"Essentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they are in. It is a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters"
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Elizabeth George’s definition of plot is a quiet rebuke to a lot of lazy storytelling: stop treating plot like a conveyor belt of “things that happen” and start treating it as behavior under pressure. By pinning plot to “what the characters do,” she drags narrative back to motive, choice, and consequence. Action, in this view, isn’t fireworks; it’s response. The situation is the crucible, the characters are the chemistry, and plot is what you get when personality meets constraint.
The phrasing “essentially and most simply put” signals craft-talk meant to cut through mystique. George isn’t theorizing literature; she’s coaching writers away from coincidence and toward causality. The insistence on a “logical sequence” is a warning shot at narratives that mistake randomness for realism. Even in messy lives, stories earn their power by making events feel inevitable in retrospect: not preordained, but caused.
Her key term is “initial incident that alters the status quo.” That’s the engine of momentum, but it’s also a moral claim about attention. Readers don’t lean in because a world exists; they lean in because something disrupts it, forcing characters to reveal priorities they could previously avoid. The subtext is almost disciplinary: if your plot isn’t growing out of who these people are and what just changed for them, you don’t have plot, you have scenery and shuffling.
Context matters here. George, known for tightly engineered crime fiction, speaks from a genre where “logic” is not aesthetic garnish but the contract with the reader. Her definition defends that contract while smuggling in a larger truth: character isn’t separate from plot; it’s the only plot worth trusting.
The phrasing “essentially and most simply put” signals craft-talk meant to cut through mystique. George isn’t theorizing literature; she’s coaching writers away from coincidence and toward causality. The insistence on a “logical sequence” is a warning shot at narratives that mistake randomness for realism. Even in messy lives, stories earn their power by making events feel inevitable in retrospect: not preordained, but caused.
Her key term is “initial incident that alters the status quo.” That’s the engine of momentum, but it’s also a moral claim about attention. Readers don’t lean in because a world exists; they lean in because something disrupts it, forcing characters to reveal priorities they could previously avoid. The subtext is almost disciplinary: if your plot isn’t growing out of who these people are and what just changed for them, you don’t have plot, you have scenery and shuffling.
Context matters here. George, known for tightly engineered crime fiction, speaks from a genre where “logic” is not aesthetic garnish but the contract with the reader. Her definition defends that contract while smuggling in a larger truth: character isn’t separate from plot; it’s the only plot worth trusting.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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