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Understanding Story Plots from Actions and Dialogue

Understanding Story Plots from Actions and Dialogue

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Content Understanding Story Plots from Actions and Dialogue

Story Plot – Introduction
Story Plot – Actions and Dialogue
Story Plot – Narrative Structure
Story Plot – Summary
Frequently Asked Questions about the Story Plot

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Basics on the topic Understanding Story Plots from Actions and Dialogue

Would you like to learn how to better understand the plot of a story? Learn about such plot elements as actions and dialogue through our video and exercises!

Story Plot – Introduction

When we are telling someone about a story we have read or planning a story we want to write, we often focus on the plot.

A plot is a sequence of all the events that happen in the story.

For example, if we want to give a plot summary of “Little Red Riding Hood”, we will start with the girl walking through the forest to visit her grandma. This is the first event of the story. Then, we will follow the plot development and describe other events: the girl meets the Big Bad Wolf, the Wolf goes to the grandmother’s house, and so on.

Story Plot – Actions and Dialogue

We can get clues about the plot from actions and dialogue of characters. Actions tell us what the characters are doing, while dialogue shows what they are saying.

To identity actions in the plot, we need to look for verbs. For example: she opened the secret door or they ran away* from the dog.

To identify dialogue in the plot, we should look for quotation marks or inverted commas around the character's words. For example: “Hello!” said Tina. “Do you want to be in our band?”

We can use actions and dialogue during the plot analysis or story composition. They can also help us make predictions about story progression and give clues about what will happen later in a story.

Let’s read a part of the plot of a story about robots and identify actions and dialogue:

It starts with a scientist who invents a unique robot. It can think just like a human being. It feels lonely, so the scientist asks him, “Why don’t you try to talk to other robots?”

This text describes an action of the character: a scientist invents a robot and it can think like a human being. We know that these are actions because they include verbs.

The text also includes dialogue: “Why don’t you try to talk to other robots?” We can see that this is dialogue because it has inverted commas.

We can use these actions and dialogue to make predictions about what will happen in the story. For example, we can predict that the robot will try to communicate with the others. But it might be difficult because it is different from them and is more like a human.

Story Plot – Narrative Structure

There are different ways authors structure the plot of their stories. The most common way to design a plot is to use the plot framework that has these five elements: beginning, dilemma and build up, climax, resolution and conclusion.

Take a look at the table to learn about all five elements of narrative development:

Story Stage	Description
Beginning	introduces the characters, the setting and the conflict.
Dilemma and build up	Includes events that lead to the climax.
Climax	Includes the turning point of a story and possible plot twists.
Resolution	Includes events that lead to the resolution of the conflict.
Conclusion	Includes resolution of the conflict and the story ending.

You can use this storyline structure to analyse and critique the plot in a story or to create your own story design or story arc. A story arc is similar to a plot and usually has the same elements, but considers not events themselves, but how these events change and develop characters and ideas in a story.

Story Plot – Summary

Let’s review what we have learnt about the plot.

Key Learnings from This Text:

The plot includes all events that happen in a story.
We can use actions and dialogue to help us understand the plot better and make predictions.
To identify actions, we look for verbs in a text. To identify dialogue, we need to look for inverted commas.
There are five elements of a plot structure: beginning, dilemma and build up, climax, resolution and conclusion.

Now you know how to identify actions and dialogue to make predictions about the plot. For extra practice, check out our video and exercises!

To learn even more about the plot outline and plot construction, watch our video on comparing and contrasting plots.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Story Plot

What is a plot of a story?

How can we identify actions and dialogue in the text?

What are five elements of a storytelling structure?

Why is it important to know the narrative structure?

