1. Plot and Setting Plot: The Story’s Structure Basic situation
Feature Menu
Plot: The Story’s Structure
Basic situation
Complications
Climax
Resolution
Setting and Conflict
Practice

2. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Plot is the series of events in a story.
Plot answers the question “What happened?”

3. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Most plots have four parts.
Complications
Basic situation
Resolution
Climax

4. Plot: The Story’s Structure
You can diagram a plot like this:
The resolution usually wraps up the “loose ends” of the story.
The climax is the “high point” of the story.
These events are the complications.
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5. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Basic Situation
The first part of the plot tells you about the story’s basic situation.
The basic situation usually answers two questions:
Who is the main character?
What is the character’s basic problem, or conflict?

6. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Basic Situation
A conflict is a struggle.
Two characters sometimes oppose each other.
One character might struggle against a whole group.

7. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Basic Situation
A conflict can be inside a character.
A character might struggle to overcome fear or to gain confidence.
Finally, a character may also struggle with a setting.

8. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Basic Situation
When the conflict involves a setting, the setting is often extreme or life threatening.
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9. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Complications
As the characters try to solve their problem, complications arise.
Complications are new problems that come up. They make us wonder and worry about what will happen.
Complications create suspense in the story.
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10. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Climax
Finally, you reach the climax, the most exciting point of the story.
At the climax, you find out how the story will be resolved.
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11. Plot: The Story’s Structure
Resolution
In the last part of the plot—the resolution—the characters’ problems are resolved.
In a mystery…
In a fairy tale…
In an adventure…
the clues are explained.
they all live happily ever after.
the survivors may be rescued.
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12. Setting and Conflict
Setting is where and when the action of a story takes place.
Some stories, like trickster tales, can take place almost anywhere.
Coyote
Brer Rabbit
The characters and the settings are different, but the stories are basically the same.

13. Setting and Conflict
In many stories, however, setting plays an important role.
A rainforest
The Arctic
A big city
The setting in these stories controls the action. The story can’t take place in another kind of setting.

14. Setting and Conflict
In some stories, characters are in conflict with their setting.
people surviving on a cold mountain with no food
animals trapped by a raging forest fire
a person marooned in a small boat in the middle of the ocean
Why do you think this kind of setting and conflict is used in so many movies?
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15. Practice Let’s Try It 1. Who do you think the main character is?
As the hot July sun slipped below the horizon, a cooling darkness filled Central Valley. Lisa had just fallen asleep when the windows of the trailer rattled like a snake giving warning. The trailer swayed back and forth. Lisa could hear the baby screaming. Papa yelled, “Outside! Get out! Get out! It’s an earthquake!”
1. Who do you think the main character is?
2. What is the setting? When and where does the story take place?
3. What do you predict the conflict will be?

16. Practice Let’s Try It 1. Who do you think the main character is?
As the hot July sun slipped below the horizon, a cooling darkness filled Central Valley. Lisa had just fallen asleep when the windows of the trailer rattled like a snake giving warning. The trailer swayed back and forth. Lisa could hear the baby screaming. Papa yelled, “Outside! Get out! Get out! It’s an earthquake!”
1. Who do you think the main character is?
Lisa is probably the main character. We also know that there are at least two other characters, Papa and a baby.

17. Practice
Let’s Try It
As the hot July sun slipped below the horizon, a cooling darkness filled Central Valley. Lisa had just fallen asleep when the windows of the trailer rattled like a snake giving warning. The trailer swayed back and forth. Lisa could hear the baby screaming. Papa yelled, “Outside! Get out! Get out! It’s an earthquake!”
2. What is the setting? When and where does the story take place?
The story takes place in July in Central Valley. The sun has just gone down, and the characters are in a trailer.

18. Practice Let’s Try It 3. What do you predict the conflict will be?
As the hot July sun slipped below the horizon, a cooling darkness filled Central Valley. Lisa had just fallen asleep when the windows of the trailer rattled like a snake giving warning. The trailer swayed back and forth. Lisa could hear the baby screaming. Papa yelled, “Outside! Get out! Get out! It’s an earthquake!”
3. What do you predict the conflict will be?
The characters will struggle to survive the earthquake. The conflict is with the setting.

19. Practice
Let’s Try It
The earth groaned, and a river of mud slid down the canyon. The family huddled together in the dark. Mama tore up a sheet to make a sling for Papa’s broken arm. Papa shined his flashlight on the wreck that used to be the trailer. “It could explode,” he warned. “Don’t get any closer.”
This passage takes place a little later in the story.
4. What complications have taken place?

20. Practice Let’s Try It 4. What complications have taken place?
The earth groaned, and a river of mud slid down the canyon. The family huddled together in the dark. Mama tore up a sheet to make a sling for Papa’s broken arm. Papa shined his flashlight on the wreck that used to be the trailer. “It could explode,” he warned. “Don’t get any closer.”
4. What complications have taken place?
- A mud slide occurred.
- Papa’s arm is broken.
- The trailer is wrecked.
- The trailer could explode.

21. Practice Let’s Try It 5. What new complications come up?
The baby kept screaming. Lisa’s mother said, “I have nothing to feed him. What are we going to do?” Suddenly the earth rumbled again. Lisa looked back at the trailer and saw fallen electric wires dangling all over it.
5. What new complications come up?
6. What do you predict the family will decide to do? Why?

22. Practice Let’s Try It 5. What new complications come up?
The baby kept screaming. Lisa’s mother said, “I have nothing to feed him. What are we going to do?” Suddenly the earth rumbled again. Lisa looked back at the trailer and saw fallen electric wires dangling all over it.
5. What new complications come up?
- The baby doesn’t have any food.
- The earth rumbles again.

23. Practice
Let’s Try It
The baby kept screaming. Lisa’s mother said, “I have nothing to feed him. What are we going to do?” Suddenly the earth rumbled again. Lisa looked back at the trailer and saw fallen electric wires dangling all over it.
6. What do you predict the family will decide to do? Why?
Lisa has to go for help. Their situation is getting worse. Papa can’t go because of his arm, and Lisa’s mother is taking care of the baby.

24. Practice Let’s Try It This passage takes place later in the story.
Lisa stumbled down the side of the canyon. She could hear a siren coming closer. The lights of a helicopter shone on her like a spotlight. “Stop! Help us!” she cried, frantically waving her arms. The copter clattered to the ground.
This passage takes place later in the story.
7. Why is this event probably the climax of the story?
Lisa…
The baby…
The mother…
Papa…
8. Write a resolution for this story. What happens to the family?

25. Practice
Let’s Try It
Lisa stumbled down the side of the canyon. She could hear a siren coming closer. The lights of a helicopter shone on her like a spotlight. “Stop! Help us!” she cried, frantically waving her arms. The copter clattered to the ground.
7. Why is this event probably the climax of the story?
When the helicopter sees Lisa and lands, we know the family will probably be rescued.

26. Practice
On Your Own
Fill out a diagram like this one, tracing the plot of a movie or book you know well. Try to find a story in which a character struggles with a setting that threatens his or her life.

27. Plot and Setting
The End