In the case of the narrative you are studying, try first of all to recreate its storyline; that is to say, try to place the events it describes in the order in which they would have occurred in chronological time. Then, make a similar timeline for its plot and establish the order in which those same events are narrated. Finally, place these two timelines next to one another, determine the extent to which they resemble and/or differ from one another, identify the main differences between them, and then seek to account for those differences. By the end of this process, you should be able to answer these three questions:
- What difference does it make to the way in which I relate and respond to this narrative that it tells its tale in the order it does?
- What difference does it make to the way in which I understand this narrative and attribute meaning to it that it tells its tale in the order it does?
- What kind of worldview is expressed by its plot structure?
Sometimes when we compare a narrative’s plotline and storyline in this way, they will look more or less the same. This too is worthy of note and is just as meaningful – it contributes just as much to our emotional and intellectual response to the narrative – as when they differ greatly. (It could, for instance, be one of the ways in which a tale signals – and thereby plays upon – the genre to which it belongs).
Even when the general plotline conforms to the narrative’s storyline, however, its plot will never be exactly the same as its story. This is in part because even if the order in which the events a narrative contains is the same as the order in which they took place, that narrative will award them a different duration and frequency. You can explore those two qualities by returning to the Plot page.
The other reason plot can never be the same as story, moreover, is because even when the order in which events are told throughout the course of a narrative as a whole is the same as the order in which they occurred, this is extremely unlikely to be the case at the level of every single one of the individual sentences and passages through which it is told. If you are interested in delving deeper into this aspect of plot, click here.