the course of the fourth act, ending with the resolution.
• Dénouement is a French word meaning "outcome." In literary theory, it refers to the part of the plot which ties up loose ends and reveals the final consequences of the events of the story. During the dénouement, the author resolves any final or outstanding questions about the characters’ fates, and may even reveal a little bit about the characters’ futures after the resolution of the story. In a five-act play, the dénouement takes place in the fifth act.

While Freytag's pyramid is very handy, not every work of literature fits neatly into its structure. In fact, many modernist and post-modern writers intentionally subvert the standard narrative and plot structure that Freytag's pyramid represents.

Booker's "Meta-Plot"

In his 2004 book The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, Christopher Booker outlines an overarching "meta-plot" which he argues can be used to describe the plot structure of almost every story. Like Freytag's pyramid, Booker's meta-plot has five stages:

• The anticipation stage , in which the hero prepares to embark on adventure;
• The dream stage , in which the hero overcomes a series of minor challenges and gains a sense of confidence and invincibility;
• The frustration stage , in which the hero confronts the villain of the story;
• The nightmare stage , in which the hero fears they will be unable to overcome their enemy;
• The resolution , in which the hero finally triumphs.

Of course, like Freytag's Pyramid, Booker's meta-plot isn't actually a fool-proof way of describing the structure of every plot, but rather an attempt to describe structural elements that many (if not most) plots have in common.

Types of Plot

In addition to analyzing the general structure of plots, many scholars and critics have attempted to describe the different types of plot that serve as the basis of most narratives.

Booker's Seven Basic Plots

Within the overarching structure of Booker's "meta-plot" (as described above), Booker argues that plot types can be further subdivided into the following seven categories. Booker himself borrows most of these definitions of plot types from much earlier writers, such as Aristotle. Here's a closer look at each of the seven types:

• Comedy: In a comedy , characters face a series of increasingly absurd challenges, conflicts, and misunderstandings, culminating in a moment of revelation, when the confusion of the early part of the plot is resolved and the story ends happily. In romantic comedies, the early conflicts in the plot act as obstacles to a happy romantic relationship, but the conflicts are resolved and the plot ends with an orderly conclusion (and often a wedding). A Midsummer Night's Dream , When Harry Met Sally, and Pride and Prejudice are all examples of comedies.
• Tragedy: The plot of a tragedy follows a tragic hero —a likable, well-respected, morally upstanding character who has a tragic flaw or who makes some sort of fatal mistake (both flaw and/or mistake are known as hamartia ). When the tragic hero becomes aware of his mistake (this realization is called anagnorisis ), his happy life is destroyed. This reversal of fate (known as peripeteia ) leads to the plot's tragic ending and, frequently, the hero's death. Booker's tragic plot is based on Aristotle's theory of tragedy, which in turn was based on patterns in classical drama and epic poetry. Antigone , Hamlet , and The Great Gatsby are all examples of tragedies.
• Rebirth: In stories with a rebirth plot, one character is literally or metaphorically imprisoned by a dark force, enchantment, and/or character flaw. Through an act of love, another character helps the imprisoned character overcome the dark force, enchantment, or character flaw. Many stories of rebirth allude to Jesus Christ or other religious figures who sacrificed themselves for others and were resurrected. Beauty and the Beast , The Snow Queen , and A Christmas Carol are all examples of stories with rebirth plots.
• Overcoming the Monster: The hero sets out to fight an evil force and thereby protect their loved ones or their society. The "monster" could be literal or metaphorical: in ancient Greek mythology, Perseus battles the monster Medusa, but in the television show Good Girls Revolt , a group of women files a lawsuit in order to fight discriminatory policies in their workplace. Both examples follow the "Overcoming the Monster" plot, as does the epic poem Beowulf .
• Rags-to-Riches : In a rags-to-riches plot, a disadvantaged person comes very close to gaining success and wealth, but then appears to lose everything, before they finally achieve the happy life they have always deserved. Cinderella and Oliver Twist are classic rags-to-riches stories; movies with rags-to-riches plots include Slumdog Millionaire and Joy .
• The Quest: In a quest story, a hero sets out to accomplish a specific task, aided by a group of friends. Often, though not always, the hero is looking for an object endowed with supernatural powers. Along the way, the hero and their friends face challenges together, but the hero must complete the final stage of the quest alone. The Celtic myth of "The Fisher-King and the Holy Grail" is one of the oldest quest stories; Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a satire that follows the same plot structure; while Heart of Darkness plays with the model of a quest but has the quest end not with the discovery of a treasure or enlightenment but rather with emptiness and disillusionment.
• Voyage and Return: The hero goes on a literal journey to an unfamiliar place where they overcome a series of challenges, then return home with wisdom and experience that help them live a happier life. The Odyssey , Alice's Adventures in Wonderland , Chronicles of Narnia, and Eat, Pray, Love all follow the voyage and return plot.

As you can probably see, there's lots of room for these categories to overlap. This is one of the problems with trying to create any sort of categorization scheme for plots such as this—an issue we'll cover in greater detail below.

The Hero's Journey

The Hero's Journey is an attempt to describe a narrative archetype , or a common plot type that has specific details and structure (also known as a monomyth ). The Hero's Journey plot follows a protagonist's journey from the known to the unknown, and back to the known world again. The journey can be a literal one, as in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or a purely metaphorical one. Regardless, the protagonist is a changed person by the end of the story. The Hero's Journey structure was first popularized by Joseph Campbell's 1949 book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Later, theorists David Adams Leeming, Phil Cousineau, and Christopher Vogler all developed their own versions of the Hero's Journey structure. Each of these theorists divides The Hero's Journey into slightly different stages (Campbell identifies 17 stages, whereas Vogler finds 12 stages and Leeming and Cousineau use just 8). Below, we'll take a closer look at the 12 stages that Vogler outlines in his analysis of this plot type:

• The Ordinary World: When the story begins, the hero is a seemingly ordinary person living an ordinary life. This section of the story often includes expository details about the story's setting and the hero's background and personality.
• The Call to Adventure: Soon, the hero's ordinary life is interrupted when someone or something gives them an opportunity to go on a quest. Often, the hero is asked to find something or someone, or to defeat a powerful enemy. The call to adventure sometimes, but not always, involves a supernatural event. (In Star Wars: A New Hope , the call to adventure occurs when Luke sees the message from Leia to Obi-Wan Kenobi.)
• The Refusal of the Call: Some heroes are initially reluctant to embark on their journey and instead attempt to continue living their ordinary life. When this refusal takes place, it is followed by another event that prompts the hero to accept the call to adventure (Luke's aunt and uncle getting killed in Star Wars ).
• Meeting the Mentor: The hero meets a mentor: a wiser, more experienced person who gives them advice and guidance. The mentor trains and protects the hero until the hero is ready to embark on the next phase of the journey. (Obi-Wan Kenobi is Luke's mentor in Star Wars .)
• Crossing the Threshold: The hero "crosses the threshold" when they have left the familiar, ordinary world behind. Some heroes are eager to enter a new and unfamiliar world, while others may be uncertain if they are making the right choice, but in either case, once the hero crosses the threshold, there is no way to turn back. (Luke about to enter Mos Eisley, or of Frodo leaving the Shire in Lord of the Rings .)
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies: As the hero continues on their journey, they face a series of increasingly difficult "tests" or challenges. Along the way, they acquire friends who help them overcome these challenges, and enemies who attempt to thwart their quest. The hero may defeat some enemies during this phase or find ways to keep them temporarily at bay. These challenges help the reader develop a better a sense of the hero's strengths and weaknesses, and they help the hero become wiser and more experienced. This phase is part of the rising action .
• Approach to the Innermost Cave: At this stage, the hero prepares to face the greatest challenge of the journey, which lies within the "innermost cave." In some stories, the hero must literally enter an isolated and dangerous place and do battle with an evil force; in others, the hero must confront a fear or face an internal conflict; or, the hero may do both. You can think of the approach to the innermost cave as a second threshold—a moment when the hero faces their doubts and fears and decides to continue on the quest. (Think of Frodo entering Mordor, or Harry Potter entering the Forbidden Forest with the Deathly Hallows, ready to confront Lord Voldemort.)
• The Ordeal: The ordeal is the greatest challenge that the hero faces. It may take the form of a battle or physically dangerous task, or it may represent a moral or personal crisis that threatens to destroy the hero. Earlier (in the "Tests, Allies, and Enemies" phase), the hero might have overcome challenges with the help of friends, but the hero must face the ordeal alone. The outcome of the ordeal often determines the fate of the hero's loved ones, society, or the world itself. In many stories, the ordeal involves a literal or metaphorical resurrection, in which the hero dies or has a near-death experience, and is reborn with new knowledge or abilities. This constitutes the climax of the story.
• Reward: After surviving the ordeal, the hero receives a reward of some kind. Depending on the story, it may come in the form of new wisdom and personal strengths, the love of a romantic interest, a supernatural power, or a physical prize. The hero takes the reward or rewards with them as they return to the ordinary world.
• The Road Back: The hero begins to make their way home, either by retracing their steps or with the aid of supernatural powers. They may face a few minor challenges or setbacks along the way. This phase is part of the falling action .
• The Resurrection: The hero faces one final challenge in which they must use all of the powers and knowledge that they have gained throughout their journey. When the hero triumphs, their rebirth is completed and their new identity is affirmed. This phase is not present in all versions of the hero's journey.
• Return with the Elixir: The hero reenters the ordinary world, where they find that they have changed (and perhaps their home has changed too). Among the things they bring with them when they return is an "elixir," or something that will transform their ordinary life for the better. The elixir could be a literal potion or gift, or it may take the form of the hero's newfound perspective on life: the hero now possesses love, forgiveness, knowledge, or another quality that will help them build a better life.

Other Genre-Specific Plots

Apart from the plot types described above (the "Hero's Journey" and Booker's seven basic plots), there are a couple common plot types worth mentioning. When a story uses one of the following plots, it usually means that it belongs to a specific genre of literature—so these plot structures can be thought of as being specific to their respective genres.

• Mystery : A story that centers around the solving of a baffling crime—especially a murder. The plot structure of a mystery can often be described using Freytag's pyramid (i.e., it has exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement), but the plots of mysteries also tend to follow other, more genre-specific conventions, such as the gradual discovery of clues culminating in the revelation of the culprit's identity as well as their motive. In a typical story (i.e., a non-mystery) key characters and their motives are usually revealed before the central conflict arises, not after.
• Bindungsroman : A story that shows a young protagonist's journey from childhood to adulthood (or immaturity to maturity), with a focus on the trials and misfortunes that affect the character's growth. The term "coming-of-age novel" is sometimes used interchangeably with Bildungsroman. This is not necessarily incorrect—in most cases the terms can be used interchangeably—but Bildungsroman carries the connotation of a specific and well-defined literary tradition, which tends to follow certain genre-specific conventions (for example, the main character often gets sent away from home, falls in love, and squanders their fortune). The climax of the Bildungsroman typically coincides with the protagonist reaching maturity.

Other Attempts to Classify Types of Plots

In addition to Freytag, Booker, and Campbell, many other theorists and literary critics have created systems classifying different kinds of plot structures. Among the best known are:

• William Foster-Harris, who outlined three archetypal plot structures in The Basic Patterns of Plot
• Ronald R. Tobias, who wrote a book claiming there are 20 Master Plots
• Georges Polti, who argued there are in fact Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations
• Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, who in the early twentieth century outlined seven types of plot

And then there are the more atypical approaches to classifying the different types of plots:

• In 1965, the University of Chicago rejected Kurt Vonnegut's college thesis, which claimed that folktales and fairy tales shared common structures, or "shapes," including "man in a hole," "boy gets girl" and "Cinderella." He went on to write Slaughterhouse-Five , a novel which subverts traditional narrative structures, and later developed a lecture based on his failed thesis .
• Two recent studies, led by University of Nebraska professor Matthew Jockers and researchers at the University of Adelaide and the University of Vermont respectively, have used machine learning to analyze the plot structures and emotional ups-and-downs of stories. Both projects concluded that there are six types of stories.

Criticism of Efforts to Categorize Plot Types

Some critics argue that though archetypal plot structures can be useful tools for both writers and readers, we shouldn't rely on them too heavily when analyzing a work of literature. One such skeptic is New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, who in a 2005 review described Christopher Booker's Seven Basic Plots as "sometimes absorbing and often blockheaded." Kakutani writes that while Booker finds interesting ways to categorize stories by plot type, he is too fixated on finding stories that fit these plot types perfectly. As a result, Booker tends to idealize overly simplistic stories (and Hollywood films in particular), instead of analyzing more complex stories that may not fit the conventions of his seven plot types. Kakutani argues that, as a result of this approach, Booker undervalues modern and contemporary writers who structure their plots in different and innovative ways.

Kakutani's argument is a reminder that while some great works of literature may follow archetypal plot structures, they may also have unconventional plot structures that defy categorization. Authors who use nonlinear structures or multiple narrators often intentionally create stories that do not perfectly fit any of the "plot types" discussed above. William Faulker's The Sound and the Fury and Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad are both examples of this kind of work. Even William Shakespeare, who wrote many of his plays following the traditional structures for tragedies and comedies, authored several "problem plays," which many scholars struggle to categorize as strictly tragedy or comedy: All's Well That Ends Well , Measure for Measure , Troilus and Cressida, The Winter's Tale , Timon of Athens, and The Merchant of Venice are all examples of "problem plays."

Plot Examples

The following examples are representative of some of the most common types of plot.

The "Hero's Journey" Plot in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The plot of The Hobbit closely follows the structure of a typical hero's journey.

• The Ordinary World: At the beginning of The Hobbit , the story's hero, Bilbo Baggins, is living a comfortable life alongside his fellow hobbits in the Shire. (Hobbits are short, human-like creatures predisposed to peaceful, domestic routines.)
• The Call to Adventure: The wizard Gandalf arrives in the Shire with a band of 13 dwarves and asks Bilbo to go with them to Lonely Mountain in order to reclaim the dwarves' treasure, which has been stolen by the dragon Smaug.
• The Refusal of the Call: At first, Bilbo refuses to join Gandalf and the dwarves, explaining that it isn't in a hobbit's nature to go on adventures.
• Meeting the Mentor: Gandalf, who serves as Bilbo's mentor throughout The Hobbit, persuades Bilbo to join the dwarves on their journey.
• Cross the Threshold: Gandalf takes Bilbo to meet the dwarves at the Green Dragon Inn in Bywater, and the group leaves the Shire together.
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies: Bilbo faces many challenges and trials on the way to the Lonely Mountain. Early in the trip, they are kidnapped by trolls and are rescued by Gandalf. Bilbo takes an elvish dagger from the trolls' supply of weapons that he uses throughout the rest of the journey. Soon Bilbo and the dwarves are captured by goblins, but they are rescued by Gandalf who also kills the Great Goblin. Later, Bilbo finds a magical ring (which becomes the focus of the Lord of the Rings books), and when the dwarves are captured later in the journey (once by giant spiders and once by elves), Bilbo uses the ring and the dagger to rescue them. Finally, Bilbo and the dwarves arrive at Lake Town, near the Lonely Mountain.
• Approach to the Innermost Cave: Bilbo and the dwarves makes his way from Lake Town to the Lonely Mountain, where the dragon Smaug is guarding the dwarves' treasure. Bilbo alone is brave enough to enter the Smaug's lair. Bilbo steals a cup from Smaug, and also learns that Smaug has a weak spot in his scaly armor. Enraged at Bilbo's theft, Smaug flies to Lake-Town and devastates it, but is killed by a human archer who learns of Smaug's weak spot from a bird that overheard Bilbo speaking of it.
• The Ordeal: After Smaug's death, elves and humans march to the Lonely Mountain to claim what they believe is their portion of the treasure (as Smaug plundered from them, too). The dwarves refuse to share the treasure and a battle seems evident, but Bilbo steals the most beautiful gem from the treasure and gives it to the humans and elves. The greedy dwarves banish Bilbo from their company. Meanwhile, an army of wargs (magical wolves) and goblins descend on the Lonely Mountain to take vengeance on the dwarves for the death of the Great Goblin. The dwarves, humans, and elves form an alliance to fight the wargs and goblins, and eventually triumph, though Bilbo is knocked unconscious for much of the battle. (It might seem odd that Bilbo doesn't participate in the battle, but that fact also seems to suggest that the true ordeal of the novel was not the battle but rather Bilbo's moral choice to steal the gem and give it to the men and elves to counter the dwarves growing greed.)
• Reward: The victorious dwarves, humans, and elves share the treasure among themselves, and Bilbo receives a share of the treasure, which he takes home, along with the dagger and the ring.
• The Road Back: It takes Bilbo and Gandalf nearly a year to travel back to the Shire. During that time they e-visit with some of the people they met on their journey out and have many adventures, though none are as difficult as those they undertook on the way to the Lonely Mountain.
• The Resurrection: Bilbo's return to the Shire as a changed person is underlined by the fact that he has been away so long, the other hobbits in the Shire believe that he has died and are preparing to sell his house and belongings.
• Return with the Elixir: Bilbo returns to the shire with the ring, the dagger, and his treasure—enough to make him rich. He also has his memories of the adventure, which he turns into a book.

