The Vault is Slate's history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here. In this two-page outline for ...

Outline, her eighth novel, moves further still from plot-driven narrative. Its storyline, such as it is, spans a few days in the life of its narrator, a divorced English writer named Faye who ...

When you're writing a book (actually, a series of books) with a bunch of plot lines, you need a way to keep track of what's going on. How can you structure the book so that everything fits ...

This provides a summary of the central concerns of the text, but it is too long and detailed to act as an introduction to an essay. Robin Jenkins’s ‘The Cone-Gatherers’ is a moving story ...

The questions in this quiz are suitable for GCSE English Literature students studying the plot summary of A Christmas Carol. If you struggled with the quiz, don't panic - we've got you!