What is Story?
Story is not plot. Plot is not story. I think one of the hardest things for beginning writers to understand is that these two words are not synonyms. Plot is a sequence of events, but story is much more. Otherwise, we’d all stop at the outline phase, slap a cover on that bad boy, and call it good.
So what the hell is story?
Richard Parry, author of the Night’s Champion series, and the many Tyche novels (one of which I had the privilege to cover), wrote a blog post on this topic, and–lucky you–he’s a lot more concise than I am.