Other examples of the Hero's Journey Plot Structure:

• Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Martian by Andy Weir
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Iliad by Homer

The Comedic Plot in Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare's play, Twelfth Night , is generally described as a comedy and follows what Booker would call comedic plot structure. At the beginning of the play, the protagonist, Viola is shipwrecked far from home in the kingdom of Illyria. Her twin brother, Sebastian, appears to have died in the storm. Viola disguises herself as a boy, calls herself Cesario, and gets a job as the servant of Count Orsino, who is in love with the Lady Olivia. When Orsino sends Cesario to deliver romantic messages to Olivia on his behalf, Olivia falls in love with Cesario. Meanwhile, Viola falls in love with Orsino, but she cannot confess her love without revealing her disguise.

In another subplot, Olivia's uncle Toby and his friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek persuade the servant Maria to play a prank convincing another servant, Malvolio, that Olivia loves him. The plot thickens when Sebastian (Viola's lost twin) arrives in town and marries Olivia, who believes she is marrying Cesario. At the end of the play, Viola is reunited with her brother, reveals her identity, and confesses her love to Orsino, who marries her. In spite of the chaos, misunderstandings, and challenges the characters face in the early part of the plot—a source of much of the play's humor— Twelfth Night reaches an orderly conclusion and ends with two marriages.

Other examples of comedic plot structure:

• Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
• A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
• Love's Labor's Lost by William Shakespeare
• Emma by Jane Austen
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Lysistrata by Aristophanes
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

The Tragic Plot in Macbeth by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare's play Macbeth follows the tragic plot structure. The tragic hero , Macbeth, is a Scottish nobleman, who receives a prophecy from three witches saying that he will become the Thane of Cawdor and eventually the King. After King Duncan makes Macbeth Thane of Cawdor, Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to fulfill the prophecy by secretly murdering Duncan. He does, and is named King. Later, to ensure that Macbeth will remain king, they also order the assassination of the nobleman Banquo, his son, and the wife and children of the nobleman Macduff. However, as Macbeth protects his throne in ever more bloody ways, Lady Macbeth begins to go mad with guilt. Macbeth consults the witches again, and they reassure him that "no man from woman born can harm Macbeth" and that he will not be defeated until the "wood begins to move" to Dunsinane castle. Therefore, Macbeth is reassured that he is invincible. Lady Macbeth never recovers from her guilt and commits suicide, and Macbeth feels numb and empty, even as he is certain he can never be killed. Meanwhile an army led by Duncan's son Malcolm, their number camouflaged by the branches they carry, so that they look like a moving forest, approaches Dunsinane. In the fighting Macduff reveals he was born by cesarian section, and kills Macbeth.

Macbeth's mistake ( hamartia ) is his unrelenting ambition to be king, and his trust in the witches' prophecies. He realizes his mistake in a moment of anagnorisis when the forest full of camouflaged soldiers seems to be moving, and he experiences a reversal of fate ( peripeteia ) when he is defeated by Macduff.

Other examples of tragic plot structure:

• Antigone by Sophocles
• Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles
• Agamemnon by Aeschylus
• The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus
• The Eumenides by Aeschylus
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Othello by William Shakespeare
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The "Rebirth" Plot in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol is an example of the "rebirth" plot. The novel's protagonist is the miserable, selfish businessman Ebenezer Scrooge, who mistreats his clerk, Bob Cratchit, who is a loving father struggling to support his family. Scrooge scoffs at the notion that Christmas is a time for joy, love, and generosity. But on Christmas Eve, he is visited by the ghost of his deceased business partner, who warns Scrooge that if he does not change his ways, his spirit will be condemned to wander the earth as a ghost. Later that night, he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come. With these ghosts, Scrooge revisits lonely and joyful times of his youth, sees Cratchit celebrating Christmas with his loved ones, and finally foresees his own lonely death. Scrooge awakes on Christmas morning and resolves to change his ways. He not only celebrates Christmas with the Cratchits, but embraces the Christmas spirit of love and generosity all year long. By the end of the novel, Scrooge has been "reborn" through acts of generosity and love.

Other examples of "rebirth" plot structure:

• The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Snow White by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
• The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson
• Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve

The "Overcoming the Monster" Plot in Beowulf

The Old English epic poem, Beowulf , follows the structure of an "overcoming the monster" plot. In fact, the poem's hero, Beowulf, defeats not just one monster, but three. As a young warrior, Beowulf slays Grendel, a swamp-dwelling demon who has been raiding the Danish king's mead hall. Later, when Grendel's mother attempts to avenge her son's death, Beowulf kills her, too. Beowulf eventually becomes king of the Geats, and many years later, he battles a dragon who threatens his people. Beowulf manages to kill the dragon, but dies from his wounds, and is given a hero's funeral. Three times, Beowulf succeeds in protecting his people by defeating a monster.

Other examples of the overcoming the monster plot structure:

• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

The "Rags-to-Riches" Plot in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre is an example of a "rags-to-riches" plot. The protagonist, Jane, is a mistreated orphan who is eventually sent away to a boarding school where students are severely mistreated. Jane survives the school and goes on to become a governess at Thornfield Manor, where Jane falls in love with Mr. Rochester. The two become engaged, but on their wedding day, Jane discovers that Rochester's first wife, Bertha, has gone insane and is imprisoned in Thornfield's attic. She leaves Rochester and ends up finding long-lost cousins. After a time, her very religious cousin, St. John, proposes to her. Jane almost accepts, but then rejects the proposal. She returns to Thornfield to discover that Bertha started a house fire and leapt off the roof of the burning building to her death, and that Rochester had been blinded by the fire in an attempt to save Bertha. Jane and Rochester marry, and live a quiet and happy life together. Jane begins the story with nothing, seems poised to achieve true happiness before losing everything, but ultimately has a happy ending.

Other examples of the rags-to-riches plot structure:

• Cinderella by Charles Perrault
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• The Once and Future King by T.H. White
• Villette by Charlotte Brontë
• Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery

The Quest Plot in Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

Siddhartha , by Herman Hesse, follows the structure of the "quest" plot. The novel's protagonist, Siddartha, leaves his hometown in search of spiritual enlightenment, accompanied by his friend, Govinda. On their journey, they join a band of holy men who seek enlightenment through self-denial, and later, they study with a group of Bhuddists. Disillusioned with religion, Siddartha leaves Govinda and the Bhuddists behind and takes up a hedonistic lifestyle with the beautiful Kamala. Still unsatisfied with his life, he considers suicide in a river, but instead decides to apprentice himself to the man who runs the ferry boat. By studying the river, Siddhartha eventually obtains enlightenment.

Other examples of the quest plot structure:

• Candide by Voltaire
• Don Quixote by Migel de Cervantes
• A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Perceval by Chrétien
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

The "Voyage and Return" Plot in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God follows what Booker would describe as a voyage and return plot structure. The plot follows the hero, Janie, as she seeks love and happiness. The novel begins and ends in Eatonville, Florida, where Janie was brought up by her grandmother. Janie has three romantic relationships, each better than the last. She marries a man named Logan Killicks on her grandmother's advice, but she finds the marriage stifling and she soon leaves him. Janie's second, more stable marriage to the prosperous Joe Starks lasts 20 years, but Janie does not feel truly loved by him. After Joe dies, she marries Tea Cake, a farm worker who loves, respects, and cherishes her. They move to the Everglades and live there happily for just over a year, when Tea Cake dies of rabies after getting bitten by a dog during a hurricane. Janie mourns Tea Cake's death, but returns to Eatonville with a sense of peace: she has known true love, and she will always carry her memories of Tea Cake with her. Her journey and her return home have made her stronger and wiser.

Other examples of the voyage and return plot structure:

• The Odyssey by Homer
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• By the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benét

Other Helpful Plot Resources

• What Makes a Hero? Check out this awesome video on the hero's journey from Ted-Ed.
• The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations : Visit Wikipedia for an overview of George Polti's theory of dramatic plot structure.
• Why Tragedies Are Alluring : Learn more about Aristotle's tragic structure, ancient Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, and contemporary tragic plots.
• The Wikipedia Page on Plot: A basic but helpful overview of plots.

• Bildungsroman
• Climax (Figure of Speech)
• Falling Action
• Rising Action
• Tragic Hero
• Slant Rhyme
• Rhyme Scheme
• Common Meter
• Polysyndeton
• Blank Verse
• Dynamic Character
• Figure of Speech
• Onomatopoeia

• Quizzes, saving guides, requests, plus so much more.

Writing A Literary Analysis Essay

• Library Resources
• Books & EBooks
• What is an Literary Analysis?
• Literary Devices & Terms
• Creating a Thesis Statement This link opens in a new window
• Using quotes or evidence in your essay
• APA Format This link opens in a new window
• MLA Format This link opens in a new window
• OER Resources
• Copyright, Plagiarism, and Fair Use

Video Links

Elements of a short story, Part 1

YouTube video

Elements of a short story, Part 2

online tools

Collaborative Mind Mapping  – collaborative brainstorming site

Sample Literary Analysis Essay Outline 

Paper Format and Structure

Analyzing Literature and writing a Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis are written in the third person point of view in present tense. Do not use the words I or you in the essay. Your instructor may have you choose from a list of literary works read in class or you can choose your own. Follow the required formatting and instructions of your instructor.

Writing & Analyzing process

First step: Choose a literary work or text. Read & Re-Read the text or short story. Determine the key point or purpose of the literature

Step two: Analyze key elements of the literary work. Determine how they fit in with the author's purpose.

Step three: Put all information together. Determine how all elements fit together towards the main theme of the literary work.

Step four: Brainstorm a list of potential topics. Create a thesis statement based on your analysis of the literary work. 

Step five: search through the text or short story to find textual evidence to support your thesis. Gather information from different but relevant sources both  from the text itself and other  secondary  sources to help to prove your point. All evidence found will be quoted and analyzed throughout your essay to help explain your argument to the reader. 

Step six: Create and outline and begin the rough draft of your essay. 

Step seven: revise and proofread. Write the final draft of essay

Step eight: include a reference or works cited page at the end of the essay and include in-text citations.

When analyzing a literary work pay close attention to the following:

Characters:  A  character  is a person, animal, being, creature, or thing in a story. 

• Protagonist : The main character of the story
• Antagonist : The villain of the story
• Love interest : the protagonist’s object of desire.
• Confidant : This type of character is the best friend or sidekick of the protagonist
• Foil  – A foil is a character that has opposite character traits from another character and are meant to help highlight or bring out another’s positive or negative side.
• Flat  – A flat character has one or two main traits, usually only all positive or negative.
• Dynamic character : A dynamic character is one who changes over the course of the story.
• Round character : These characters have many different traits, good and bad, making them more interesting.
• Static character : A static character does not noticeably change over the course of a story.
• Symbolic character : A symbolic character represents a concept or theme larger than themselves.
• Stock character : A stock character is an ordinary character with a fixed set of personality traits.

Setting:  The  setting  is the period of time and geographic location in which a  story  takes place.

Plot:   a literary term used to describe the events that make up a story

Theme:   a universal idea, lesson, or message explored throughout a work of literature. 

Dialogue:  any communication between two characters

Imagery:  a literary device that refers to the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience or create a picture with words for a reader.

Figures of Speech:  A word or phrase that is used in a non-literal way to create an effect. 

Tone: A literary device that reflects the writer's attitude toward the subject matter or audience of a literary work.

rhyme or rhythm:  Rhyme is a literary device, featured particularly in poetry, in which identical or similar concluding syllables in different words are repeated. Rhythm can be described as the beat and pace of a poem

Point of view:  the narrative voice through which a story is told.

• Limited –  the narrator sees only what’s in front of him/her, a spectator of events as they unfold and unable to read any other character’s mind.
• Omniscient –  narrator sees all. He or she sees what each character is doing and can see into each character’s mind. 
• Limited Omniscient – narrator can only see into one character’s mind. He/she might see other events happening, but only knows the reasons of one character’s actions in the story.
• First person: You see events based on the character telling the story
• Second person: The narrator is speaking to you as the audience

Symbolism:   a literary device in which a writer uses one thing—usually a physical object or phenomenon—to represent something else.

Irony:  a literary device in which contradictory statements or situations reveal a reality that is different from what appears to be true.

Ask some of the following questions when analyzing literary work:

• Which literary devices were used by the author?
• How are the characters developed in the content?
• How does the setting fit in with the mood of the literary work?
• Does a change in the setting affect the mood, characters, or conflict?
• What point of view is the literary work written in and how does it effect the plot, characters, setting, and over all theme of the work?
• What is the over all tone of the literary work? How does the tone impact the author’s message?
• How are figures of speech such as similes, metaphors, and hyperboles used throughout the text?
• When was the text written? how does the text fit in with the time period?

Creating an Outline

A literary analysis essay outline is written in standard format: introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. An outline will provide a definite structure for your essay.

I. Introduction: Title

A. a hook statement or sentence to draw in readers

B. Introduce your topic for the literary analysis. 

• Include some background information that is relevant to the piece of literature you are aiming to analyze.

C. Thesis statement: what is your argument or claim for the literary work.

II. Body paragraph

A. first point for your analysis or evidence from thesis

B.  textual evidence   with explanation of how it proves your point

III. second evidence from thesis

A. textual evidence   with explanation of how it proves your point  

IV. third evidence from thesis

V. Conclusion

A. wrap up the essay

B. restate the argument and why its important

C. Don't add any new ideas or arguments

VI: Bibliography: Reference or works cited page

End each body paragraph in the essay with a transitional sentence. 

Links & Resources

Literary Analysis Guide

Discusses how to analyze a passage of text to strengthen your discussion of the literature.

The Writing Center @ UNC-Chapel Hill

Excellent handouts and videos around key writing concepts. Entire section on Writing for Specific Fields, including Drama, Literature (Fiction), and more. Licensed under CC BY NC ND (Creative Commons - Attribution - NonCommercial - No Derivatives).

Creating Literary Analysis (Cordell and Pennington, 2012) – LibreTexts

Resources for Literary Analysis Writing 

Some free resources on this site but some are subscription only

Students Teaching English Paper Strategies 

The Internet Public Library: Literary Criticism

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How to Summarize a Plot

5 Components of a Plot in Narrative Essays and Creative Nonfiction

• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Every story that you read follows a series of events that range from the introduction of a conflict to begin the story and a final resolution at the end; this is the plot of your story. Basically, it’s what happens throughout the narrative, and it appears in in both fiction and non-fiction work. When you write a plot summary, you’ll essentially condense a novel into a short essay, touching on the key points of the material. You’ll want to introduce the main characters, setting of the story, and the main conflict of the narrative, including the five basic components of the plot: introduction, rising action , climax, falling action , and finally, a resolution.

Some outlines will break down a plot into more segments (exposition, inciting incident, central conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution) but the premise is the same - a pattern of rising and falling action that looks essentially like an arc or a bell curve when you consider the level of drama the characters experience.

Understanding and Introducing the Conflict

To properly summarize a plot, start by figuring out the main problem that the story will solve. This could come from understanding the main characters, who are crucial components of the plot. Who are they and what are they trying to achieve? Most characters have a mission to accomplish, often it is finding, saving, or creating something or someone. Understand what drives the main characters, and that will help you in the first step to summarize the plot.

The conflict that we discover at the start of the narrative will get kicked off by an inciting incident that triggers the rising action, which grows over time. In Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” we are introduced to two characters from feuding families who ultimately fall in love. The conflict comes from their love for each other despite their families’ disapproval.

Rising Action and Climax

The rising action will introduce key components of a story that build upon the drama and conflict. This is where we see Romeo & Juliet marry in secret, and Romeo & Tybalt engage in a duel that ultimately leads to Tybalt’s death.

Eventually, the action and conflict hit what is called the climax, the point of no return. This is the peak of excitement, fear, drama, or whatever the emotion is that relayed through the narrative. You’ll want to tie together the rising action and the catalyst for conflict. The climax could lead us on a journey of positive resolution or even a journey of tragedy, but it will often change the characters in some way and is the reason why the problem can now start to be solved. In Shakespeare ’s story, there are essentially two points of climax: Romeo is banished and Juliet refuses to marry Paris.

Falling Action and Resolution

Finally, as you work your way back from the climax to the resolution, you’ll want to focus on how the main characters respond to the peak of action. Some aspect of the climax will trigger a response in the main characters which will drive them towards the final resolution. Sometimes, you’ll even find that the main characters learn a lesson and grow as individuals, but either way, the resulting actions shift the story and begin the falling action. Juliet drinks the potion which causes Romeo to believe she has died and kills himself. Upon awakening and discovering that her love has died, Juliet does the same.

Eventually, the story will return back to the original baseline resulting in a final resolution. In “Romeo & Juliet” the resolution isn’t that they both have died, but rather, the action their families take in response to their deaths, the end of the feud.

Creating the Summary

Remember that the plot is not the same as the theme of the narrative . If you’re not sure what the difference is between the plot of a story and the theme, you’re not alone. While the plot is what happens, the theme is the underlying idea or message within a story. The plot is concrete occurrences within the narrative, but the theme can be more subtle and even at times, implied. The theme can be harder to discern whereas the plot is more obvious. In Romeo & Juliet, we see themes of love and hate that appear throughout the plot.

Don’t forget, the key part of summarizing a plot is that you’re summarizing. You don’t need to include every detail that you encounter. When you read the text, it’s important to pay attention to what happens and where you see action coming into play, and write down key moments. Look for the basic information of who is involved, what are they doing, when are things happening, where is the action happening, and why?

