The first and most important characteristic of a story is its plot. A good plot holds everything together and is as important to a story as air is to us. Poorly written plots are almost like throwing away the entire script. Dialog is not a necessity, but a good dialog can establish everything about a character more than a simple description can (even if it IS a marvelous description) and the relationships between characters. Endings are probably one of the most important parts of any stories. They take every word of that story and bring them to a simple line or a complicated paragraph. .
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is set around the time of the Civil War and has the main character narrate both present and past. Ambrose Bierce gives an incredible and beautiful snapshot of the scene describing the water, the guards, and his restraints. " Vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer rested on the forearm thrown strait across the chest- a formal and unnatural position" (pg. 43, line 13). This story gives a prime example of the saying "his life flashed before his eyes". He envisioned his escape just before his death, making himself picture the rope breaking and plunging him into the water, rushing up to shore and running towards home. Only after he reaches him, we find that he actually died there. .
Even though this story gave incredible description, detail, and twists; that was the whole content of the story. Plot was almost non-existent. The author became carried away with so mush description that he forgot to leave in a conflict, solution and all that crap. Although I am not fond of the missing plot, I thought the last minute twist was incredibly done. It was a simple ending that no one expected. A single sentence starting," Peyton Farquhar was dead- .
