Plot (the literary element) is the sequence of events in a narrative.

Most diagrams will show you that there are only 5 different parts of plot but there are actually 6. The six parts are as follows and in this order: the exposition, the inciting incident, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and finally the resolution or denouement.

Exposition -- the beginning part of a narrative that gives background information pertaining to the characters and the setting.

Inciting Incident -- the first conflict that gets the rising action going. This conflict usually is the cause of all the other conflicts. (On the diagram above the inciting incident isn't shown, but it would be located at the point where the line begins to go upwards at the beginning of the rising action.)

Rising Action -- a series of relative incidents that get the main character(s) closer to the climax or their overall goal. It's all the conflicts that happen before the climax. Sometimes within each of these smaller incidents there are their own little plots. Say for example that in a story an army is trying to defeat a different army. All the battles leading up to the deciding battle of the war are apart of the rising action.

Climax -- the turning point in a narrative. Be sure to know that this isn't necessarily the most exciting part of the story! The turning point can be where a character has obtained important information that can help them resolve their goal, or it can be where they solve their goal. It's where the mood switches.

Falling Action -- the events that happen after the climax but before the end. During the falling action, things and events are starting to wind down after the turning point.

Resolution or Denouement -- the ending. This is how things turned out in the end after all the previous events.

Be aware that not all stories have a really good ending and perhaps they just leave you off at the climax like the toll-author that they are (cough, Rick Riordan, cough). However, if you don't plan on making a sequel to the book then make sure to have a really good ending so that the reader feels nice about it. The ending is very important as it's probably the thing that most people are going to remember it by. That being said, every single part of the plot is very important.

If you do a bad job at your exposition, then the reader is probably going to be very confused. If you skipped the exposition, it'll be just like you accidentally missed the first 10 minutes of a movie and have absolutely no idea what's going on. However, there are people who prefer to just throw the reader right into the action and if you do that right by incorporating all the necessary background information through dialogue and whatnot, then that's fine; it's when people do that technique wrong that things start to get confusing. That would be the same thing as reading a sequel that requires you to read the first book to understand it. 

However, you don't want to make your exposition too long as well. When being introduced into an entirely new world with new characters sometimes it's necessary if things get really complicated because this is imperative information for the reader to know, but sometimes in other cases you don't need to have it that long. You'll know it's unnecessarily long if you find yourself repeating the same information over and over again. There seems to be a belief that the longer amount of words it takes to explain yourself or get the point across is better, but that's actually entirely false. If you drag the story on too much, then people will lose interest. To have your intended reader lose interest is exactly what you're trying not to do. 

The rising action is the juicy part where you've gotta put in all the conflicts and events that make the story unique and it's where most of the character development happens and where characters create or destroy relationships. If you do the rising action wrong, then things might get boring. 

The climax happens in all stories whether you're aware that that moment is the climax or not. We can all tell when a piece starts to go from happy to depressing or from depressing and hopeless to happy and glorious. We can also tell when something has happened that makes things change whether it be the likeliness someone will win a war or a character realizing just how much of a jerk they've been to their friends. 

The falling action makes everything feel nice. Well, not everything because not all stories have a happy ending (cough, FMA, cough). The falling action is all the events that happen after the turning point so say in that character realizing just how much of a jerk they've been to their friends example, the falling action might contain the character reconnecting with their friends. Or in the example of a battle over land, after the climax of winning the final battle, the falling action might contain the rebuilding of villages. It's important not to make the falling action too fast, because then it'll feel like the story isn't actually over. 

Example:
After the king had surrendered, the other side claimed victory and celebrated. Then they helped rebuild the town and then the prince got engaged to that peasant that they'd been keeping captive and everybody lived happily ever after! YAY!

Imagine there was tons of beautiful writing before that and then that's the ending you get. Your story will definitely get some negative points for having a bad ending. 

Then there's the resolution or denouement. Denouement is actually a French word. (Nous sont avec vous, France.) Same with the falling action, don't make it too rushed. There isn't much that you can mess up with this because it's just how all the characters and the setting ended up in the end. It's hard to make this bad. Some like the omniscient narrator telling the reader all that's happened while others like to have characters actually experiencing the outcome, but no matter what your method is it'll be fine as long as it's thought out. That's why some people were mad at JK Rowling and her end for the famous YA book series Harry Potter because Harry had defeated Voldemort with the power of love and some people thought the ending needed to be stronger. (Personally, I thought that ending was just fine. I mean, those people go write 7 awesome books with complicated characters and setting and tell me how well it goes.)

If you know this, then it becomes easier to spot where your errors are. Someone could say, "I think you need a better exposition," and you'd understand where your mistake was. Or it could be, "I think you need to get rid of lots of your exposition because at some points I just felt like you were just reiterating previous information unnecessarily." Also, I don't know about you but this helps me with organizing my thoughts often. If I'm ever confused about where a story is going, then I just refer back to this diagram and put my sequence of events out so that I know exactly where I'm going with that story. 

The main purpose of this was to help you keep organized. If you've got any questions, ask me in the comments or PM me. If you have any requests for a topic, do that in the comments or PM me as well. 

-Rose B