Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition (Initial Situation)
Prince Fab
Meet Prince Fabrizio di Salina, a large moody guy who realizes that his family's royal history is coming to an end. Foreign troops are about to absorb his home island of Sicily into the new United Italy. He tries to get his mind off of what's happening by seeing a mistress, but it doesn't really help. He can feel himself getting older by the day, and he knows that he's not going to leave much behind once his family loses its royal status. That said, he doesn't see all that much that's worth protecting in the Sicilian aristocracy. He knows that his family has had its day. Now it's time for Italians to give democracy a shot.
Rising Action (Conflict, Complication)
A Pleb and a Party
Prince Fabrizio takes his family to their country estate in Donnafugata to take their minds off all the political stuff happening around them. While there, Fabrizio's nephew Tancredi falls in love with a local girl and becomes engaged to her. Meanwhile, foreign troops take over Sicily and hold a public vote (a plebiscite) asking people whether they'd like to join Italy. Everyone knows that the people will vote "yes," but the officials rig the vote just in case.
A visiting government official asks Prince Fabrizio if he'd like to be a senator in the new Kingdom of Italy, but Fabrizio refuses, saying that the rigging of the plebiscite showed too much disrespect. Besides, the Prince has gotten weary with the world and no longer has the competitive fire that's required to survive in the new Italy.
Climax (Crisis, Turning Point)
The Aristocrat Formerly Known as Prince
Sixteen years after the unification of Italy, Prince Fabrizio dies of old age. In his final moments, he sees an angelic woman standing over his bed and welcoming him into the next life. He has always been bitter about the collapse of his royal family, but he knows in the end that he'll find peace in death.
Falling Action
Sisterhood of the Travelling Relics
Twenty-two years after the death of Prince Fabrizio, we look in on his three daughters, who are all seventy or older. A local religious official comes to inspect the holy relics in their chapel to see if they're appropriate for a place where mass is being held. He determines that most of them aren't and advises the sisters to throw them out. The sister Concetta suddenly feels a lot like her father did at the end of his life. She wonders what, if anything, she's leaving behind.
Resolution (Denouement)
Leopard or Garbage?
Thinking back on her life, Concetta decides to throw out Bendicò, the old family dog who's been stuffed and preserved since she was a little girl. When the servant carries the dog to the trash bin, Concetta thinks that she sees a leopard—the emblem of her once-aristocratic family—running. But it only lasts a second. Then she realizes that she just saw Bendicò going into the garbage. Ooof. That hurts.