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
Celebrate Good Times
When Robbie and Andy win their school's basketball game, it's party time. They might be in high school, but they manage to get their hands on some beer, then hit the open road to see what happens. With this, the stage is set for tragedy: Drinking and driving never go well together. But off the boys head anyway, high on their victory while we wait for the fiasco that inevitably awaits them.
Rising Action
Up in Flames
Andy crashes the car into a wall and he, B.J., and Tyrone have enough time to get out before it bursts into flames. As for Robbie? They can hear him screaming inside, but can't get him out, so he dies. This is tough on all the guys, but it's especially hard for Andy, who feels responsible since he was driving the car and shouldn't have been drinking. Plus, his whole life is complicated now: His best friend is dead, his license is gone, and he doesn't care if he lives or dies. Yep, we'd say that's complicated all right.
Climax
Like a Candle in the Wind
As Andy tries to move on and put the accident behind him, his mood goes up and down a lot. He sees a psychologist and works out some of his anger, but then he's reminded of Robbie and all the fun times they had at Christmas when he sees Santa. The breaking point comes one day in English class when they're talking about Macbeth. Their teacher points out a speech that talks about life being meaningless, a feeling Andy increasingly identifies with. He's in major crisis at this point, and no longer interested in fixing himself.
Falling Action
All by Myself
Keisha gets sick of Andy's mood swings and drama, so she dumps him. One night, Andy feels super alone and depressed, though, so he calls her up, only to get her mom on the phone, who tells him Keisha is already asleep. Then Andy calls his psychologist and his coach, neither of who answer. Andy feels like he has no friends and nowhere to turn, so he decides to kill himself.
Does suicide seem like it should be the climax? We totally get why you might think that—it's a pretty major event. But in this book, Andy's suicide is something we've kind of been waiting for, something that's set in motion earlier in the book as Andy toys around with the idea. So when he actually resigns himself to following through, we're actually starting to wrap up loose threads—the point of no return (a.k.a. the climax) precedes this, when Andy loses all interest in fixing his life.
Resolution
Grave Matters
The book ends on a sad note, with the characters trying to deal with the aftermath of Andy's death. His friends are confused and angry and frustrated that he chose this pain for them, and some of them even call him a coward. Even though we don't get a neat little bow at the end with a happy ending, we certainly get a resolution. Andy is no longer bouncing back and forth between ending his life or not, and everyone else is learning to deal with life without him around.