Good plots look so different, book to book. But to grossly generalize, I’d say they all share a clarity of event, purpose, and consequence. Something happened, we want to understand why, and to know what it will mean. And then ideally we care about any of this because it involves characters we believe in, and we believe in them because we’re experiencing them through a narrative voice that is strong and engaging.

–Reagan Arthur, in Slate, May 8, 2014, on what makes for a good plot.