Aren't these just two ways to say the same thing? Does it really matter if you don't know the difference?
On a very basic level STORY is what happens and PLOT is how it happens. There are various simplified explanations of this, the most famous probably being E.M. Forster’s:
The King died and then the Queen died – is a story.
The King died and then the Queen died from grief – is a plot.
The suggestion being that plot provides a deliberate causal relationship between events that tells the reader the reasons for what happened, and what it means in a wider context. This is all very well but how does it help you to be a better storyteller?
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