Story Week 4: Story Plot

What is a Plot?

For this week I decided to do the story lab assignment and I looked into the Writers Write Website (insert link), the article that I read about was “What is a Plot?”. I find this interesting because you can take this article and relate it R.K Narayan book of the Ramayana. In the article they describe what is a plot and having a plot isn’t about just having an idea and writing about it, you need to a protagonist and an antagonist to portray some type of conflict within the two of them and build from there. If the author has wrote something with a great plot the story will have a beginning, middle, and end to the plot. The beginning will start the story of how the conflict has come about and start to paint the picture for what is about to be told. Then you have the middle where the conflict plays out and it will be the bulk of the story, the middle is usually the longest part of the story. Lastly, you have the ending which will bring the conflict to an end and summarize the victory or defeat of whomever the story is mainly about.

Taking Apart the Ramayana

Let’s look at the beginning of the Ramayana, it starts off with a little bit of character building and information about each of the characters. Then it starts by telling you the story of Rama and his royal family that rule an area. Then it takes off going through the adventures of Rama and all the bad people that he must face. But the true conflict that first starts in this story and really isn’t apparent until you look back at the book is when Rama’s stepmother makes him leave the throne and leave the palace at once to live in the forest. In my opinion this where the beginning of the story ends and shows where the true conflict has now risen into view.

Then when furthering the reading you get to the middle of the story and when Rama and his wife Sita leave the palace and head to the forest to live the rest of their fourteen years amongst the things that live in the forest. This is where Rama and Sita start to encounter all the different people that lived in the forest and begun to make enemies with some and friends with others. It is then when Rama encountered Ravana’s sister that the stories conflict really showed itself. The author really does a great job on telling the story between Ravana and Rama and everything that built up to Ravana attacking Rama by taking his wife. The author does use the bulk of the book to tell this story and the events leading up to the end when Rama and Ravana battle.

The end, the author now uses the last part of the book to tell the reader how the conflict is resolved and whether that the story is ending in a good or bad note. Luckily in this story the author chooses to end it in a good note. The ending builds up some suspense on leading the reader on whether Rama is truly strong enough to overtake Ravana. So, the conflict is resolved by Rama winning the battle against Ravana and getting his wife Sita back to him.

Plot of a Story
Source: Flickr

Bibliography: Patterson, Amanda, “What is a Plot?”. Source