And so with all the preliminaries on which your plot is based—­they must motivate what follows.  Remember that forces or persons outside the two characters may lead them to quarrel.  Swiftly but carefully lay your foundations (mostly out of sight, in the manner of a good builder) so that your building may be solid and steady—­so that your story may not fall because the groundwork of the plot does not appeal to the spectator as being natural, convincing, interesting, fresh, and vivid; these words bear reiteration.

(b) The complication, or struggle, including all its immediately surrounding events, must be (usually) surprising, of deep concern to the chief character, and arouse the anxiety of the spectator as to how the hero will overcome the obstacles.  Jack discovers that the girl he has just learned to love is the well-loved sister of his college enemy.  How will this complication work out?  An interesting series of movements and counter-movements immediately becomes possible, and any number of amusing or pathetic circumstances may arise to bring about the denouement—­which simply means the untying of the knot.

The struggle in a plot may be either comical or tragic.  Mr. Botts ludicrously fights against a black-hand enemy—­who proves to be his mischievous small son.  Plump and fussy Mrs. Jellifer lays deep but always transparent plans to outwit her daughter’s suitor and is finally entrapped into so laughable a situation that she yields gracefully in the end.

And so on indefinitely.  Hamlet wars against his hesitating nature.  Macbeth struggles with his conscience that reincarnates the murdered Banquo.  Sentimental Tommy fights his own play-actor character.  Tito Melema goes down beneath the weight of his accumulated insincerities.  Sometimes light shines in the end, sometimes the hero wins only to die.  To be sure, these struggles suggest merely a single idea, whereas plots often become very elaborate and contain even sub-plots, counter-plots, and added complications of all sorts.  But the basis is the same, and always in some form struggle pervades the drama; always this struggle ranges the subordinate characters for or against protagonist and antagonist, and the outcome is vitally part and substance of all that goes before—­the end was sown when the seeds of the beginning were planted.  This touches upon the third element: 

(c) The Denouement, or disclosure of the plot just before its close, is one of its most vital parts.

“Novelty and interest in the situations throughout the story, with an increasing interest in the denouement, are the essential demands of a plot."[12]

[Footnote 12:  Evelyn May Albright, The Short Story.]