Take notes and even write down things that you’re not sure if they are vital at that moment, but seem interesting or important. When you finish the story, you’ll be able to review your notes and better understand what aspects of the narrative were most important and start to eliminate the notes that don’t enhance the plot. That way, when it comes time to summarize the plot , you can easily pare down your notes and have an outline of what happens and the crucial moments that represent each of the five components of the plot.

• Mimesis Definition and Use
• Definition and Examples of Narratives in Writing
• Genres in Literature
• How Denouement Is Used in a Narrative
• A Guide to All Types of Narration, With Examples
• Allegory: Definition and Examples
• How to Find a Narrative’s Climax
• Exemplum in Rhetoric
• Interior Monologues
• Root Metaphor
• Definition and Examples of Feghoots
• Point of View in Grammar and Composition
• What Are the Different Types and Characteristics of Essays?
• Narratio in Rhetoric
• How to Use Exemplification in Writing

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Introduction

You’ve been assigned a literary analysis paper—what does that even mean? Is it like a book report that you used to write in high school? Well, not really.

A literary analysis essay asks you to make an original argument about a poem, play, or work of fiction and support that argument with research and evidence from your careful reading of the text.

It can take many forms, such as a close reading of a text, critiquing the text through a particular literary theory, comparing one text to another, or criticizing another critic’s interpretation of the text. While there are many ways to structure a literary essay, writing this kind of essay follows generally follows a similar process for everyone

Crafting a good literary analysis essay begins with good close reading of the text, in which you have kept notes and observations as you read. This will help you with the first step, which is selecting a topic to write about—what jumped out as you read, what are you genuinely interested in? The next step is to focus your topic, developing it into an argument—why is this subject or observation important? Why should your reader care about it as much as you do? The third step is to gather evidence to support your argument, for literary analysis, support comes in the form of evidence from the text and from your research on what other literary critics have said about your topic. Only after you have performed these steps, are you ready to begin actually writing your essay.

Writing a Literary Analysis Essay

How to create a topic and conduct research:.

Writing an Analysis of a Poem, Story, or Play

If you are taking a literature course, it is important that you know how to write an analysis—sometimes called an interpretation or a literary analysis or a critical reading or a critical analysis—of a story, a poem, and a play. Your instructor will probably assign such an analysis as part of the course assessment. On your mid-term or final exam, you might have to write an analysis of one or more of the poems and/or stories on your reading list. Or the dreaded “sight poem or story” might appear on an exam, a work that is not on the reading list, that you have not read before, but one your instructor includes on the exam to examine your ability to apply the active reading skills you have learned in class to produce, independently, an effective literary analysis.You might be asked to write instead or, or in addition to an analysis of a literary work, a more sophisticated essay in which you compare and contrast the protagonists of two stories, or the use of form and metaphor in two poems, or the tragic heroes in two plays.

You might learn some literary theory in your course and be asked to apply theory—feminist, Marxist, reader-response, psychoanalytic, new historicist, for example—to one or more of the works on your reading list. But the seminal assignment in a literature course is the analysis of the single poem, story, novel, or play, and, even if you do not have to complete this assignment specifically, it will form the basis of most of the other writing assignments you will be required to undertake in your literature class. There are several ways of structuring a literary analysis, and your instructor might issue specific instructions on how he or she wants this assignment done. The method presented here might not be identical to the one your instructor wants you to follow, but it will be easy enough to modify, if your instructor expects something a bit different, and it is a good default method, if your instructor does not issue more specific guidelines.You want to begin your analysis with a paragraph that provides the context of the work you are analyzing and a brief account of what you believe to be the poem or story or play’s main theme. At a minimum, your account of the work’s context will include the name of the author, the title of the work, its genre, and the date and place of publication. If there is an important biographical or historical context to the work, you should include that, as well.Try to express the work’s theme in one or two sentences. Theme, you will recall, is that insight into human experience the author offers to readers, usually revealed as the content, the drama, the plot of the poem, story, or play unfolds and the characters interact. Assessing theme can be a complex task. Authors usually show the theme; they don’t tell it. They rarely say, at the end of the story, words to this effect: “and the moral of my story is…” They tell their story, develop their characters, provide some kind of conflict—and from all of this theme emerges. Because identifying theme can be challenging and subjective, it is often a good idea to work through the rest of the analysis, then return to the beginning and assess theme in light of your analysis of the work’s other literary elements.Here is a good example of an introductory paragraph from Ben’s analysis of William Butler Yeats’ poem, “Among School Children.”

“Among School Children” was published in Yeats’ 1928 collection of poems The Tower. It was inspired by a visit Yeats made in 1926 to school in Waterford, an official visit in his capacity as a senator of the Irish Free State. In the course of the tour, Yeats reflects upon his own youth and the experiences that shaped the “sixty-year old, smiling public man” (line 8) he has become. Through his reflection, the theme of the poem emerges: a life has meaning when connections among apparently disparate experiences are forged into a unified whole.

In the body of your literature analysis, you want to guide your readers through a tour of the poem, story, or play, pausing along the way to comment on, analyze, interpret, and explain key incidents, descriptions, dialogue, symbols, the writer’s use of figurative language—any of the elements of literature that are relevant to a sound analysis of this particular work. Your main goal is to explain how the elements of literature work to elucidate, augment, and develop the theme. The elements of literature are common across genres: a story, a narrative poem, and a play all have a plot and characters. But certain genres privilege certain literary elements. In a poem, for example, form, imagery and metaphor might be especially important; in a story, setting and point-of-view might be more important than they are in a poem; in a play, dialogue, stage directions, lighting serve functions rarely relevant in the analysis of a story or poem.

The length of the body of an analysis of a literary work will usually depend upon the length of work being analyzed—the longer the work, the longer the analysis—though your instructor will likely establish a word limit for this assignment. Make certain that you do not simply paraphrase the plot of the story or play or the content of the poem. This is a common weakness in student literary analyses, especially when the analysis is of a poem or a play.

Here is a good example of two body paragraphs from Amelia’s analysis of “Araby” by James Joyce.

Within the story’s first few paragraphs occur several religious references which will accumulate as the story progresses. The narrator is a student at the Christian Brothers’ School; the former tenant of his house was a priest; he left behind books called The Abbot and The Devout Communicant. Near the end of the story’s second paragraph the narrator describes a “central apple tree” in the garden, under which is “the late tenant’s rusty bicycle pump.” We may begin to suspect the tree symbolizes the apple tree in the Garden of Eden and the bicycle pump, the snake which corrupted Eve, a stretch, perhaps, until Joyce’s fall-of-innocence theme becomes more apparent.

The narrator must continue to help his aunt with her errands, but, even when he is so occupied, his mind is on Mangan’s sister, as he tries to sort out his feelings for her. Here Joyce provides vivid insight into the mind of an adolescent boy at once elated and bewildered by his first crush. He wants to tell her of his “confused adoration,” but he does not know if he will ever have the chance. Joyce’s description of the pleasant tension consuming the narrator is conveyed in a striking simile, which continues to develop the narrator’s character, while echoing the religious imagery, so important to the story’s theme: “But my body was like a harp, and her words and gestures were like fingers, running along the wires.”

The concluding paragraph of your analysis should realize two goals. First, it should present your own opinion on the quality of the poem or story or play about which you have been writing. And, second, it should comment on the current relevance of the work. You should certainly comment on the enduring social relevance of the work you are explicating. You may comment, though you should never be obliged to do so, on the personal relevance of the work. Here is the concluding paragraph from Dao-Ming’s analysis of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

First performed in 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest has been made into a film, as recently as 2002 and is regularly revived by professional and amateur theatre companies. It endures not only because of the comic brilliance of its characters and their dialogue, but also because its satire still resonates with contemporary audiences. I am still amazed that I see in my own Asian mother a shadow of Lady Bracknell, with her obsession with finding for her daughter a husband who will maintain, if not, ideally, increase the family’s social status. We might like to think we are more liberated and socially sophisticated than our Victorian ancestors, but the starlets and eligible bachelors who star in current reality television programs illustrate the extent to which superficial concerns still influence decisions about love and even marriage. Even now, we can turn to Oscar Wilde to help us understand and laugh at those who are earnest in name only.

Dao-Ming’s conclusion is brief, but she does manage to praise the play, reaffirm its main theme, and explain its enduring appeal. And note how her last sentence cleverly establishes that sense of closure that is also a feature of an effective analysis.

You may, of course, modify the template that is presented here. Your instructor might favour a somewhat different approach to literary analysis. Its essence, though, will be your understanding and interpretation of the theme of the poem, story, or play and the skill with which the author shapes the elements of literature—plot, character, form, diction, setting, point of view—to support the theme.

Academic Writing Tips : How to Write a Literary Analysis Paper. Authored by: eHow. Located at: https://youtu.be/8adKfLwIrVk. License: All Rights Reserved. License Terms: Standard YouTube license

BC Open Textbooks: English Literature Victorians and Moderns: https://opentextbc.ca/englishliterature/back-matter/appendix-5-writing-an-analysis-of-a-poem-story-and-play/

Literary Analysis

The challenges of writing about english literature.

Writing begins with the act of reading . While this statement is true for most college papers, strong English papers tend to be the product of highly attentive reading (and rereading). When your instructors ask you to do a “close reading,” they are asking you to read not only for content, but also for structures and patterns. When you perform a close reading, then, you observe how form and content interact. In some cases, form reinforces content: for example, in John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14, where the speaker invites God’s “force” “to break, blow, burn and make [him] new.” Here, the stressed monosyllables of the verbs “break,” “blow” and “burn” evoke aurally the force that the speaker invites from God. In other cases, form raises questions about content: for example, a repeated denial of guilt will likely raise questions about the speaker’s professed innocence. When you close read, take an inductive approach. Start by observing particular details in the text, such as a repeated image or word, an unexpected development, or even a contradiction. Often, a detail–such as a repeated image–can help you to identify a question about the text that warrants further examination. So annotate details that strike you as you read. Some of those details will eventually help you to work towards a thesis. And don’t worry if a detail seems trivial. If you can make a case about how an apparently trivial detail reveals something significant about the text, then your paper will have a thought-provoking thesis to argue.

Common Types of English Papers Many assignments will ask you to analyze a single text. Others, however, will ask you to read two or more texts in relation to each other, or to consider a text in light of claims made by other scholars and critics. For most assignments, close reading will be central to your paper. While some assignment guidelines will suggest topics and spell out expectations in detail, others will offer little more than a page limit. Approaching the writing process in the absence of assigned topics can be daunting, but remember that you have resources: in section, you will probably have encountered some examples of close reading; in lecture, you will have encountered some of the course’s central questions and claims. The paper is a chance for you to extend a claim offered in lecture, or to analyze a passage neglected in lecture. In either case, your analysis should do more than recapitulate claims aired in lecture and section. Because different instructors have different goals for an assignment, you should always ask your professor or TF if you have questions. These general guidelines should apply in most cases:

• A close reading of a single text: Depending on the length of the text, you will need to be more or less selective about what you choose to consider. In the case of a sonnet, you will probably have enough room to analyze the text more thoroughly than you would in the case of a novel, for example, though even here you will probably not analyze every single detail. By contrast, in the case of a novel, you might analyze a repeated scene, image, or object (for example, scenes of train travel, images of decay, or objects such as or typewriters). Alternately, you might analyze a perplexing scene (such as a novel’s ending, albeit probably in relation to an earlier moment in the novel). But even when analyzing shorter works, you will need to be selective. Although you might notice numerous interesting details as you read, not all of those details will help you to organize a focused argument about the text. For example, if you are focusing on depictions of sensory experience in Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” you probably do not need to analyze the image of a homeless Ruth in stanza 7, unless this image helps you to develop your case about sensory experience in the poem.
• A theoretically-informed close reading. In some courses, you will be asked to analyze a poem, a play, or a novel by using a critical theory (psychoanalytic, postcolonial, gender, etc). For example, you might use Kristeva’s theory of abjection to analyze mother-daughter relations in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. Critical theories provide focus for your analysis; if “abjection” is the guiding concept for your paper, you should focus on the scenes in the novel that are most relevant to the concept.
• A historically-informed close reading. In courses with a historicist orientation, you might use less self-consciously literary documents, such as newspapers or devotional manuals, to develop your analysis of a literary work. For example, to analyze how Robinson Crusoe makes sense of his island experiences, you might use Puritan tracts that narrate events in terms of how God organizes them. The tracts could help you to show not only how Robinson Crusoe draws on Puritan narrative conventions, but also—more significantly—how the novel revises those conventions.
• A comparison of two texts When analyzing two texts, you might look for unexpected contrasts between apparently similar texts, or unexpected similarities between apparently dissimilar texts, or for how one text revises or transforms the other. Keep in mind that not all of the similarities, differences, and transformations you identify will be relevant to an argument about the relationship between the two texts. As you work towards a thesis, you will need to decide which of those similarities, differences, or transformations to focus on. Moreover, unless instructed otherwise, you do not need to allot equal space to each text (unless this 50/50 allocation serves your thesis well, of course). Often you will find that one text helps to develop your analysis of another text. For example, you might analyze the transformation of Ariel’s song from The Tempest in T. S. Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land. Insofar as this analysis is interested in the afterlife of Ariel’s song in a later poem, you would likely allot more space to analyzing allusions to Ariel’s song in The Waste Land (after initially establishing the song’s significance in Shakespeare’s play, of course).
• A response paper A response paper is a great opportunity to practice your close reading skills without having to develop an entire argument. In most cases, a solid approach is to select a rich passage that rewards analysis (for example, one that depicts an important scene or a recurring image) and close read it. While response papers are a flexible genre, they are not invitations for impressionistic accounts of whether you liked the work or a particular character. Instead, you might use your close reading to raise a question about the text—to open up further investigation, rather than to supply a solution.
• A research paper. In most cases, you will receive guidance from the professor on the scope of the research paper. It is likely that you will be expected to consult sources other than the assigned readings. Hollis is your best bet for book titles, and the MLA bibliography (available through e-resources) for articles. When reading articles, make sure that they have been peer reviewed; you might also ask your TF to recommend reputable journals in the field.

Harvard College Writing Program: https://writingproject.fas.harvard.edu/files/hwp/files/bg_writing_english.pdf

In the same way that we talk with our friends about the latest episode of Game of Thrones or newest Marvel movie, scholars communicate their ideas and interpretations of literature through written literary analysis essays. Literary analysis essays make us better readers of literature.

Only through careful reading and well-argued analysis can we reach new understandings and interpretations of texts that are sometimes hundreds of years old. Literary analysis brings new meaning and can shed new light on texts. Building from careful reading and selecting a topic that you are genuinely interested in, your argument supports how you read and understand a text. Using examples from the text you are discussing in the form of textual evidence further supports your reading. Well-researched literary analysis also includes information about what other scholars have written about a specific text or topic.

Literary analysis helps us to refine our ideas, question what we think we know, and often generates new knowledge about literature. Literary analysis essays allow you to discuss your own interpretation of a given text through careful examination of the choices the original author made in the text.

ENG134 – Literary Genres Copyright © by The American Women's College and Jessica Egan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What Is Plot? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples

Plot definition.

Plot  (PLAWT) is the series of events that comprise a story’s main action. It is typically made up of a sequence of individual but connected elements that compels the main character(s) to embark on a journey. This journey can be physically or mentally and emotionally in nature, though it is often both. The plot’s primary journey leads to a climactic event and a resolution.

One of the defining features of a plot is that it includes more than a list of facts. The facts have a purpose that supports the overall journey of the character(s). Another hallmark of plot is the unfolding of a cause-and-effect relationship. Characters make decisions and experience the resulting consequences, good or bad. In other words, plot encompasses not just the  what  but the  how  and the  why .

Plot  derives from the Old French word  complot , which refers to a secret plan or conspiracy. Plots have long been a central component of storytelling, with Greek philosopher Aristotle observing in the fourth century BCE that plot, which he called  mythos , is the “soul” of all tragedy.

The Traditional Plot Structure

Modern interpretations and understandings of plot are largely based on the 1863 model devised by German author Gustav Freytag, called Freytag’s Pyramid. Freytag based it on Aristotle’s analysis of dramatic tragedy. Most plotlines follow the same basic structure made of five essential ingredients.

A story begins by introducing the protagonist and other key characters, their inter- and intra-relationships, the  setting , and relevant background information. This is called exposition. In this section, the protagonist discovers their main goal, typically a problem that needs surmounting. For example, in  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , the exposition introduces Harry Potter, his bleak life with the Dursleys, and the subsequent revelation of the wizarding world and Harry’s place in it.

Rising Action  

The next phase is the rising action, which begins with an inciting incident or complication that triggers the ensuing series of events. Since the rising action propels the protagonist on their journey, the inciting incident usually comes with high stakes. The protagonist sees what they stand to lose by not accomplishing their goal, allowing them to start taking proactive steps toward said goal. Throughout the unfolding of the rising action, the protagonist encounters numerous obstacles. They often come in the form of an antagonist character and their disruptive actions. Such obstacles only strengthen—and occasionally frustrate—the protagonist’s determination. Tension tends to build as rising action progresses toward the next phase.

In  Harry Potter , the rising action occurs when Harry and his friends begin to suspect primary villain Voldemort is alive and that he’s after the legendary Sorcerer’s Stone. They assume that Professor Snape, an openly antagonistic character that Harry encounters, is helping the dark lord.

This is the main turning point of the story, when all the events and emotions built up during the exposition and rising action come to a head. Naturally, these are the moments of greatest tension,  conflict , and drama.

