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.
So, you might be asking yourself, Plot? What plot? This is just some 1970s lady thinking about stuff. And in a way, you're correct.
If you think of classic plot structure as "character gets into situation, situation gets complicated, situation gets really complicated, character takes an action to resolve situation, situation is resolved," you'll be hard-pressed to apply that structure to Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Instead, we have a character who asks a question, seeks an answer to that question, has a crisis of faith, reconsiders, and redefines faith.
Or, to put it another way: She wonders some stuff, she sees some stuff, she questions some stuff, she learns some stuff. So that's exactly how we're going to approach this.
Exposition
She Wonders Some Stuff
Dillard holes up with a stack of books in a cabin by Tinker Creek. She begins the story by recalling her former cat, who jumped through the window in the middle of the night and gouged her with his claws. She says, "We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence…" (1.2). She wants to understand the natural world—namely, why it's simultaneously beautiful and violent, and what's up with this death thing.
It's winter, and Dillard spends a lot of time wandering beside the creek, looking for signs of something bigger than herself.
Rising Action
She Sees Some Stuff
What stuff, you ask? Creatures, Shmoopers. Lots of creatures.
But wait…What is this seeing? That's going to be a big question throughout the book, so get ready. Dillard ponders how she'll never be able to see creatures (or anything else, for that matter) in the way a specialist sees it, because specialists know what to look for. When you know how to scan the environment for elements of the thing you're trying to see—its color, for example, or its shape—you have a better chance of seeing it.
She's not a scientist, but she reads a lot of science and a lot of Thoreau. The latter proposed keeping "a meteorological journal of the mind," or a detailed diary of your thoughts and observations, so that's what she's going to do. Get ready for some hardcore looking.
Climax
She Questions Some Stuff
You know how people think of nature as beautiful? Yeah, not so much. The more Dillard sees, the more she realizes we're all just so many logs in a wood chipper. God goes to all this trouble to create stuff, she thinks, to make something as intricate as the veins in a leaf or the circulatory system of a goldfish, only to have most of it get eaten.
Why should there be such intricacy and fecundity in the natural world if it's so easy for everything to die? Why is there such excess? What's up with a God who would allow so much suffering? Dillard's asking the big questions at this point.
Falling Action
She Learns Some Stuff
Dillard realizes she can't judge nature by human standards. Death isn't good or bad, it's just part of the deal, and creatures aren't immoral, they're just doing what they have to do to survive—the world can be beautiful and ugly at the same time. She considers two separate kinds of offerings, the "wave offering" and the "heave shoulder." In the first, the priest waves the offering in the air over the altar, lifting it up to God; in the second, he flings the offering, heaving it at God. Both, she thinks, are appropriate. We have to appreciate the beauty of God's creations, but we also have to stand up for them.
Resolution
She Thinks You Should Know Some Stuff
Beauty and suffering exist simultaneously—you've learned that lesson. Now here's another:
Just because we're all mortal and wounded and doomed doesn't mean you should stop being thankful, nor does it mean you should stop looking deeply at everything you see. Instead, you should suck up as much awe and joy and wonder as you possibly can during your time as an insignificant speck of flesh. Stop praying "please," and start praying "thank you." Sing, dance, and read difficult books, because what else are you going to do?
(Pro tip: "Play video games" and "Post on Twitter" are not acceptable answers for Dillard.)