In a post on Writer Unboxed, Kathryn Craft offers a helpful exercise that demonstrates the difference between story and plot, and how each works independently.
Story is what you want to say through your characters. Your protagonist leaves point A, confronts challenges that force them to grow, and arrives at Point Z a changed person. It’s one part theme, one part character arc. Your plot fills in the details of where they go, what actions they take, and what choices they make.
Story can be tricky, Craft notes. You may start out with one idea for your character’s journey, but discover additional layers that point you in a different direction. Now you have to rewrite the whole book, right?
Maybe not, Craft says. “Without a doubt, you’ll have to rewrite the story, starting with the protagonist’s backstory, since that creates the desire he brings to page one, which in turn will impact how the inciting incident inspires his story goal,” Craft writes. “But plot is something different.”
Craft constructs a writing scenario in which the basic facts of the plot can be made to serve two different stories with the same main character. A great example if you reach a point in your manuscript where you feel your premise is changing, but you want to preserve your plot.