Most climaxes involve the protagonist making a major decision that seals both their fate and the outcome of the story. In some cases, climaxes are not the complex moral dilemmas they initially appear to be. These are called anticlimaxes, and they accomplish the story’s main goals through trivial actions. In  Harry Potter , Harry and his friends fight their way through a complex series of barriers to protect the stone, only to discover that the seemingly incompetent Professor Quirrell was aiding Voldemort all along.

Falling Action

In this stage, characters’ actions resolve the story’s central problem, leading to a resolution. In  Harry Potter , Harry manages to keep the stone away from Voldemort and drives him away (for the time being).

The final plot element is the official completion of the goal, solution to the problem, and end to the conflict. The denouement reveals the characters’ fates. The protagonist or the antagonist might win, or each could experience certain degrees of both triumph and defeat. Some stories wrap up by providing information on what happens to the central character(s) in the future.  Harry Potter  ends with Harry and his friends being rewarded for their valiant efforts and the school year coming to a close.

Other Elements of Plot

• The Hero’s Journey

The hero’s journey is a variation of Freytag’s Pyramid. It was first codified in 1871 when anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor noticed that many classic stories contained the same basic plot elements. In the mid-20th century, scholar Joseph Campbell famously expounded upon this theory in his seminal exploration of  The Hero with a Thousand Faces . In it, Campbell identifies the universal components shared by many stories of classic heroes and their epic adventures.

The hero’s journey, also called a monomyth, can get much more complex and involved, but it always possesses the same structural plot bedrock. It typically unfolds as follows:

• The hero ventures from the common, everyday world into an unknown region filled with supernatural elements.
• The hero encounters fantastic forces in this foreign realm.
• In this new world, the hero achieves a decisive victory of some sort.
• In the end, the hero returns home, changed for the better by their experiences.

Catastrophe and Eucatastrophe

Catastrophes are an aspect of the denouement. They are common in the epic tragedies and comedies of antiquity. In tragedies, catastrophes are the ultimate resolution of the central plot, often involving a major character’s death. Despite their name, catastrophes aren’t inherently devastating or disastrous. In ancient comedies, for instance, the catastrophe is usually a happy one, with a central character’s marriage or another much-sought happily-ever-after.

A eucatastrophe is a catastrophe with an unexpectedly and almost implausibly happy conclusion, achieved via a sudden turn of events. When a character seems invariably doomed, a eucatastrophe overturns this ending and allows the character to avoid their ruin. J. R. R. Tolkien coined the word  eucatastrophe , and his works contain many of them. At the climax of  The Return of the King , Frodo seems permanently possessed by the Ring’s dark power. However, Gollum reappears and bites the Ring off Frodo’s finger. As the creature excitedly celebrates his reclaiming of the Ring, he loses his footing and plunges into the Fire of Mt. Doom—destroying the ring and inadvertently completing Frodo’s quest.

• Deus Ex Machina

A  deus ex machina  is a plot device where an ostensibly unsolvable problem is suddenly solved through surprising and unlikely means. It’s like a eucatastrophe—the main difference being that eucatastrophes tend to have a more optimistic tone. Writers use these devices to shock readers, enhance comedic effect, or quickly introduce an ending. An example is H. G. Wells’s  War of the Worlds . All signs point to the Martians overtaking humanity until they’re all suddenly, inexplicably killed by bacteria. Because of the abrupt nature of this device, it’s not uncommon for readers to view a  deus ex machina  as illogical and contrived.

This is a secondary plot that unfolds in tandem with a story’s main plot. It may involve central characters, minor characters, or both. A subplot can occur independent of the main plotline’s action, or the two can converge at certain points with one affecting the other’s chain of events.

Subplots usually follow the basic structure of Freytag’s Pyramid and are common in most types of literature. An example of a subplot comes from Jane Austen’s  Pride and Prejudice . Protagonist Elizabeth Bennet’s cousin, Mr. Collins, asks her to marry him partway through the novel. She declines the offer, and as she pursues her romance Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins develops a relationship with Elizabeth’s friend, Charlotte Lucas, whom he eventually marries.

A plot hole is an inconsistency that defies the rest of the story’s logic. Plot holes can take a variety of forms, including illogical or impossible events, contradictions in character or action, unresolved plots, or mistakes in continuity.

A plot hole can occur at any point. Often, they’re a subject of debate as readers wonder if the author knew they were making such a glaring error. In Raymond Chandler’s  The Big Sleep , for example, Chandler never reveals who kills the chauffer. Years later, when the script for the film adaptation was in progress, the screenwriters contacted Chandler directly and asked him for the identity of the chauffer’s murderer. “Damned if I know,” he said.

Plot Twists

A plot twist is a dramatic change in the expected trajectory of a plotline. Plot twists are distinct from eucatastrophes and  dei ex machina  because they’re typically rooted in logic. Even though the twist itself is shocking and might call into question readers’ perception of prior events or characters, it still makes sense. Though they can happen at any time, plot twists most often appear during or after a story’s climax. In the real world, disclosing a plot twist to someone who hasn’t encountered the story is called a spoiler.

Agatha Christie’s  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd  contains one of the greatest plot twists in all of mystery writing—a genre known for plot twists. The book is a first-person narrative, which allows readers to presume the narrator is trustworthy as he relates the story of the title character’s murder and the attempts to solve the crime. In the end, the narrator reveals himself as the killer, altering readers’ perception of everything.

The Function of Plot

Plot’s function is simple but essential. It provides structure, builds tension and excitement, and keeps the reader engaged. Without plot, a story would be nothing more than exposition or a series of interconnected thoughts. There would be no momentum, rendering the story lifeless and  didactic . Even in works that contain an abundance of commentary on their contents, some semblance of plot is necessary to capture the reader’s attention and hold their interest.

Common Plot Structures by Genre

English journalist and author Christopher Booker devoted much of his career to studying plot and how writers use it. He identified features that are near-universal in their application based on the type of work in which they’re found—all of which also adhere to Freytag’s Pyramid.

In a comedic work, the character has a dilemma they must work out. They then encounter several obstacles as they attempt to solve their problem, with each being more outlandish than the one before. At the climax, a revelation resolves the central dilemma and explains the absurdity of the earlier obstacles, resulting in a happy ending. Throughout the entire work, humor is a primary component.

Oscar Wilde’s play  The Importance of Being Earnest  is an example of a classic comedy plot. In it, John “Jack” Worthing invents a fake brother named Ernest, whose identity both he and his friend Algernon assume. This results in a series of increasingly chaotic and farcical encounters, until John learns that he really  is  a man named Ernest. Then, he and Algernon, now revealed to be biological brothers, win the hearts of their respective love interests.

In a tragedy, a likable, respectable character wants more out of life—something typically forbidden to them. To satiate this need, the character focuses intensely on their goal. When this objective is obtained, things go well…at first. But then, things inevitably go wrong, and the character commits a series of irreversibly damaging acts to try and amend their misdeeds. They lose control of the situation, the antagonist closes in, and tragedy, typically death, ensues.

Shakespeare ’s  Macbeth  is a tragedy that holds to this plot structure. At first, Macbeth is a revered Scottish general. After a group of witches tells him he will someday take the throne, he grows consumed with this ambition. This is supported by the machinations of his power-hungry wife. Macbeth murders King Duncan and assumes his place. But fear, guilt, and paranoia follow, and Macbeth commits more murders to cover his tracks. Civil war erupts, chaos reigns, and Macbeth’s enemies overthrow and behead him.

Popular in all literary genres—especially dramatic works, fairy tales, and redemption stories—the protagonist falls under threat from a dark force. At first, things proceed well, and the threat dissipates. However, the dark force comes back stronger, imprisoning the protagonist in a state of distress. It takes a great force of will—sometimes in the form of a secondary character’s intervention—for the protagonist to break free and earn redemption.

Charles Dickens’s  A Christmas Carol  is a story of rebirth. Ebenezer Scrooge lives his life under the dark forces of greed and misanthropy. As a result, he experiences great success and wealth. Then, mystic forces intervene when three ghosts visit him and force him to confront his cruelty. After seeing the damage he has caused, Scrooge chooses to change and is thus redeemed.

Overcoming the Monster

In this type of plot, the hero squares off with a monster, which can be literal or metaphorical. At the beginning of the story, the hero learns about the threat of the monster and answers the call to fight it. The journey to the confrontation goes well, though the hero realizes they may be outmatched by the monster. There is an epic battle with all signs pointing to the hero losing. But, the monster is slayed and the hero escapes, often being rewarded in some way after claiming victory.

Many myths involving humans and/or deities battling monsters follow this kind of plot. So too do adventure and spy stories; Ian Fleming’s  James Bond  novels, for example, all stick to a general overcoming-the-monster narrative.

Examples of Plot in Literature

1. Charlotte Brontë,  Jane Eyre

Brontë’s classic novel follows titular character Jane from her dismal childhood to her shockingly eventful adulthood.

• Exposition:  Brontë establishes Jane as a headstrong, resilient orphan who attends a sinister boarding school.
• Rising Action:  Now a young woman, Jane arrives at Thornfield Hall, the grand manor of the coarse Mr. Rochester, to work as a governess. Jane and Rochester develop romantic feelings for one another, and they get engaged.
• Climax:  Jane and Rochester are about to marry when Jane learns that Rochester’s first wife is not dead as previously assumed; she is alive and violently insane. Long ago, Rochester imprisoned her in her third-floor bedroom at Thornfield, where she remains.
• Falling Action:  Jane leaves Thornfield Hall and begins a new life with her cousins. She comes into a great inheritance left to her by her deceased father.
• Denouement:  With Rochester’s voice haunting her, Jane returns to Thornfield Hall and finds the place in ruins after Mrs. Rochester set the house on fire and committed suicide. Mr. Rochester has lost his hand and eyesight. With Mrs. Rochester dead, he proposes to Jane, and she accepts.

2. Virginia Woolf,  Mrs. Dalloway

One of the most famous works by Woolf, the novel spans a single day in the life of high-society woman Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares for a dinner party.  Mrs. Dalloway  is an example of a story that relies primarily on exposition and commentary while having enough plot to keep the story moving forward.

• Exposition:  Clarissa Dalloway and the people in her orbit—including the sensitive poet and WWI veteran Septimus Smith—face a seemingly normal day in June 1923.
• Rising Action:  As Clarissa makes plans for a formal party that evening, her friends go about their respective days. Each character reflects on their life and choices.
• Climax:  Tormented by posttraumatic stress disorder and fearing that his soul is tainted, Septimus commits suicide.
• Falling Action:  At her party, Clarissa learns of Septimus’s suicide and excuses herself to mull over his death. She begins to identify with Septimus’s desire to die and feels content with his decision because she thinks it allowed him to save his soul.
• Denouement:  Clarissa goes back to the party. Her acceptance of Septimus’s death brings her happiness, and it is palpable to the others in attendance.

3. Suzanne Collins,  The Hunger Games

Collins’s novel—and its sequels—has become a new classic in young adult literature. In it, protagonist Katniss Everdeen goes on a hero’s journey as she tries to survive a violent tradition.

• Exposition:  Collins introduces Katniss and life in the post-apocalyptic North American nation of Panem, comprised of 12 (formerly 13) Districts. Preparations are being made for the annual Hunger Games, an event wherein one adolescent boy and one adolescent girl from each District take part in a violent televised battle until only one remains. Every adolescent in Panem is eligible, and the participants (called “tributes”) are randomly chosen through a lottery drawing.
• Rising Action:  During the selection, Katniss’s little sister, Primrose, is chosen as the girl tribute for their District. Katniss volunteers to take Primrose’s place, something that has never happened before, and the organizers allow it. Katniss and Peeta (the boy tribute) leave to train for the Games at the Capitol. The Games begin, with nearly half of the tributes dying at the outset, and Katniss spends her time trying to avoid the violence.
• Climax:  When only a handful of tributes remain, the Games organizers announce a rule change: for the first time, a pair of tributes can jointly win the Games. Working together, Katniss and Peeta are the last two standing. But the rules are changed once more, and the pair is expected to fight to the death.
• Falling Action:  In defiance of the rules, Katniss and Peeta agree to eat fatally poisonous berries instead of killing one another. Stymied, the organizers name them mutual winners.
• Denouement:  Katniss and Peeta return home, where they are celebrated as heroes. However, Katniss wonders if the Capitol will retaliate against her and Peeta, setting up a sequel novel.

4. Colson Whitehead,  The Underground Railroad

This 2016 novel tells an alternate history wherein the metaphorical Underground Railroad is also manifested literally. The story follows two young slaves as they try to escape their plantation.

• Exposition:  Cora is a slave on a Georgia plantation. Her mother, Mabel, escaped some years prior and made Cora an outcast.
• Rising Action:  Cora and a fellow slave, Caesar, escape via the Underground Railroad. They are chased by a slavecatcher named Ridgeway, who successfully catches Cora. A Railroad operator named Royal rescues Cora, taking her to a farm with other freedmen.
• Climax:  Ridgeway reappears, burning the farm down and killing Royal. He takes Cora to an abandoned Railroad station near the farm, where she pushes him down a flight of stairs.
• Falling Action:  Cora runs through the underground tunnels, hoping to put as much distance as possible between her and Ridgeway.
• Denouement:  Cora emerges from the tunnel and comes across a westward-bound wagon. The driver, Ollie, offers her a ride, and she gets on.

Further Resources on Plot

A professor at Carson-Newman University diagrammed Freytag’s Pyramid , explaining each stage in depth.

Well-Storied breaks down the arc of the hero's journey in this article, which is also available as a podcast.

How to Write a Book Now has an in-depth article on Christopher Booker’s basic plot points .

Vulture  compiled a slightly tongue-in-cheek, encyclopedia-style rundown of  every plot ever .

The Write Practice has a “cheat sheet” for writing  plot and story structure .

Related Terms

• Catastrophe
• Cliffhanger
• Didacticism
• Eucatastrophe
• Protagonist

The plot of a story defines the sequence of events that propels the reader from beginning to end. Storytellers have experimented with the plot of a story since the dawn of literature. No matter what genre you write, understanding the possibilities of plot structure, as well as the different types of plot, will help bring your stories to life.

So, what is plot? Is there a difference between plot vs. story? What plot devices can you use to surprise the reader? And how does plot relate to the story itself?

In this article, we go over the elements of plot, different plot structures to use in your work, and the many possibilities of narrative structuring.

But first, what is the plot of a story? Let’s investigate in detail.

Elements of Plot

• Common Plot Structures

What is Plot Without Conflict?

Common plot devices.

• 8 Types of Plot
• Plot-Driven Vs. Character-Driven Stories
• Plot Vs. Story

Plot Definition: What is the Plot of a Story?

The plot of a story is the sequence of events that shape a broader narrative, with every event causing or affecting each other. In other words, story plot is a series of causes-and-effects which shape the story as a whole.

What is plot?: A series of causes-and-effects which shape the story as a whole.

Plot is not merely a story summary: it must include causation. The novelist E. M. Forster sums it up perfectly:

“The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief, is a plot.” —E. M. Forster

In other words, the premise doesn’t become a plot until the words “of grief” adds causality. Without including “of grief” in the sentence, the queen could have died for any number of reasons, like assassination or suicide. Grief not only provides plot structure to the story, it also introduces what the story’s theme might be.

The plot of a story must include the following elements:

• Causation: one event causes another, and that cause-and-effect unleashes a whole chain of plot points which formulate the story.
• Characters: stories are about people, so a plot must introduce the main players of the plot.
• Conflict: a plot must involve people with competing interests or internal conflicts, because without conflict, there is no story or themes.

Combining these elements of plot creates the structure of the story itself. Let’s take a look at those plot structures now, because there are many different ways to organize the story’s events.

Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot. —Leigh Brackett

Some Common Plot Structures

There are many ways to develop the plot of a story, and writers have been experimenting with plot structures for millennia. Consider the following structures as you attempt to write your own stories, as they may help you find a solution to the problems you encounter in your story writing.

Plot Structures: Aristotle’s Story Triangle

The oldest recorded discussion of plot structures comes from Aristotle’s Poetics (circa 335 B.C.). In Poetics , Aristotle represents the plot of a story as a narrative triangle, suggesting that stories provide linear narratives that resolve certain conflicts in three parts: a beginning, middle, and end.

To Aristotle, the beginning should exist independent of any prior events: it should be a self-sustaining unit of the story without prompting the reader to ask “why?” or “how?” The middle should be a logical continuation of the events from the beginning, expanding upon the story’s conflicts and tragedies. Finally, the end should provide a neat resolution, without suggesting further events.

Obviously, many stories complicate this basic plot triangle, and it lacks some of the finer details of plot structure. One way that Aristotle has been developed further is through Freytag’s Pyramid.

Plot Structures: Freytag’s Pyramid

Freytag’s Pyramid builds upon Aristotle’s Poetics by expanding the structural elements of plot. This pyramid consists of five discrete parts:

• Exposition: The beginning of the story, introducing main characters, settings , themes, and the author’s own style .
• Rising Action: This begins after the inciting incident , which is the event that kicks off the story’s main conflict. Rising Action follows the cause-and-effect plot points once the main conflict is established.
• Climax: The moment in which the story’s conflict peaks, and we learn the fate of the main characters.
• Falling Action: The main characters react to and contend with the Climax, processing what it means for their lives and futures.
• Denouement: The end of the story, wrapping up any loose ends that haven’t been wrapped up in the Falling Action. Some Denouements are open ended.

