Plot is a literary device that writers use to structure what happens in a story. However, there is more to this device than combining a sequence of events. Plots must present an event, action or turning point that creates conflict or raises a dramatic question, leading to subsequent events that are connected to each other as a means of ‘answering’ the dramatic question and conflict. The arc of a story’s plot features a causal relationship between a beginning, middle and end, in which the conflict is built to a climax and resolved in conclusion.

For example, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens features one of the most well-known and satisfying plots of English literature.