story

A component of narrative, the story consists of the events that happen, whether we directly read them or infer them from what we read. If you list these events in their chronological sequence, you have the story. Not to be confused with the plot, which is the arrangement of those events in the narrative, the story is simply what happens. In other words, there really is no such thing as a plot summary, only a story summary. The distinction is important because a short story or novel is often not nearly as interesting as the way it is told. Most of the time, a work of literature captivates us because it has arranged the events of a story in a way that helps us see its meaning.