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)
A Norphanage
We don’t get much of the initial situation: the conflict in this book happens almost immediately. Mostly, we hear about Sophie’s prior life through her dialogue, when she’s already hanging out with the BFG. She lived in an orphanage (or “a norphanage,” in BFG-speak) with nine other girls. The place was ruled by a woman named Mrs. Clonkers who locked them in the basement when they were bad.
Sounds rough, but that’s all we really hear about it before it’s off to Giant Country. Sophie’s a practical girl, and doesn’t seem all that scarred by the experience. So when the BFG carts her off to a new world, the norphanage situation fades into the background as we discover a whole new existence.
Rising Action (Conflict, Complication)
Fee Fi Fo Fum
You want conflict? Try being stuck in Giant Country with terrible food for the rest of your life. Now add the threat of being eaten if you get discovered by other giants. Even a Big Friendly Giant doesn’t cancel out the bad parts of that situation. Sophie knows she can’t stay in Giant Country forever, but it takes knowing that the other giants are eating children every night to push her to act.
Climax (Crisis, Turning Point)
So Crazy It Just Might Work
There are two major climaxes in this story: the moment when the BFG and Sophie try the first part of their plan (convincing the Queen), and then when they’re in the middle of capturing the giants and have to defeat the Fleshlumpeater to succeed in their plan of saving the world’s children from hungry giants. Plenty of suspense is placed on the first part, when Sophie waits for the Queen on her windowsill, wondering if their crazy plan will work. In the second part, they have to act quickly, or the giants could eat all the Queen’s men and them, too. Luckily, they figure out how to work together.
Falling Action
The Trouble with Giants
Even after you capture giants, there’s still work to be done. You have to run through countries of shocked villagers towing a pack of tied-up giants. You have to lower the giants into a deep hole, and then there’s the business of untying their hands and feet. You have to figure out what to feed them. But the BFG manages to do all that with ease, impressing the Queen by thinking of everything.
Resolution (Denouement)
They Might Be Authors
This book’s version of living happily ever after involves the BFG and Sophie getting good food, homes next door to each other, and the BFG getting an education. Our reformed giant learns to speak so properly and read so well that he starts to become an author. This allows for a fun final twist for readers—one that, because of the BFG’s kooky language for most of the book, they never would have guessed. One ginormous author, coming right up.