MOVIE POPS

I  receive a lot of questions regarding the difference between story and plot.  The easiest way to explain the difference is as follows; plot is ‘what’ happens and story is ‘how’ it all happens.

Plot is basically the step-by-step details of what happens in the story.   For example, in the movie “Avatar” our main character, Jake, is a marine that is bound to a wheelchair.  He travels to the planet “Pandora” as part of a mission to study the planet’s inhabitants the Na’vi.  He uses his brother’s avatar to interact with the Na’vi and gain their trust.

While an avatar, Jake falls in love with a Na’vi named Neytiri and he is accepted into their tribe.  He learns that the leaders of the mission want to destroy the Na’vi people to get to a very valuable resource.  He fights with the Na’vi against the humans and ultimately saves the day.

That’s essentially plot.

Story, on the other hand, is essentially the overall picture of what your screenplay is all about.  For the movie, “Avatar”, we can say the STORY is about a headstrong paraplegic marine dispatched to the planet Pandora on a mission that leads him to protecting the world he feels is his true home.

Now you know the difference between story and plot.

Happy writing!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 2:47 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.