For more on Freytag’s Pyramid, check out our article. https://writers.com/freytags-pyramid

Plot Structures: Nigel Watts’ 8 Point Arc

A further expansion of Freytag’s Pyramid, the 8 Point Arc is Nigel Watts’ contribution to the study of narratology. Watts contends that a story must pass through 8 discrete plot points:

• Stasis: The everyday life of the protagonist , which becomes disrupted by the story’s inciting incident, or “trigger.”
• Trigger: Something beyond the protagonist’s control sets the story’s conflict in motion.
• The quest: Akin to the rising action, the quest is the protagonist’s journey to contend with the story’s conflict.
• Surprise: Unexpected but plausible moments during the quest that complicate the protagonist’s journey. A surprise might be an obstacle, complication, confusion, or internal flaw that the protagonist didn’t predict.
• Critical choice : Eventually, the protagonist must make a complicated, life-altering decision. This decision will reveal the protagonist’s true character, and it will also radically alter the events of the story.
• Climax: The result of the protagonist’s critical choice, the climax determines the consequences of that choice. It is the apex of tension in the story.
• Reversal: This is the protagonist’s reaction to the climax. Reversal should alter the protagonist’s status, whether that status is their place in society, their outlook on life, or their own death.
• Resolution: The return to a new stasis, in which a new life goes forth from the ashes of the story’s conflict and climax.

If the plot of a story passes through each of these moments in order, the author has built a complete narrative.

Watts expands upon this plot structure in his book Write a Novel and Get It Published .

Plot Structures: Save the Cat

The Save the Cat plot structure was developed by screenwriter Blake Snyder. Although it primarily deals with screenplays, it maps out story structure in such a detailed way that its many elements can be incorporated into all types of stories.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, we’ll point you to the great breakdown of Save the Cat, including a worksheet you can use to draft your own story. Find it here, at Reedsy .

Plot Structures: The Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is a plot structure originally crafted by Joseph Campbell. Campbell argued that the plot of a story has three main acts, with each act corresponding to the necessary journey a hero must undergo in order to be the hero.

Those three parts are: Stage 1) The Departure Act (the hero leaves their everyday life); Stage 2) The Initiation Act (the hero undergoes various conflicts in an unknown land); and Stage 3) The Return Act (the hero returns, radically altered, to their original home).

In his screenwriting textbook The Writer’s Journey , Christopher Vogler expands these three stages into a 12 step process. To Vogler, the hero’s journey must pass through these parts:

The Departure Act

• The Ordinary World: We meet our hero in their mundane, everyday reality.
• Call to Adventure: The hero is confronted with a challenge which, if they accept it, forces them to leave their ordinary world.
• Refusing the Call: Recognizing the dangers of adventure, the hero will, if not reject the call, at least demure or hesitate while considering the many probable ways it will go wrong.
• Meeting the Mentor: The hero decides to go on the adventure, but they are much too inexperienced to survive. A mentor accompanies the hero to help them be smart and strong enough for the journey.

The Initiation Act

• Crossing the Threshold: By leaving for their adventure, the hero crosses a liminal threshold. They cannot go back, and if they return home, they won’t return the same.
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The hero enters a strange new world, with unfamiliar rules and dangers. They also encounter allies and enemies that broaden and complicate the story’s conflicts.
• Approach (to the Inmost Cave) : The “inmost cave” is the locus of the journey’s worst dangers—think of the dragon’s lair in Beowulf or the White Witch’s castle in The Chronicles of Narnia . The hero is approaching this cave, though must locate it and build strength.
• Ordeal: This is the hero’s biggest test (thus far). Sometimes the climax (but not always), the ordeal forces the hero to face their biggest fears, and it often occurs when the hero receives unexpected news. This is a low point for the hero.
• Reward: The hero receives whatever reward they gain from their ordeal, whether that reward is a material possession, greater knowledge, someone’s freedom, or the resolution of the hero’s internal conflict.

The Return Act

• The Road Back: The hero ventures back home, though their newfound reward raises additional dangers, many of which stem from the Inmost Cave.
• Resurrection: The main antagonist returns for one final fight against the hero. This is a test of whether the hero has truly learned their lesson and undergone significant character development ; it is also the other climax of the story. The hero comes closest to death here (if they don’t actually die).
• The Return: The elixir is whatever reward the hero accrued, whether that be knowledge or material wealth. Regardless, the hero returns home a changed person, and their return home highlights the many ways in which the hero has changed—both for better and worse.

Plot Structures: Fichtean Curve

The Fichtean Curve was originally crafted for pulp and mystery stories, though it can certainly apply to stories in other genres. Described extensively by John Gardner in The Art of Fiction , the Fichtean Curve argues that a story plot has three parts: a rising action, a climax, and a falling action.

In the Fichtean Curve, the rising action comprises about ⅔ of the entire story. Moreover, the rising action isn’t linear. Rather, a series of escalating and de-escalating conflicts slowly pushes the story towards its climax.

If you’ve ever read one of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, then you’re already familiar with the Fichtean Curve. In Murder on the Orient Express , for example, Hercule Poirot continues to stoke the flames of the story’s many suspects: he uncovers every passenger’s flaws, insecurities, and secrets, each time generating a little more conflict, and each time narrowing down the murderer until the story’s explosive climax.

In a moment, we’ll look at some common plot devices that authors use to keep their stories fresh and engaging. But first, let’s discuss a central element of all plots: conflict. Is it always essential to good storytelling? What is plot without conflict?

First, let’s define conflict. Conflict is not necessarily two characters bickering, although that’s certainly an example. Conflict refers to the opposing forces acting against a character’s goals and interests. Sometimes, that conflict is external: an enemy, bureaucracy, society, etc. Other times, the conflict is internal: traumas, illogical ways of thinking, character flaws, etc.

Typically, conflict is the engine of the story. It’s what incites the inciting incident. It’s what keeps the rising action rising. The climax is the final product of the conflict, and the denouement decides the outcome of that conflict. The plot of a story relies on conflict to keep the pages turning.

So, a word of advice: if you’re developing a story plot, but don’t know where to go, always return to conflict. Each scene should stoke a conflict forward, even if the conflict isn’t readily apparent just yet. Anything that doesn’t explore, expand, or resolve the elements of a story’s conflict is likely wasting the reader’s time.

If you’re developing a story plot, but don’t know where to go, always return to conflict.

Before we move on, it’s worth noting that the centrality of conflict in plot in literature is a very Western notion. Some forms of storytelling don’t rely on conflict. The Eastern story structure Kishōtenketsu, for example, involves characters reacting to random external situations, rather than generating and resolving their own conflicts. A conflict might be featured in this kind of storytelling, but the story engine is the characters themselves, their own complexities and dilemmas, and how they survive in a world they can’t control.

To learn more about conflict in story plot, check out our article:

What is Conflict in a Story? Definition and Examples

The plot of a story is influenced by many factors. While plot structures give the framework for the story itself, the author must employ plot devices to keep the story moving, otherwise the rising action will never become a climax.

These plot devices ensure that your reader will keep reading, and that your story will deepen and complicate the themes it seeks to engage.

Aristotle’s Plot Devices

In Poetics , Aristotle describes three plot devices which are essential to most stories. These are:

1. Anagnorisis (Recognition)

Luke, I am your father! Anagnorisis is the moment in which the protagonist goes from ignorance to knowledge. Often preceding the story’s climax, anagnorisis is the key piece of information that propels the protagonist into resolving the story’s conflict.

2. Pathos (Suffering)

Aristotle defines pathos as “a destructive or painful action.” This can be physical pain, such as death or severe wounds, but it can also be an emotional or existential pain. Regardless, Aristotle contends that all stories confront extreme pain, and that this pain is essential for the propulsion of the plot. (This is different from the rhetorical device “pathos,” in which a rhetorician seeks to appeal to the audience’s emotions.)

3. Peripeteia (Reversal)

A peripeteia is a moment in which bad fortunes change to good, or good fortunes change to bad. In other words, this is a reversal of the situation. Often accompanied by anagnorisis, peripeteia is often the outcome of the story’s climax, since the climax decides whether the protagonist’s story ends in comedy or tragedy.

Plot Devices for Story Structure

The plot of a story will gain structure from the use of these devices.

Backstory refers to important moments that have occurred prior to the main story. They happen before the story’s exposition, and while they sometimes change the direction of the story, they more often provide historical parallels and key bits of characterization. Sometimes, a story will refer to its own backstory via flashback .

Deus Ex Machina

A deus ex machina occurs when the protagonist’s fate is changed due to circumstances outside of their control. The Gods may intervene, the antagonist may suddenly perish, or the story’s conflict resolves itself. Generally, deus ex machina is viewed as a “cop out” that prevents the protagonist from experiencing the full growth necessary to complete their journey. However, this risky device may pay off, especially in works of comedy or absurdism.

In Media Res

From the Latin “in the middle of things,” a story is “in media res” when it starts in the middle. On Page 1, word 1, the story starts somewhere in the middle of the rising action, hooking the reader in despite the lack of context. Eventually, the story will properly introduce the characters and take us to the beginning of the conflict, but “in media res” is one way to generate immediate interest in the story.

Plot Voucher

A plot voucher is something that is given to the protagonist for later use, except the protagonist doesn’t know yet that they will use it. That “something” might be an item, a piece of information, or even a future allegiance with another person. Many times, a plot voucher is bequeathed before the story’s conflict properly takes shape. For example, in the Harry Potter series, the Resurrection Stone is hidden in Harry’s first golden snitch, making the snitch a plot voucher.

Plot Devices for Complicating the Story

What is the plot of a story, if not complicated? These plot devices bring your readers in for a wild ride.

Cliffhanger

A cliffhanger occurs when the story ends before the climax is resolved. Specifically, the story ends mid-climax so that the reader experiences the height of the story’s tension, but doesn’t see the outcome of the climax and the fate of the protagonist or conflict. Cliffhangers will generally occur when the story is part of a series, though it can also have literary merit. In One Thousand and One Nights , Scheherazade ends her stories on cliffhangers so that the king keeps postponing her execution.

A MacGuffin is a plot device in which the protagonist’s main desire lacks intrinsic value. In other words, the protagonist desires the MacGuffin, which causes the story’s conflict, but the MacGuffin itself is actually valueless. Many times, the protagonist doesn’t even obtain the MacGuffin, because they have learned what lessons they were supposed to learn from the chase. An example is the falcon statuette in The Maltese Falcon . This statuette is never obtained, but it drives the novel’s many murders and double crossings.

Red Herring

A red herring is a distraction device in which the author misleads the reader (or other characters) with seemingly-relevant details. (The MacGuffin is a form of red herring.) Red herrings are primarily found in mystery and suspense stories, as they string the reader down different possibilities while distracting from the truth. Although this plot device can complicate the story and even build symbolism , it can also fracture the reader’s trust in the author, so writers should use it sparingly and wisely. (This is slightly different from the logical fallacy “red herring,” in which irrelevant information is used to distract the reader from a faulty argument.)

For more plot devices and storytelling techniques, take a look at our article The Art of Storytelling.

https://writers.com/the-art-of-storytelling

8 Types of Plot in Literature

Certain types of plot recur throughout literature, especially in genre fiction. These stories build upon the previously mentioned plot devices, and they have their own tropes and archetypes which the author must fill to tell a complete story.

Some, but not all, of the following plots were originally defined by Christopher Booker in his work The Seven Basic Plots . (We’ve omitted some of the plots he mentions if they are rarely seen in contemporary literature.)

The plot of a story might take the following shapes:

1. Plot of a Story: Quest

Often resembling the Hero’s Journey, a quest is a story in which the protagonist sets out from their homeland in search of something. They might be searching for treasure, for love, for the truth, for a new home, or for the solution to a problem. Often accompanied by other allies, and often embarking on this journey with hesitation, the protagonist comes back from their quest stronger, smarter, and irreversibly changed—if they make it back alive.

Examples of the quest include: The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , and The Harry Potter Series .

2. Plot of a Story: Tragedy

A tragedy is a story of a well-meaning protagonist who, due to their flaws or shortcomings, fails to resolve the story’s conflict. (The hero’s tragic flaw is known as hamartia .) Tragedies often highlight the terrible circumstances that the protagonist finds themselves in, or the impossible moral quandaries that they must resolve (but don’t). Readers come to love the tragic hero both despite and because of their flaws, and their inability to resolve the conflict often comes as a great moral or personal loss, even resulting in the protagonist’s death.

Examples of the tragedy include: Romeo & Juliet by Shakespeare, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.

3. Plot of a Story: Rags to Riches

A rags to riches story involves a protagonist who goes from dire poverty to excessive wealth. In addition to navigating issues of class and identity, these stories often showcase the protagonist’s inner world as they adjust to drastically new life circumstances. The plot of a rags to riches story will follow the protagonist’s relationship to wealth, and the things that protagonist chases precisely because of that wealth.

Examples of the rags to riches include: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas, and Q & A by Vikas Swarup.

4. Plot of a Story: Story Within a Story

The story within a story, also known as an embedded narrative, one of the less-structured types of plot. Essentially, the author embeds a second story, complete with its own narrative and conflict, to bolster the progression of the main story. Embedded narratives often reflect the themes of the main narratives, but they can also complicate and challenge those themes, providing additional layers of meaning to the story. This is not to be confused with parallel plot, because the story within a story is an invention solely for the sake of advancing the main narrative, whereas a parallel plot has multiple, equally important narratives.

Examples of the story within a story include: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Hamlet by Shakespeare, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld, and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

5. Plot of a Story: Parallel Plot

A parallel plot is a story in which two or more concurrent plots are told side-by-side. Each plot influences the course of the other plot, even if those stories happen on opposite ends of the world. Every narrative that occurs in a parallel plot is equally vital to the story as a whole.

Examples of parallel plot include: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks, The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, and In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez.

6. Plot of a Story: Rebellion Against “The One”

A story of rebellion follows a hero who actively resists the oppressive force of an omnipotent antagonist. Despite working tirelessly to defeat that antagonist, the protagonist is ill-equipped to do so as a singular and powerless entity. So, the story often ends with the protagonist submitting to the antagonist, or else perishing altogether.

Examples of rebellion against “The One” include: 1984 by George Orwell, The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

7. Plot of a Story: Anticlimax

The anticlimax is a story that details the falling action after a climax has already occurred . In other words, the anticlimax does not have a climax itself: the climax is merely provided as backstory, and the novel is dedicated to the events of the story’s denouement. This not to be confused with the plot device anticlimax, which describes a story’s resolution that is actually incredibly simple.

Examples of the anticlimax include: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Encircling by Carl Frode Tiller, and Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood.

8. Plot of a Story: Voyage and Return

Stories of voyage and return involve protagonists who journey into strange worlds. Often, a story of “Quest” is also a story of voyage and return, but not always. For the protagonist to return home from their voyage, they must achieve some sort of daring act that resolves the story’s conflict, such as finding treasure or vanquishing an antagonist. Both the voyage and the return teaches the protagonist life lessons and pushes them to make difficult decisions.

Examples of voyage and return include: The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Candide by Voltaire, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

Plot-Driven vs. Character-Driven Stories

A common distinction between different types of fiction is whether the story is “plot driven” or “character driven.” This refers to whether the plot of a story defines the characters, or whether the characters define the plot of a story.

Specifically, this distinction is made to differentiate literary fiction vs. genre fiction . Generally, a piece of literary fiction will have the characters in control of the plot, as the story’s plot points are built entirely off of the decisions that those characters make and the influences of those characters’ personalities.

Genre fiction, by contract, tends to have predefined plot structures and archetypes, and the characters must fit into those structures in order to tell a complete story.

While this general distinction helps organize the qualities of fiction, don’t treat them as absolutes. Literary fiction borrows plot devices from genre fiction all the time, and there are many examples of genre fiction that are character driven. Your story should build a working relationship between the characters and the plot, as both are essential elements of the storyteller’s toolkit.

Your story should build a working relationship between the characters and the plot, as both are essential elements of the storyteller’s toolkit.

Plot vs. Story

Finally, what is the difference between plot vs. story? The two terms are often used interchangeably, and indeed, something that affects the plot will usually affect the story. But, the two do not share the same precise definitions.

Plot definition: The story’s series of events. Think of plot as the story’s skeleton: it defines the What, When, and Where of the story, which allows for everything else (like characters and themes) to develop. What happens (and what is the cause-and-effect), when does it happen, and where is it happening?

Story definition: The entirety of the work, including its conflicts, themes, and messages. In addition to plot, the story answers questions of Who, Why , and How . Who is involved (and who are they psychologically), why does this conflict happen, and how do the characters resolve the conflict?

To learn more about writing a cogent story from a compelling plot, read our article on the topic.

https://writers.com/stories-vs-situations-how-to-know-your-story-will-work-in-any-genre

Plot vs. Story Venn Diagram

The differences between plot vs. story are summarized in the following Venn Diagram.

Explore the Plot of a Story at Writers.com

There are two types of storytellers: plotters and pantsers. A pantser “writes by the seat of their pants,” making snap decisions about the story’s events on the spot. Plotters map out everything in advance, setting up the plot of a story before setting down the first word.

Whether you’re a plotter, a pantser, or anything in between, the courses at Writers.com can help! Plot your novel or simply write it in any of our upcoming writing classes .

Sean Glatch

Excellent summary of a very overwhelming and confusing subject!