Transcript Understanding Story Plots from Actions and Dialogue

"Zayd! I just finished the last book in the river tails series, what should I read next?" "Don't worry, Ari, I know just the series for you to read next." Zayd needs to retell the important parts of the new series. We can help him by learning about understanding story plots from actions and dialogue. Have you ever heard of the word 'plot' used to describe a story? When someone talks about the plot, they are talking about the events that happen in a story. We get clues about the plot from the actions and dialogue of the characters. Actions tell us what the characters are doing and dialogue tells us what characters are saying. We can find actions in the plot by looking for verbs and look for inverted commas around a character's words to look for dialogue. Knowing the plot helps us make predictions about what will happen. It also helps us to understand and enjoy the story. Let's hear the plot of Zayd's series. "It starts with Lucas and Kale who team up to defeat a robo-bear that is trying to attack their peaceful town." "They gear up and run to the town square to defend it." Did Zayd use action or dialogue to talk about the plot? Zayd describes the characters' actions of gearing up and running towards town. We can use this to make a prediction about what we think might happen next. For example, we might predict that the main characters will defend their town. "Then Kale goes up to the robo-bear and says 'please stop! the people of this town are kind and don't deserve to be attacked'." Did Zayd use dialogue or action to describe the plot? Yes, there is dialogue when Kale says, 'please stop! the people of this town are kind and don't deserve to be attacked.' We know this is dialogue because of the inverted commas around Kale's words. Sometimes authors include both action and dialogue in the plot of a story at the same time. "'So, Lucas turned to the mayor saying 'thank you, mayor Leche for the medal.' but before they could finish, Kale gasped looking off into the sky and said, 'this isn't over yet.'" Can you find the dialogue in this text? Here, the dialogue is what Lucas says to mayor Leche. Can you also find the action? Here, the verbs turned, thanked, gasped and look tell us the actions of the characters. What can we predict from this? We can predict that the problem isn't over yet, and the series will continue. Before we see how the series might end, let's remember. Today we learnt about story plots from actions and dialogue. We learnt that the plot of a story includes the events that happen in it and that we can use the actions and dialogue of characters to help us understand better. Remember, when trying to find the action in a sentence of the plot look for verbs, or, what the characters do. And when trying to find the dialogue in a sentence of the plot look for the inverted commas around the words that a character says. "Well, what do you think, Ari?" "Oh! You've already started it!"

Understanding Story Plots from Actions and Dialogue exercise

Would you like to apply the knowledge you’ve learnt? You can review and practice it with the tasks for the video Understanding Story Plots from Actions and Dialogue.

Connect the terms and examples.
Hints

The plot is the events in a story, from beginning to end.

Characters carry out the actions in a story.

Actions are verbs, such as run, jump and play.

Solution
- PLOT is events that happen in the story.
- ACTIONS are what the characters are doing.
- DIALOGUE is what the characters are saying.
- CHARACTERS are who is in the story.
Find the actions.
Hints

Verbs and actions are what someone is doing. Play, run, say, jump and go are all verbs.

Verbs can be in different tenses.
Example: Jumps, jumped and jumping are all different tenses of the verb jump.

Dialogue is what someone says. Dialogue has inverted commas (" ") around it.

There are 5 verbs to highlight.

Solution
The verbs are:
- turned
- saying
- gasped
- looking
- saying
Connect the terms and their examples.
Hints

What the characters say is called dialogue.
You can recognise it from the inverted commas (" ").

Actions mean things that are done, such as to swim, sing or play.

Characters are who is in the story.

Plot is what happens in the story.

Solution
- Turned away and jumped up are actions.
- Lukas and Kayle and Zayd and Ari are characters.
- "Yes you did," she said. "No I didn't," he answered, are examples of dialogue.
- Lucas and Kayle defeat a robo-bear who is attacking the town is the plot.
Find the actions.

Hints

Actions, or verbs, are what someone is doing. Play, run, say, jump and go are all verbs.

A person, place, or thing is not an action, it is a noun.

An action can be a single verb (jump) or a verb phrase made from a group of words (jumped over the moon).

There are four actions in this text.

Solution

In the text below the actions are shown in bold text.
Very slowly, another robotic-bear flew across the sky over the town. The mayor, frightened, dove under the table. Lucas and Kayle looked at each other and ran in the direction of the new bear.
Name the text.

Hints

Notice the inverted commas around the text. These look like this " ". When do we use inverted commas?

Verbs are actions, such as swim, sing or play.

There is one correct choice.

Solution

What the characters say is called dialogue.
You can recognise it from the inverted commas (" ") around what the character says.
Find the actions and dialogue.
Hints

Read through the entire text first, then go back through and look for the dialogue. You can recognise dialogue from the inverted commas (" ") around the words.

A person, place, or thing is not an action or dialogue.

There are 7 examples of actions and 4 examples of dialogue to highlight.

Solution
Slowly, the robo-bear straightened up and began to float down to the ground, his eyes glowing red and horrible gusts of wind roaring beneath him.
"Hurry!" yelled Lucas, running as fast as he could. "We can't let him reach the ground!"
"YOU hurry up! I'm in front of you!" Kyle yelled back.
"I'm not scared!" yelled the mayor, from under the table.
ACTIONS
- straightened up
- float down
- roaring
- yelled
- running
- yelled back
- yelled
DIALOGUE
- "Hurry!"
- "We can't let him reach the ground!"
- "YOU hurry up! I'm in front of you!"
- "I'm not scared!"