Plot of a Story Example

A masterwork gives us a plot of a story example, serving as a pattern for your novel. Use the Trellis Method’s workbooks to analyze plots.

Your chosen genre offers a starting point. However, that’s often a blinding grasp of the obvious. You wonder, How can I analyze a masterwork for the plot and then apply the lessons?

Below I’ll show how you can use the Trellis Method to analyze masterworks.

Plot of a Story Example: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Most adults have seen the film The Wizard of Oz (1939), but far fewer have read L. Frank Baum’s classic: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).

For those interested in writing a book for young readers, you can’t go wrong studying Baum’s free book. At a glance, it might seem like a simple novel. Peel the book like an onion, and you’ll find this plot of a story example has a main plot and three subplots.

The story engages both young and old readers, and the audience comes away entertained, informed, and inspired.

Main Plot Synopsis Based on Story Spine, Body, & Beats

The Story Beats empower writers to simplify summarizing the first to last page of your novel in 1,500 or fewer words. For more information, check out the Story Plots Development Workbook and the Spine, Body, & Beats Workbook.

Subplots Analysis

This plot of a story example shows how Baum wrote a story for young people, and he used the subplots to bring out life lessons without getting preachy.

Here’s what these subplots look like when turned into an infographic.

Note: I’m a visual learner, and that’s why the Trellis Method contains so many infographics. Taking what I read and turning the words into visuals helps me adopt, adapt, and apply the lessons. For instance, the Story Bridge shows how the Trellis Method links one story part to the next.

Plot of a Story Example: Misery by Stephen King

In a Wall Street Journal interview ¹, Stephen King talked about his writing routine.

He claimed to not outline and admitted his plots were not worked out in advance. For him, just knowing what’s going to happen in the novel was enough. But that raised the question: “Did King abandon story and plot structure because he doesn’t outline, or was he so well versed and practiced in plotting that his story followed a recognizable framework?”

The synopsis analysis gives us the answer.

Note: From my view, King may not plot consciously. However, as the plot of a story example (below) will show, he gives readers a familiar storytelling pattern, one they expect but with twists designed to surprise and delight.

Synopsis Analysis

A synopsis of Stephen King’s Misery showed the narrative hits the Trellis Method’s Story Beats, highlighting the novel’s overall plot. (Note: Spoiler alert!)

Stable World – Act 1

• HOOK: The protagonist, an author, has an automobile accident, and he’s resuscitated by a woman who claims to be his number one fan.
• SETUP: He’s the author of the Misery series, and she is a mentally ill woman who loves his Victorian-era romance novels, imprisons him in her remote cabin, and gets him hooked on a highly addictive drug.
• TRIGGER: The woman storms out after discovering the author has killed off her favorite character in the latest edition of Misery, and leaves him alone and helpless in the cabin.
• WRANGLE: The protagonist wrangles with what he will do to escape from this deranged woman, but before he can get away, she returns and promises to let him go if he writes another Misery book that resurrects her favorite character.
• THRUST INTO 2: The author agrees and starts writing the novel on the typewriter she supplied.

Unstable World – Act 2A

• RESPONSE: The protagonist develops the heroine of the latest book.
• POWER PLAY 1: In a moment of conflict, the deranged woman shows how she controls whether the protagonist lives or dies.
• PREMISE: The author dives into his work yet still looks for ways to escape, but when he shows her a draft of the novel, she forces him to rewrite the chapters.
• MIDPOINT: The author’s work improves, and he sees the potential to be released, but the woman’s mental illness makes him realize she will ultimately kill him.

Unstable World – Act 2B

• ACTION: When the woman leaves the cabin, the author discovers clippings that show she has killed before, and that revelation steals his will to live.
• POWER PLAY 2: She finds out he left the room and chops off his foot.
• BATTLE 1: When a cop car shows up looking for the missing author, he calls for help, but she kills the police officer, and locks the protagonist in the cellar.

Changed World – Act 3

• PLUNGE INTO 3: While locked in the cellar, he comes up with an escape idea and a renewed will to live.
• PONDER: He promises her he’ll finish the book, but only if she’ll wait to read the completed book.
• FACE-OFF: He writes the last chapter, invites her to read it, but first she must brings him a cigarette and a match, and while she’s out of the room, he uses the charcoal fluid and lighter he had taken while locked in the cellar, and sets the manuscript on fire.
• BATTLE 2: When she bends down to put out the fire, he bonks her on the back with the typewriter, chokes her by placing the manuscript pages in her mouth, she trips on the typewriter, hits her head on the mantelpiece, and dies.
• CLIMAX: The woman only seemed dead, she strangles the protagonist, but she passes out before he suffocates, he finds the stash of the narcotic drug and takes three pills, he must retrieve the real manuscript (not the fake one he burned) but hallucinates she’s still alive, that’s when the cops arrive and he calls out to them, and he explains what happened but they don’t find her body.
• RESOLUTION: The protagonist published the real manuscript written while kidnapped, and readers learn the injured woman crawled to the barn where she actually died, but in the author’s mind she still lives, tormenting him in his dreams and her presence inspires him to keep writing.

The Trellis Method analysis of Misery showed a well-formed plot, and that comes as no surprise from an author whose 60-plus novels have sold over 350 million copies worldwide. ²

Readers Expect a Book to Deliver the Primary Genre

The audience expects certain conventions and key scenes from thrillers, but it’s fresh twists that surprise and delight readers.

Here’s my view of the thriller genre based on the Trellis Method.

Conclusion: Plot of a Story Example

Whether you like to preplan your stories or prefer to tidy things up after you write, studying masterworks can help you adopt, adapt, and apply main and subplots to your book.

That’s why the Trellis Method breaks down the goal to write a book readers will love into a writing system composed of genres, premise, characters, plots, themes, story beats, and scenes. This step-by-step writing system helps you apply the tools and techniques using prompt-driven worksheets.

In the links below, you’ll find more information about plots, encouraging you to structure unstructurables based on your passions and dreams.

1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/stephen-kings-daily-routine-involves-four-hours-of-writing-and-a-nap-in-the-afternoon-11623068593 [As of June 7, 2021] ↩︎
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King [As of April 8, 2023] ↩︎

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