Thank you for the excellent help on plot. Although I’ve written for many years, I learned some good stuff which I will use! Happy Holidays, Dave Beaty

[…] What is the Plot of a Story? […]

I am so delighted to see that my late husband, Nigel Watts PhD’s work is still in the world and being referenced 22 years after his death. Some of his novels are still available on Amazon, including the republished Twenty Twenty, published in 1995, predicting a global pandemic and warnings of climate catastrophe. But ‘Writing a Novel and Getting it Published’ is the longest in print book of his work. I’m so proud and pleased that he continues to help writers. Writing was his passion, vocation and career.

This is really helpful. Thanks, Sean!

This was really well done! Thank you. Cor

Thanks for shedding more light on the plot.

[…] Glatch, S. (2021). What is the Plot of a Story? Plot Structures, Devices, & More. [online] Writers.com. Available at: https://writers.com/what-is-the-plot-of-a-story . […]

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Literary Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis Essay Writing

Last updated on: May 21, 2023

Literary Analysis Essay - Ultimate Guide By Professionals

By: Cordon J.

Reviewed By: Rylee W.

Published on: Dec 3, 2019

A literary analysis essay specifically examines and evaluates a piece of literature or a literary work. It also understands and explains the links between the small parts to their whole information.

It is important for students to understand the meaning and the true essence of literature to write a literary essay.

One of the most difficult assignments for students is writing a literary analysis essay. It can be hard to come up with an original idea or find enough material to write about. You might think you need years of experience in order to create a good paper, but that's not true.

This blog post will show you how easy it can be when you follow the steps given here.Writing such an essay involves the breakdown of a book into small parts and understanding each part separately. It seems easy, right?

Trust us, it is not as hard as good book reports but it may also not be extremely easy. You will have to take into account different approaches and explain them in relation with the chosen literary work.

It is a common high school and college assignment and you can learn everything in this blog.

Continue reading for some useful tips with an example to write a literary analysis essay that will be on point. You can also explore our detailed article on writing an analytical essay .

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What is a Literary Analysis Essay?

A literary analysis essay is an important kind of essay that focuses on the detailed analysis of the work of literature.

The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to explain why the author has used a specific theme for his work. Or examine the characters, themes, literary devices , figurative language, and settings in the story.

This type of essay encourages students to think about how the book or the short story has been written. And why the author has created this work.

The method used in the literary analysis essay differs from other types of essays. It primarily focuses on the type of work and literature that is being analyzed.

Mostly, you will be going to break down the work into various parts. In order to develop a better understanding of the idea being discussed, each part will be discussed separately.

The essay should explain the choices of the author and point of view along with your answers and personal analysis.

How To Write A Literary Analysis Essay

So how to start a literary analysis essay? The answer to this question is quite simple.

The following sections are required to write an effective literary analysis essay. By following the guidelines given in the following sections, you will be able to craft a winning literary analysis essay.

Introduction

The aim of the introduction is to establish a context for readers. You have to give a brief on the background of the selected topic.

It should contain the name of the author of the literary work along with its title. The introduction should be effective enough to grab the reader’s attention.

In the body section, you have to retell the story that the writer has narrated. It is a good idea to create a summary as it is one of the important tips of literary analysis.

Other than that, you are required to develop ideas and disclose the observed information related to the issue. The ideal length of the body section is around 1000 words.

To write the body section, your observation should be based on evidence and your own style of writing.

It would be great if the body of your essay is divided into three paragraphs. Make a strong argument with facts related to the thesis statement in all of the paragraphs in the body section.

Start writing each paragraph with a topic sentence and use transition words when moving to the next paragraph.

Summarize the important points of your literary analysis essay in this section. It is important to compose a short and strong conclusion to help you make a final impression of your essay.

Pay attention that this section does not contain any new information. It should provide a sense of completion by restating the main idea with a short description of your arguments. End the conclusion with your supporting details.

You have to explain why the book is important. Also, elaborate on the means that the authors used to convey her/his opinion regarding the issue.

For further understanding, here is a downloadable literary analysis essay outline. This outline will help you structure and format your essay properly and earn an A easily.

DOWNLOADABLE LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY OUTLINE (PDF)

Types of Literary Analysis Essay

• Close reading - This method involves attentive reading and detailed analysis. No need for a lot of knowledge and inspiration to write an essay that shows your creative skills.
• Theoretical - In this type, you will rely on theories related to the selected topic.
• Historical - This type of essay concerns the discipline of history. Sometimes historical analysis is required to explain events in detail.
• Applied - This type involves analysis of a specific issue from a practical perspective.
• Comparative - This type of writing is based on when two or more alternatives are compared

Examples of Literary Analysis Essay

Examples are great to understand any concept, especially if it is related to writing. Below are some great literary analysis essay examples that showcase how this type of essay is written.

A ROSE FOR EMILY LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

THE GREAT GATSBY LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

If you do not have experience in writing essays, this will be a very chaotic process for you. In that case, it is very important for you to conduct good research on the topic before writing.

There are two important points that you should keep in mind when writing a literary analysis essay.

First, remember that it is very important to select a topic in which you are interested. Choose something that really inspires you. This will help you to catch the attention of a reader.

The selected topic should reflect the main idea of writing. In addition to that, it should also express your point of view as well.

Another important thing is to draft a good outline for your literary analysis essay. It will help you to define a central point and division of this into parts for further discussion.

Literary Analysis Essay Topics

Literary analysis essays are mostly based on artistic works like books, movies, paintings, and other forms of art. However, generally, students choose novels and books to write their literary essays.

Some cool, fresh, and good topics and ideas are listed below:

• Role of the Three Witches in flaming Macbeth’s ambition.
• Analyze the themes of the Play Antigone,
• Discuss Ajax as a tragic hero.
• The Judgement of Paris: Analyze the Reasons and their Consequences.
• Oedipus Rex: A Doomed Son or a Conqueror?
• Describe the Oedipus complex and Electra complex in relation to their respective myths.
• Betrayal is a common theme of Shakespearean tragedies. Discuss
• Identify and analyze the traits of history in T.S Eliot’s ‘Gerontion’.
• Analyze the theme of identity crisis in The Great Gatsby.
• Analyze the writing style of Emily Dickinson.

If you are still in doubt then there is nothing bad in getting professional writers’ help.

We at 5StarEssays.com can help you get a custom paper as per your specified requirements with our do essay for me service.

Our essay writers will help you write outstanding literary essays or any other type of essay. Such as compare and contrast essays, descriptive essays, rhetorical essays. We cover all of these.

So don’t waste your time browsing the internet and place your order now to get your well-written custom paper.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a literary analysis essay include.

A good literary analysis essay must include a proper and in-depth explanation of your ideas. They must be backed with examples and evidence from the text. Textual evidence includes summaries, paraphrased text, original work details, and direct quotes.

What are the 4 components of literary analysis?

Here are the 4 essential parts of a literary analysis essay;

No literary work is explained properly without discussing and explaining these 4 things.

How do you start a literary analysis essay?

Start your literary analysis essay with the name of the work and the title. Hook your readers by introducing the main ideas that you will discuss in your essay and engage them from the start.

How do you do a literary analysis?

In a literary analysis essay, you study the text closely, understand and interpret its meanings. And try to find out the reasons behind why the author has used certain symbols, themes, and objects in the work.

Why is literary analysis important?

It encourages the students to think beyond their existing knowledge, experiences, and belief and build empathy. This helps in improving the writing skills also.

What is the fundamental characteristic of a literary analysis essay?

Interpretation is the fundamental and important feature of a literary analysis essay. The essay is based on how well the writer explains and interprets the work.

Law, Finance Essay

Cordon. is a published author and writing specialist. He has worked in the publishing industry for many years, providing writing services and digital content. His own writing career began with a focus on literature and linguistics, which he continues to pursue. Cordon is an engaging and professional individual, always looking to help others achieve their goals.

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English Studies

This website is dedicated to English Literature, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, English Language and its teaching and learning.

Plot: Creating and Critiquing It

The literary device known as plot represents the masterful arrangement of events within a narrative. It acts as the narrative’s structural backbone.

Introduction to Plot

Table of Contents

The literary device known as “plot” represents the masterful arrangement of events within a narrative. It acts as the narrative’s structural backbone. It shows the author’s expertise in weaving characters’ interactions, conflicts, and resolutions to present themes and convey messages.

On the other hand, this narrative framework guides readers on a purposeful journey through the narrative terrain, invoking emotional engagement and inspiring the exploration of the text.

How to Create Plot in a Fictional Work

Creating a plot for a fictional work can be a challenging but rewarding process. Here are some steps to consider when creating a plot:

Benefits of Plot

The benefits of a well-crafted plot in a work of fiction are numerous. Here are some of the key benefits of having a strong plot:

1. Keeps the Reader Engaged:

• A good plot keeps the reader engaged by creating tension and conflict that makes them want to keep reading to find out what happens next.

2. Provides a Sense of Structure:

• A plot provides a sense of structure to a story, helping the reader to understand the purpose and direction of the narrative.

3. Creates Emotional Impact:

• A well-executed plot can create emotional impact by eliciting strong emotions in the reader, such as fear, sadness, or joy.

4. Supports Character Development:

• A plot can support character development by creating situations that force characters to confront their fears, overcome obstacles, and grow as individuals.

5. Conveys Themes and Messages:

• A plot can be used to convey themes and messages to the reader, such as the importance of family, the dangers of greed, or the power of love.

6. Increases the Likelihood of Publication:

• A strong plot can increase the likelihood of publication, as publishers and agents are more likely to be interested in a manuscript with a well-crafted plot.

Plot and Literary Theory

Here are a few examples of how different literary theories might approach the concept of plot:

Suggested Readings

• Booker, Christopher. The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. Continuum, 2005.
• Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines. Harper Perennial, 2014.
• Freytag, Gustav. Technique of the Drama: An Exposition of Dramatic Composition and Art. Dover Publications, 2004.
• Kernan, Alvin B. The Plot of The Tempest. University of Chicago Press, 1986.
• Sternberg, Meir. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading. Indiana University Press, 1987.
• Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Michael Wiese Productions, 2007.

Related posts:

• Onomatopoeia: A Literary Device

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What this handout is about

This handout describes some steps for planning and writing papers about literary texts. For additional information on writing about drama and poetry specifically, please see the Writing Center’s handouts on writing about drama and on writing poetry explications .

Demystifying the process

Writing an analysis of a piece of literature can be a mystifying process. First, literary analyses (or papers that offer an interpretation of literary texts) rely on the assumption that stories, poems, and plays must mean something. How do such texts mean something? If an author wanted to convey a meaning, wouldn’t they be much better off writing an essay just telling us what she meant?

It’s pretty easy to see how at least some stories, for example, convey clear meanings or morals. Just think about a parable like the prodigal son or a nursery tale about “crying wolf.” Stories like these are reduced down to the bare elements, giving us just enough detail to lead us to their main points, and because they are relatively easy to understand and tend to stick in our memories, they’re often used in some kinds of education.

But if the meanings were always as clear as they are in parables, who would really need to write a paper analyzing them? Interpretations of literature would not be interesting if the meanings of these texts were clear to everyone who reads them. Thankfully (or perhaps regrettably, depending on your perspective) the texts we’re asked to interpret in our classes are a good bit more complicated than most parables. They frequently use characters, settings, syntax, formal elements, and actions to illustrate issues that have no easy resolution. They show different sides of a problem, and they can raise new questions. In short, the literary texts we read in class have meanings that are arguable and complicated, and it’s our job to sort them out.

It might seem that these texts do have specific meanings, and the instructor has already decided what those meanings are. But even the most well-informed professor rarely arrives at conclusions that someone else wouldn’t disagree with. In fact, most professors are aware that their interpretations are debatable and actually love a good argument. But let’s not go to the other extreme. To say that there is no one answer is not to say that anything we decide to say about a literary text is valid, interesting, or valuable. Interpretations of literature are often opinions, but not all opinions are equal.

So what makes a valid and interesting opinion? A good interpretation of fiction will:

• avoid the obvious (in other words, it won’t argue a conclusion that most readers could reach on their own from a general knowledge of the story)
• support its main points with strong evidence from the story
• use careful reasoning to explain how that evidence relates to the main points of the interpretation.

The following steps are intended as a guide through the difficult process of writing an interpretive paper that meets these criteria. Writing tends to be a highly individual task, so adapt these suggestions to fit your own habits and inclinations.

Writing a paper on fiction in 9 steps

1. become familiar with the text.

There’s no substitute for a good general knowledge of your text. A good paper inevitably begins with the writer having a solid understanding of the work that they interpret. Being able to have the whole book, short story, poem, or play in your head—at least in a general way—when you begin thinking through ideas will be a great help and will actually allow you to write the paper more quickly in the long run. It’s even a good idea to spend some time just thinking about the text. Flip back through the book and consider what interests you about this piece of writing—what seemed strange, new, or important?

2. Explore potential topics

Perhaps your instructor has given you a list of topics to choose, or perhaps you have been asked to create your own. Either way, you’ll need to generate ideas to use in the paper—even with an assigned topic, you’ll have to develop your own interpretation. Let’s assume for now that you are choosing your own topic.

After reading your text, a topic may just jump out at you, or you may have recognized a pattern or identified a problem that you’d like to think about in more detail. What is a pattern or a problem?

A pattern can be the recurrence of certain kinds of imagery, vocabulary, formal elements (like rhyme and meter), or events. Usually, repetition of particular aspects tends to render those elements more conspicuous. Let’s say I’m writing a paper on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein . In the course of reading that book, I keep noticing the author’s use of biblical imagery: Victor Frankenstein anticipates that “a new species would bless me as its creator and source” (52) while the monster is not sure whether to consider himself as an Adam or a Satan. These details might help me interpret the way characters think about themselves and about each other, as well as allow me to infer what the author might have wanted her reader to think by using the Bible as a frame of reference. On another subject, I also notice that the book repeatedly refers to types of education. The story mentions books that its characters read and the different contexts in which learning takes place.

A problem, on the other hand, is something that bugs you or that doesn’t seem to add up. For example, a character might act in some way that’s unaccountable, a narrator may leave out what we think is important information (or may focus on something that seems trivial), or a narrator or character may offer an explanation that doesn’t seem to make sense to us. Not all problems lead in interesting directions, but some definitely do and even seem to be important parts of the text. In the novel Frankenstein , Victor works day and night to achieve his goal of bringing life to the dead, but once he realizes his goal, he is immediately repulsed by his creation and runs away. Why? Is there something wrong with his creation, something wrong with his goal in the first place, or something wrong with Victor himself? The book doesn’t give us a clear answer but seems to invite us to interpret this problem.

If nothing immediately strikes you as interesting or no patterns or problems jump out at you, don’t worry. Just start making a list of whatever you remember from your reading, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you now. Consider an image that stuck with you, a character’s peculiar behavior or comments, a word choice that you found interesting, the unusual way the narrator describes an event, or the author’s placement of an action in an odd context.

There’s a good chance that some of these intriguing moments and oddities will relate to other points in the text, eventually revealing some kind of pattern and giving you potential topics for your paper. Also keep in mind that if you found something peculiar in the text you’re writing about, chances are good that other people will have been perplexed by these moments as well and will be interested to see how you make sense of it all. It’s even a good idea to test your ideas out on a friend, a classmate, or an instructor since talking about your ideas will help you develop them and push them beyond obvious interpretations of the text. And it’s only by pushing those ideas that you can write a paper that raises interesting issues or problems and that offers creative interpretations related to those issues.

3. Select a topic with a lot of evidence

If you’re selecting from a number of possible topics, narrow down your list by identifying how much evidence or how many specific details you could use to investigate each potential issue. Do this step just off the top of your head. Keep in mind that persuasive papers rely on ample evidence and that having a lot of details to choose from can also make your paper easier to write.

It might be helpful at this point to jot down all the elements of the text that have some bearing on the two or three topics that seem most promising. This can give you a more visual sense of how much evidence you will have to work with on each potential topic. It’s during this activity that having a good knowledge of your text will come in handy and save you a lot of time. Don’t launch into a topic without considering all the options first because you may end up with a topic that seemed promising initially but that only leads to a dead end.

4. Write out a working thesis

Based on the evidence that relates to your topic—and what you anticipate you might say about those pieces of evidence—come up with a working thesis. Don’t spend a lot of time composing this statement at this stage since it will probably change. A changing thesis statement is a good sign that you’re starting to say more interesting and complex things on your subject. (Our Thesis Statements handout provides an example of a developing thesis statement for a literary analysis assignment.) At this point in my Frankenstein project, I’ve become interested in ideas on education that seem to appear pretty regularly, and I have a general sense that aspects of Victor’s education lead to tragedy. Without considering things too deeply, I’ll just write something like “Victor Frankenstein’s tragic ambition was fueled by a faulty education.”

5. Make an extended list of evidence

Once you have a working topic in mind, skim back over the text and make a more comprehensive list of the details that relate to your point. For my paper about education in Frankenstein , I’ll want to take notes on what Victor Frankenstein reads at home, where he goes to school and why, what he studies at school, what others think about those studies, etc. And even though I’m primarily interested in Victor’s education, at this stage in the writing, I’m also interested in moments of education in the novel that don’t directly involve this character. These other examples might provide a context or some useful contrasts that could illuminate my evidence relating to Victor. With this goal in mind, I’ll also take notes on how the monster educates himself, what he reads, and what he learns from those he watches. As you make your notes keep track of page numbers so you can quickly find the passages in your book again and so you can easily document quoted passages when you write without having to fish back through the book.

