 Plot, in very basic terms, can be thought of as the what happens of a story. A non-literary definition is a plan or a scheme to accomplish some purpose. In literary terms, the plan or the scheme is the sequencing of events laid out by the writer in order to achieve the purpose, which is the intended emotional outcome for the reader. This is often best illustrated in Freitag's Pyramid, which has one base, which is the X-position, and the X-position is the beginning of the story. This then leads into rising action, which not surprisingly leads into the climax. This is then followed by the other side of the Pyramids, which is known as the falling action, which leads, finally, to the end of the story known as the resolution, or sometimes called the den du mot, one of the many French words that we have taken into English. The X-position serves a number of functions. Most importantly, it introduces the main character, or characters, and secondary characters. It also sets, it gives the setting of the story where things are happening. Very importantly, it also introduces conflict, because without some form of conflict, we can't have a story. This conflict is often captured in what we call an inciting incident, which is an event which drives the action forward and pushes us into the next phase, which is the rising action. The rising action increases the suspense, and usually, although not always, the situation is becoming more difficult for the main character or characters. The climax is a turning point of the story. At this point, things can never go back to the way they were for the characters in the X-position. It's often the most exciting part of the story. We then move into the following action. This is when the characters will struggle to find some sort of resolution to the event that happened in the climax. This then leads us into the resolution. Now, although resolution may sound positive, the end of a story is not always happy. However, the main character usually or characters will have found a greater degree of honesty or stability that they lacked in the X-position.