At this point, you want to include anything, anything, that might be useful, and you also want to avoid the temptation to arrive at definite conclusions about your topic. Remember that one of the qualities that makes for a good interpretation is that it avoids the obvious. You want to develop complex ideas, and the best way to do that is to keep your ideas flexible until you’ve considered the evidence carefully. A good gauge of complexity is whether you feel you understand more about your topic than you did when you began (and even just reaching a higher state of confusion is a good indicator that you’re treating your topic in a complex way).

If, for example, you are jotting down your ideas about Frankenstein , you can focus on the observations from the narrator or things that certain characters say or do. These elements are certainly important. It might help you come up with more evidence if you also take into account some of the broader components that go into making fiction, things like plot, point of view, character, setting, and symbols.

Plot is the string of events that go into the narrative. Think of this as the “who did what to whom” part of the story. Plots can be significant in themselves since chances are pretty good that some action in the story will relate to your main idea. For my paper on education in Frankenstein , I’m interested in Victor’s going to the University of Ingolstadt to realize his father’s wish that Victor attend school where he could learn about another culture. Plots can also allow you to make connections between the story you’re interpreting and some other stories, and those connections might be useful in your interpretation. For example, the plot of Frankenstein , which involves a man who desires to bring life to the dead and creates a monster in the process, bears some similarity to the ancient Greek story of Icarus who flew too close to the sun on his wax wings. Both tell the story of a character who reaches too ambitiously after knowledge and suffers dire consequences.

Your plot could also have similarities to whole groups of other stories, all having conventional or easily recognizable plots. These types of stories are often called genres. Some popular genres within fiction include the gothic, the romance, the detective story, the bildungsroman (this is just a German term for a novel that is centered around the development of its main characters), and the novel of manners (a novel that focuses on the behavior and foibles of a particular class or social group). These categories are often helpful in characterizing a piece of writing, but this approach has its limitations. Many novels don’t fit nicely into one genre, and others seem to borrow a bit from a variety of different categories; the same can be said for other forms of literature, like poetry and drama. For example, given my working thesis on education, I am more interested in Victor’s development than in relating Frankenstein to the gothic genre, so I might decide to treat the novel as a bildungsroman.

And just to complicate matters that much more, it’s important to take into account not only the larger genre(s) a literary piece fits within (like the bildungsroman and the gothic) but also the form(s) utilized in that piece. For example, a story might be told in a series of letters (this is called an epistolary form), in a sequence of journal entries, or in a combination of forms ( Frankenstein is actually told as a journal included within a letter).

These matters of form can also introduce questions of point of view, that is, who is telling the story and what do they or don’t they know. Is the tale told by an omniscient or all-knowing narrator who doesn’t interact in the events, or is it presented by one of the characters within the story? Can the reader trust that person to give an objective account, or does that narrator color the story with her own biases and interests?

Character refers to the qualities assigned to the individual figures in the plot. Consider why the author assigns certain qualities to a character or characters and how any such qualities might relate to your topic. For example, a discussion of Victor Frankenstein’s education might take into account aspects of his character that appear to be developed (or underdeveloped) by the particular kind of education he undertakes. Victor tends to be ambitious, even compulsive about his studies, and I might be able to argue that his tendency to be extravagant leads him to devote his own education to writers who asserted grand, if questionable, conclusions.

Setting is the environment in which all of the actions take place. What is the time period, the location, the time of day, the season, the weather, the type of room or building? What is the general mood, and who is present? All of these elements can reflect on the story’s events, and though the setting of a story tends to be less conspicuous than plot and character, setting still colors everything that’s said and done within its context. If Victor Frankenstein does all of his experiments in “a solitary chamber, or rather a cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a staircase” (53), we might conclude that there is something anti-social, isolated, and stale, maybe even unnatural, about his project and his way of learning.

Obviously, if you consider all of these elements, you’ll probably have too much evidence to fit effectively into one paper. In this example using the novel Frankenstein , your goal is merely to consider each of these aspects of fiction and include only those that are most relevant to your topic and most interesting to your reader. A good interpretive paper does not need to cover all elements of the story—plot, genre, narrative form, character, and setting. In fact, a paper that did try to say something about all of these elements would be unfocused. You might find that most of your topic could be supported, for instance, by a consideration of character alone. That’s fine. For my Frankenstein paper, I’m finding that my evidence largely has to do with the setting, evidence that could lead to some interesting conclusions that my reader probably hasn’t recognized on their own.

6. Select your evidence

Once you’ve made your expanded list of evidence, decide which supporting details are the strongest. First, select the facts which bear the closest relation to your thesis statement. Second, choose the pieces of evidence you’ll be able to say the most about. Readers tend to be more dazzled with your interpretations of evidence than with a lot of quotes from the book. It would be useful to refer to Victor Frankenstein’s youthful reading in alchemy, but my reader will be more impressed by some analysis of how the writings of the alchemists—who pursued magical principles of chemistry and physics—reflect the ambition of his own goals. Select the details that will allow you to show off your own reasoning skills and allow you to help the reader see the story in a way they may not have seen it before.

7. Refine your thesis

Now it’s time to go back to your working thesis and refine it so that it reflects your new understanding of your topic. This step and the previous step (selecting evidence) are actually best done at the same time, since selecting your evidence and defining the focus of your paper depend upon each other. Don’t forget to consider the scope of your project: how long is the paper supposed to be, and what can you reasonably cover in a paper of that length? In rethinking the issue of education in Frankenstein , I realize that I can narrow my topic in a number of ways: I could focus on education and culture (Victor’s education abroad), education in the sciences as opposed to the humanities (the monster reads Milton, Goethe, and Plutarch), or differences in learning environments (e.g. independent study, university study, family reading). Since I think I found some interesting evidence in the settings that I can interpret in a way that will get my reader’s attention, I’ll take this last option and refine my working thesis about Victor’s faulty education to something like this:

“Victor Frankenstein’s education in unnaturally isolated environments fosters his tragic ambition.”

8. Organize your evidence

Once you have a clear thesis you can go back to your list of selected evidence and group all the similar details together. The ideas that tie these clusters of evidence together can then become the claims that you’ll make in your paper. As you begin thinking about what claims you can make (i.e. what kinds of conclusions you can reach) keep in mind that they should not only relate to all the evidence but also clearly support your thesis. Once you’re satisfied with the way you’ve grouped your evidence and with the way that your claims relate to your thesis, you can begin to consider the most logical way to organize each of those claims. To support my thesis about Frankenstein , I’ve decided to group my evidence chronologically. I’ll start with Victor’s education at home, then discuss his learning at the University, and finally address his own experiments. This arrangement will let me show that Victor was always prone to isolation in his education and that this tendency gets stronger as he becomes more ambitious.

There are certainly other organizational options that might work better depending on the type of points I want to stress. I could organize a discussion of education by the various forms of education found in the novel (for example, education through reading, through classrooms, and through observation), by specific characters (education for Victor, the monster, and Victor’s bride, Elizabeth), or by the effects of various types of education (those with harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects).

9. Interpret your evidence

Avoid the temptation to load your paper with evidence from your text. To get your readers’ interest, you need to draw their attention to elements of the story that they wouldn’t necessarily notice or understand on their own. Each time you use a specific reference to your story, be sure to explain the significance of that evidence in your own words. If you’re quoting passages without interpreting them, you’re not demonstrating your reasoning skills or helping the reader. Our handout on Paragraph Development can offer some guidance in this process; it provides a “5 Step Process to Paragraph Development” that prompts writers to explain, or interpret, each piece of evidence they include in a paragraph. In most cases, interpreting your evidence merely involves putting into your paper what is already in your head. Remember that we, as readers, are lazy—all of us. We don’t want to have to figure out a writer’s reasoning for ourselves; we want all the thinking to be done for us in the paper.

General hints

The previous nine steps are intended to give you a sense of the tasks usually involved in writing a good interpretive paper. What follows are just some additional hints that might help you find an interesting topic and maybe even make the process a little more enjoyable.

Make your thesis relevant to your readers

You’ll be able to keep your readers’ attention more easily if you show how your argument relates to something that concerns or interests them. Can you tell your reader something relevant about the context of the text you’re interpreting, about the human condition, or about broader questions? Avoid writing a paper that identifies a pattern in a story but doesn’t quite explain why that pattern leads to an interesting interpretation. Identifying the biblical references in Frankenstein might provide a good start to a paper—Mary Shelley does use a lot of biblical allusions—but a good paper must also tell the reader how those references are meaningful. Your thesis should be able to answer the brutal question “so what?”

For example, you can ask yourself how the topic you’ve selected connects to a larger category of concern. Think broadly. Literature scholars have identified connections between literature and the following: economics, family dynamics, education, religion, mortality, law, politics, sexuality, history, psychology, the environment, technology, animality, citizenship, and migration, among others. For readers, these concerns are also crosscut race, class and gender, which makes these intersecting categories dependable sources of interest. For example, if you’ve traced instances of water imagery in a novel, a next step may be to look at how that imagery is used in the text to imply something about, for instance, femininity and/or race.

Don’t assume that as long as you address one of these issues, your paper will be interesting. As mentioned in step 2, you need to address these big topics in a complex way. Avoid going into a topic with a preconceived notion of what you’ll find. Be prepared to challenge your own ideas about what gender, race, or class mean in a particular text.

Select a topic of interest to you

Though you may feel like you have to select a topic that sounds like something your instructor would be interested in, don’t overlook the fact that you’ll be more invested in your paper and probably get more out of it if you make the topic something pertinent to yourself. Pick a topic that might allow you to learn about yourself and what you find important. At the same time, your argument will be most persuasive if it’s built on the evidence you find in the text (as mentioned in step 5).

Make your thesis specific

The effort to be more specific almost always leads to a thesis that will get your reader’s attention, and it also separates you from the crowd as someone who challenges ideas and looks into topics more deeply. A paper about education in general in Frankenstein will probably not get my reader’s attention as much as a more specific topic about the impact of the learning environment on the main character. My readers may have already thought to some extent about ideas of education in the novel, if they have read it, but the chance that they have thought through something more specific like the educational environment is slimmer.

A note about genre and form

While this handout has used the example of a novel, Frankenstein , to help illustrate how to develop an argument about a literary text, the steps discussed above can apply to other forms of literature, too. But just as, however, fiction has certain features that guide your analysis (like plot and point of view), other literary forms can have their own unique formal elements that must be considered and can also fit within certain larger genres or literary traditions. For example, John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a long poem in the epic tradition that utilizes a specific meter (unrhymed iambic pentameter); these particularities of genre and form would likely shape your analysis of that text. For more information about how to analyze poetry, see our Poetry Explications handout ; for more information about how to analyze drama, see our Drama handout .

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Barnet, Sylvan, and William E. Cain. 2011. A Short Guide to Writing About Literature , 12th ed. New York: Pearson.

Shelley, Mary. 2011. Frankenstein: Norton Critical Edition , edited by J. Paul Hunter, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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What Is the Plot of a Story? The 5 Parts of the Narrative

General Education

When we talk about stories, we tend to use the word "plot." But what is plot exactly? How does it differ from a story, and what are the primary features that make up a well-written plot? We answer these questions here and show you real plot examples from literature . But first, let’s take a look at the basic plot definition.

What Is Plot? Definition and Overview

What is the plot of a story? The answer is pretty simple, actually.

Plot is the way an author creates and organizes a chain of events in a narrative. In short, plot is the foundation of a story. Some describe it as the "what" of a text (whereas the characters are the "who" and the theme is the "why").

This is the basic plot definition. But what does plot do ?

The plot must follow a logical, enticing format that draws the reader in. Plot differs from "story" in that it highlights a specific and purposeful cause-and-effect relationship between a sequence of major events in the narrative.

In Aspects of the Novel , famed British novelist E. M. Forster argues that instead of merely revealing random events that occur within a text (as "story" does), plot emphasizes causality between these events:

"We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. 'The king died and then the queen died,' is a story. 'The king died, and then the queen died of grief' is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it."

Authors typically develop their plots in ways that are most likely to pique the reader’s interest and keep them invested in the story. This is why many plots follow the same basic structure. So what is this structure exactly?

What Is Plot Structure?

All plots follow a logical organization with a beginning, middle, and end—but there’s a lot more to the basic plot structure than just this. Generally speaking, every plot has these five elements in this order :

• Exposition/introduction
• Rising action
• Climax/turning point
• Falling action
• Resolution/denouement

#1: Exposition/Introduction

The first part of the plot establishes the main characters/protagonists and setting. We get to know who’s who, as well as when and where the story takes place. At this point, the reader is just getting to know the world of the story and what it’s going to be all about.

Here, we’re shown what normal looks like for the characters .

The primary conflict or tension around which the plot revolves is also usually introduced here in order to set up the course of events for the rest of the narrative. This tension could be the first meeting between two main characters (think Pride and Prejudice ) or the start of a murder mystery, for example.

#2: Rising Action

In this part of the plot, the primary conflict is introduced (if it hasn’t been already) and is built upon to create tension both within the story and the reader , who should ideally be feeling more and more drawn to the text. The conflict may affect one character or multiple characters.

The author should have clearly communicated to the reader the stakes of this central conflict. In other words, what are the possible consequences? The benefits?

This is the part of the plot that sets the rest of the plot in motion. Excitement grows as tensions get higher and higher, ultimately leading to the climax of the story (see below).

For example, in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , the rising action would be when we learn who Voldemort is and lots of bad things start happening, which the characters eventually realize are all connected to Voldemort.

#3: Climax/Turning Point

Arguably the most important part of a story, the climax is the biggest plot point , which puts our characters in a situation wherein a choice must be made that will affect the rest of the story.

This is the critical moment that all the rising action has been building up to, and the point at which the overarching conflict is finally addressed. What will the character(s) do, and what will happen as a result? Tensions are highest here, instilling in the reader a sense of excitement, dread, and urgency.

In classic tales of heroes, the climax would be when the hero finally faces the big monster, and the reader is left to wonder who will win and what this outcome could mean for the other characters and the world as a whole within the story.

#4: Falling Action

This is when the tension has been released and the story begins to wind down. We start to see the results of the climax and the main characters’ actions and get a sense of what this means for them and the world they inhabit. How did their choices affect themselves and those around them?

At this point, the author also ties up loose ends in the main plot and any subplots .

In To Kill a Mockingbird , we see the consequences of the trial and Atticus Finch’s involvement in it: Tom goes to jail and is shot and killed, and Scout and Jem are attacked by accuser Bob Ewell who blames their father for making a fool out of him during the trial.

#5: Resolution/Denouement

This final plot point is when everything has been wrapped up and the new world—and the new sense of normalcy for the characters—has been established . The conflict from the climax has been resolved, and all loose ends have been neatly tied up (unless the author is purposely setting up the story for a sequel!).

There is a sense of finality and closure here , making the reader feel that there is nothing more they can learn or gain from the narrative.

The resolution can be pretty short—sometimes just a paragraph or so—and might even take the form of an epilogue , which generally takes place a while after the main action and plot of the story.

Be careful not to conflate "resolution" with "happy ending"—resolutions can be tragic and entirely unexpected, too!

In Romeo and Juliet , the resolution is the point at which the family feud between the Capulets and Montagues is at last put to an end following the deaths of the titular lovers.

What Is a Plot Diagram?

Many people use a plot diagram to help them visualize the plot definition and structure . Here’s what a basic plot diagram looks like:

The triangular part of the diagram indicates changing tensions in the plot. The diagram begins with a flat, horizontal line for the exposition , showing a lack of tension as well as what is normal for the characters in the story.

This elevation changes, however, with the rising action , or immediately after the conflict has been introduced. The rising action is an increasing line (indicating the building of tension), all the way up until it reaches the climax —the peak or turning point of the story, and when everything changes.

The falling action is a decreasing line, indicating a decline in tension and the wrapping up of the plot and any subplots. After, the line flatlines once more into a resolution —a new sense of normal for the characters in the story.

You can use the plot diagram as a reference when writing a story and to ensure you have all major plot points.

4 Plot Examples From Literature

While most plots follow the same basic structure, the details of stories can vary quite a bit! Here are four plot examples from literature to give you an idea of how you can use the fundamental plot structure while still making your story entirely your own.

#1: Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Exposition: The ghost of Hamlet’s father—the former king—appears one night instructing his son to avenge his death by killing Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle and the current king.

Rising Action: Hamlet struggles to commit to avenging his father’s death. He pretends to go crazy (and possibly becomes truly mad) to confuse Claudius. Later, he passes up the opportunity to kill his uncle while he prays.

Climax: Hamlet stabs and kills Polonius, believing it to be his uncle. This is an important turning point at which Hamlet has committed himself to both violence and revenge. (Another climax can be said to be when Hamlet duels Laertes.)

Falling Action: Hamlet is sent to England but manages to avoid execution and instead returns to Denmark. Ophelia goes mad and dies. Hamlet duels Laertes, ultimately resulting in the deaths of the entire royal family.

Resolution: As he lay dying, Hamlet tells Horatio to make Fortinbras the king of Denmark and to share his story. Fortinbras arrives and speaks hopefully about the future of Denmark.

#2: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Exposition: Lockwood arrives at Wuthering Heights to meet with Heathcliff, a wealthy landlord, about renting Thrushcross Grange, another manor just a few miles away. While staying overnight, he sees the ghost of a woman named Catherine. After settling in at the Grange, Lockwood asks the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to relay to him the story of Heathcliff and the Heights.

Rising Action: Most of the rising action takes place in the past when Catherine and Heathcliff were young. We learn that the two children were very close. One day, a dog bite forces Catherine to stay for several weeks at the Grange where the Lintons live, leading her to become infatuated with the young Edgar Linton. Feeling hurt and betrayed, Heathcliff runs away for three years, and Catherine and Edgar get married. Heathcliff then inherits the Heights and marries Edgar’s sister, Isabella, in the hopes of inheriting the Grange as well.

Climax: Catherine becomes sick, gives birth to a daughter named Cathy, and dies. Heathcliff begs Catherine to never leave him, to haunt him—even if it drives him mad.

Falling Action: Many years pass in Nelly's story. A chain of events allows Heathcliff to gain control of both the Heights and the Grange. He then forces the young Cathy to live with him at the Heights and act as a servant. Lockwood leaves the Grange to return to London.

Resolution: Six months later, Lockwood goes back to see Nelly and learns that Heathcliff, still heartbroken and now tired of seeking revenge, has died. Cathy and Hareton fall in love and plan to get married; they inherit the Grange and the Heights. Lockwood visits the graves of Catherine and Heathcliff, noting that both are finally at peace.

#3: Carrie by Stephen King

Exposition: Teenager Carrie is an outcast and lives with her controlling, fiercely religious mother. One day, she starts her period in the showers at school after P.E. Not knowing what menstruation is, Carrie becomes frantic; this causes other students to make fun of her and pelt her with sanitary products. Around this time, Carrie discovers that she has telekinetic powers.

Rising Action: Carrie practices her telekinesis, which grows stronger. The students who previously tormented Carrie in the locker room are punished by their teacher. One girl, Sue, feels remorseful and asks her boyfriend, Tommy, to take Carrie to the prom. But another girl, Chris, wants revenge against Carrie and plans to rig the prom queen election so that Carrie wins. Carrie attends the prom with Tommy and things go well—at first.

Climax: After being named prom queen, Carrie gets onstage in front of the entire school only to be immediately drenched with a bucket of pig’s blood, a plot carried out by Chris and her boyfriend, Billy. Everybody laughs at Carrie, who goes mad and begins using her telekinesis to start fires and kill everyone in sight.

Falling Action: Carrie returns home and is attacked by her mother. She kills her mother and then goes outside again, this time killing Chris and Billy. As Carrie lay dying, Sue comes over to her and Carrie realizes that Sue never intended to hurt her. She dies.

Resolution: The survivors in the town must come to terms with the havoc Carrie wrought. Some feel guilty for not having helped Carrie sooner; Sue goes to a psychiatric hospital. It’s announced that there are no others like Carrie, but we are then shown a letter from a mother discussing her young daughter’s telekinetic abilities.

#4: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Exposition: Bella Swan is a high school junior who moves to live with her father in a remote town in Washington State. She meets a strange boy named Edward, and after an initially awkward meeting, the two start to become friends. One day, Edward successfully uses his bare hands to stop a car from crushing Bella, making her realize that something is very different about this boy.

Rising Action: Bella discovers that Edward is a vampire after doing some research and asking him questions. The two develop strong romantic feelings and quickly fall in love. Bella meets Edward’s family of vampires, who happily accept her. When playing baseball together, however, they end up attracting a gang of non-vegetarian vampires. One of these vampires, James, notices that Bella is a human and decides to kill her. Edward and his family work hard to protect Bella, but James lures her to him by making her believe he has kidnapped her mother.

Climax: Tricked by James, Bella is attacked and fed on. At this moment, Edward and his family arrive and kill James. Bella nearly dies from the vampire venom in her blood, but Edward sucks it out, saving her life.

Falling Action: Bella wakes up in the hospital, heavily injured but alive. She still wants to be in a relationship with Edward, despite the risks involved, and the two agree to stay together.

Resolution: Months later, Edward takes Bella to the prom. The two have a good time. Bella tells Edward that she wants him to turn her into a vampire right then and there, but he refuses and pretends to bite her neck instead.

Conclusion: So What Is the Plot of a Story?

What is plot? Basically, it’s the chain of events in a story. These events must be purposeful and organized in a logical manner that entices the reader, builds tension, and provides a resolution.

All plots have a beginning, middle, and end, and usually contain the following five points in this order:

#1: Exposition/introduction #2: Rising action #3: Climax/turning point #4: Falling action #5: Resolution/denouement

Sketching out a plot diagram can help you visualize your story and get a clearer sense for where the climax is, what tensions you'll need to have in order to build up to this turning point, and how you can offer a tight conclusion to your story.

What’s Next?

What is plot? A key literary element as it turns out. Learn about other important elements of literature in our guide. We've also got a list of top literary devices you should know.

Working on a novel? Then you will definitely want to know what kinds of tone words you can use , how imagery works , what the big difference between a simile and a metaphor is , and how to write an epilogue .

Interested in writing poetry? Then check out our picks for the 20 most critical poetic devices .

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Hannah received her MA in Japanese Studies from the University of Michigan and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2015, she taught English in Japan via the JET Program. She is passionate about education, writing, and travel.

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How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay

Table of contents

• 1 Understanding the Assignment
• 2 Preparatory Work
• 3.1 First Reading
• 3.2 Second Reading
• 3.3 Take Notes
• 4.1 Defining Your Audience
• 4.2 The Title of Your Essay
• 4.3 Literary Analysis Essay Outline
• 4.4 Introduction
• 4.5 Body Paragraphs
• 4.6 Conclusion
• 5 Revising the Essay
• 6 In Conclusion

Writing a literary analysis essay is one of the most difficult tasks for a student. When you have to analyze a certain literary work, there is a whole set of rules that you have to follow. The literary analysis structure is rigid, and students often are demoralized by things like that.

Our article hopes to be a comprehensive guide that can explain how to write literary analysis essay. Here is what you will learn:

• The importance of understanding your assignment and choosing the right topic;
• Organizing your critical reading into two sessions to get the most out of the text;
• Crafting the essay with your audience in mind and giving it a logical and easy-to-follow structure;
• Importance of revising your piece, looking for logical inconsistencies, and proofreading the text.

This way, you will be able to write an essay that has its own identity, its coherence, and great analytical power.

Understanding the Assignment

Let’s start with the first obvious step: understanding the assignment. This actually applies to all types of essays and more. Yet, it is an aspect still underestimated by many students. There are so many who rush headlong into a literary text analysis before even figuring out what they need to do. So, let’s see what are the real steps to follow before writing a literary analysis essay.

First, we need to understand why we are doing this and what is a literary analysis essay. The purpose of a literary analysis essay is to evaluate and examine a particular literary work or some aspect of it. It describes the main idea of the book you have read. You need a strong thesis statement, and you always have to make a proper outline for literary analysis essay.

Secondly, you always need to read the prompt carefully. This should serve as your roadmap, and it will guide you towards specific aspects of the literary work. Those are the aspects you will focus on. You should be able to get the main ideas of what to write already from the prompt. Failure to comprehend the prompt could invalidate the entire work and cause you to lose many valuable hours.

Preparatory Work

Great, so we understood what the purpose of a literary analysis is and that it is crucial to understand the prompt. Now, it’s time to do some preparatory work before you start your draft of the literary analysis paper.

When you write a literary analysis essay, the first thing you should do is select a topic. It is usually impossible to talk about a book or poem in its entirety. Choosing a more specific theme is essential. Firstly, because it will make your literary analysis paper more interesting. Secondly, it will also be easier for you to focus on a single aspect. This could be a single character or what style and literary techniques were used by the author.

At this point, it’s time to consider the broader context. For example, if you have picked a character, think about their character’s development and their significance. If you are analyzing literature looking for a specific theme, try to reflect on how it permeates the narrative and what messages it conveys.

Now, it’s time to frame your literary analysis thesis statement. This should be concise and clear. Think of it as the compass that will guide your analysis. Plus, if it’s clear to you, it’ll be clear to your reader as well. Do not underestimate this point because it can make everything way easier when you start. Finally, feel free to read another book review to get inspired.

Critical Reading

It’s time to read the work you will analyze. We talk about what we call critical reading. This is the heart of all literary criticism, and it consists of immersing yourself in the story. Because of this, it is advised not to read the story just once but twice.

First Reading

The first reading will serve to get a general understanding of the literary texts. This means comprehending the storyline, characters, and major plot developments. You should be able to enjoy it without thinking too much about the assignment. So don’t delve too deeply into analysis just yet.

Second Reading

Your second reading should be much more methodical. Here, you start analyzing things concretely without forgetting what your literary analysis thesis is. Resist the temptation to get lost in the narrative’s flow. Instead, go through a thorough examination and identify key literary elements and literary devices, like the plot, the character development, and the mood of the story. But also other literary elements: the symbolism, the protagonists, whether there is a first-person narrator or a third-person perspective, and whether the author uses figurative language when describing the main conflict.

Pay special attention to how these literary elements are interwoven into the narrative. For example, consider how character development influences the plot. Alternatively, how symbolism enhances the mood. Recognizing these connections will be crucial for your analysis. Finally, and this might be the hardest part, try to see how all of these literary analysis elements collectively contribute to the overall impact of the work. Ask yourself whether it all works together to convey the message the author wants to convey or not.

While reading, it’s important to take notes and annotate the text. Even a brief indication could be enough. You can do this to highlight passages or quotes that strike you as significant. But also to make connections between different parts of the story. These annotations and notes will become invaluable when you start a literary analysis essay.

Crafting the Essay

Now that you’ve laid the groundwork, it’s time to craft your lit analysis piece. This section will help you do just that. The main points focus on:

• Understand who you’re writing for and tailor your text accordingly
• Craft a compelling introduction using a powerful hook and highlighting your thesis statement
• Structure the body paragraphs in a logical and coherent way
• Summarize your analysis, summing up the main points and key takeaway

Follow our suggestions, and you shouldn’t have any issues with your work. But, if you are facing a time crunch and need assistance with writing your literary essay, there is an online essay service that can help you. PapersOwl has been providing expert help to countless students with their literary essays for many years. Their team of professional writers is highly qualified and experienced, ensuring that you receive top-quality literary works. With PapersOwl’s assistance, you can rest assured that your literary essay will be well-written and thoroughly analyzed.

Defining Your Audience

Before putting pen to paper, and even when you are familiar with the literary analysis format, take some time to consider your audience. Who are you writing for? Is it your professor or another reader? This will help you understand what type of analysis you are going to write.

The Title of Your Essay

If you are wondering how to choose a title , you should know that some prefer to choose it when they start, while others do it as the last thing before submitting it. Usually, the literary analysis title includes the author’s name and the name of the text you are evaluating. However, that is not always necessary. What matters is to make it brief and interactive and to catch the reader’s attention immediately.

Take this example of literary analysis: “Unmasking the Symbolism: The Enigmatic Power of the Green Light in The Great Gatsby”.

It works because, while introducing the story, it hints at the theme, the specific focus, and the intrigue of unraveling a mystery.

Literary Analysis Essay Outline

Writing a literary analysis essay starts with understanding the information that fills an outline. This means that writing details that belong in how to write an analytical essay should come fairly easily. If it is a struggle to come up with the meat of the essay, a reread of the novel may be necessary. Like any analysis essay, developing an essay requires structure and outline.

Let’s start with the first. Normally in high schools, the basic structure of any form of academic writing of a literature essay, comprises five paragraphs. One of the paragraphs is used in writing the introduction, three for the body, and the remaining literary analysis paragraph for the conclusion.

Every body paragraph must concentrate on a topic. While writing a five-paragraph structured essay, you need to split your thesis into three major analysis topics connected to your essay. You don’t need to write all the points derivable from the literature but the analysis that backs your thesis.

When you start a paragraph, connect it to the previous paragraph and always use a topic sentence to maintain the focus of the reader. This allows every person to understand the content at a glance.

After that, you should find fitting textual evidence to support the topic sentence and the thesis statement it serves. Using textual evidence involves bringing in a relevant quote from the story and describing its relevance. Such quotes should be well introduced and examined if you want to use them. While it is not mandatory to use them, it is effective because it allows to better analyze the author’s figurative language.

Let’s see a concrete literary analysis example to understand this.

✏️ Topic Sentence : In “The Great Gatsby,” Fitzgerald employs vivid descriptions to characterize Jay Gatsby’s extravagant parties.

✏️ Textual Evidence : Gatsby’s parties are described as “gaudy with primary colors” and filled with “music and the laughter of his guests”.

✏️ Literary Analysis : These vibrant descriptions symbolize Gatsby’s attempt to capture the essence of the American Dream. The use of “gaudy” highlights the emptiness of his pursuits.

Now that you know how to write a literature analysis, it’s crucial to distinguish between analysis and summary. A summary only restates the plot or events of the story. Analysis, on the other hand, tries to unveil the meaning of these events. Let’s use an example from another famous book to illustrate the difference.

✏️ Summary : In “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson, an innocent Black man accused of raping a white woman.

✏️ Literary Analysis : Atticus Finch’s defense of Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird” is a rather bitter commentary on the racial prejudices of the time. In the book, Harper Lee highlights the rampant racism that plagued Maycomb society.

Introduction

The literature analysis essay, like other various academic works, has a typical 5-paragraph-structure . The normal procedure for writing an introduction for your literary analysis essay outline is to start with a hook and then go on to mention brief facts about the author and the literature. After that, make sure to present your thesis statement. Before going ahead, let’s use an example of a good literary analysis introduction. This will make it easier to discuss these points singularly.

“On the shores of East Egg, a green light shines through the darkness. The book is “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, written in 1925, and this is not just a light. It’s much more. It symbolizes the American Dream chased and rejected by Gatsby and the other characters.”

As an introductory paragraph, this has all the characteristics we are looking for. First, opening statements like this introduce a mysterious element that makes the reader curious. This is the hook. After that, the name of the book, the author, and the release year are presented. Finally, a first glimpse of what your original thesis will be – the connection between the book and the topic of the American Dream.

Afterwards, you can finish writing the introduction paragraph for the literary analysis essay with a clue about the content of the essay’s body. This style of writing a literature essay is known as signposting. Signposting should be done more elaborately while writing longer literary essays.

Body Paragraphs

In a literary analysis essay, the body paragraphs are where you go further into your analysis, looking at specific features of the literature. Each paragraph should focus on a particular aspect, such as character development, theme, or symbolism, and provide textual evidence to back up your interpretation. This structured approach allows for a thorough exploration of the literary work.

“In ‘The Great Gatsby,’ Fitzgerald uses the symbol of the green light to represent Gatsby’s perpetual quest for the unattainable – specifically, his idealized love for Daisy Buchanan. Situated at the end of Daisy’s dock, the green light shines across the bay to Gatsby’s mansion, symbolizing the distance between reality and his dreams. This light is not just a physical beacon; it’s a metaphor for Gatsby’s aspiration and the American Dream itself. Fitzgerald artfully illustrates this through Gatsby’s yearning gaze towards the light, reflecting his deep desire for a future that reconnects him with his past love, yet tragically remains just out of reach. This persistent yearning is a poignant commentary on the nature of aspiration and the illusion of the American Dream.”

The final paragraph, as usual, is the literary analysis conclusion. Writing a conclusion of your essay should be about putting the finishing touches on it. In this section, all you need to do is rephrase your aforementioned main point and supporting points and try to make them clearer to the person who reads them. But also, restate your thesis and add some interesting thoughts.

However, if you don’t understand how to write a conclusion and are just thinking, “ Write my essay for me , please”, there are solutions. At PapersOwl, you get expert writers to help you with your analysis, ensuring you meet your deadline.

Let’s go back to Gatsby’s green light and look at how to write a literary analysis example of a good conclusion:

“Our journey through the green light of “The Great Gatsby” ends here. In this literary essay, we analyzed Fitzgerald’s style and the way this allowed him to grasp the secret of the American Dream. In doing so, we realized that the American Dream is not just about one person’s dream. Rather, it is about everyone who struggles for something that will never be realized.”

Here we have it all: restating the thesis, summing up the main points, understanding the literary devices, and adding some thoughts.

Revising the Essay

At this point, you’re almost done. After you write a literary analysis, it is usually time for a revision. This is where you have a chance to refine and polish your work.

Read your analysis of literature again to check coherence and consistency. This means that your ideas should flow smoothly into each other, thus creating a coherent narrative voice. The tone should always be consistent: it would be a terrible mistake to have a body written in a style and a conclusion in a different style.

Use this final revision to refine the thesis and overall the literary argument essay. If you see there are some flaws in your discourse or some weak and unsupported claims, this is your last chance to fix them. Remember, your thesis should always be clear and effective.

Finally, do not underrate the possibility of spelling and punctuation errors. We all make mistakes of that kind. Read your piece a few times to ensure that every word is written correctly. Nothing bad with a couple of typos, but it’s even better if there is none! Finally, check if you used transition words appropriately.

The revision process involves multiple rounds of review and refinement. You could also consider seeking feedback from peers or professors. This way, you could gain a new perspective on your literary analysis.

In Conclusion

Educational institutions use works like the textual analysis essay to improve the learning abilities of students. Although it might seem complex, with the basic knowledge of how to go about it and the help of experts, you won’t find it difficult. Besides, if everything else fails, you can still try buying essays online at PapersOwl.

In this guide, we went through all the steps necessary to write a successful literary analysis. We began by understanding the assignment’s purpose and then explored preparatory work, the structure of a literature essay critical reading, and the actual crafting. In particular, we showed how to divide it into an introduction, body, and conclusion. Now it’s your turn to write a literary criticism essay!

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