The theme of a book is the general message, or subject, or unifying idea of the entire book. The plot of the book are the main events or sequence of that book. For example, the theme of a book may be 'relationships'. In the book there may be several couples falling in or out of love. The plot would be the story that happens to each of these couples, including all the main events that ties the story together. The theme of the book is simply 'relationships' or 'love'.

A plot is a storyline. A theme is the main idea. E.g. The plot is about a woman who meets a man on the internet but she’s actually already met him in person before but doesn’t know it’s him. She falls in love with him online and is then disappointed when she meets him in real life and discovers it’s the man she despises. The theme is about people’s misconception that they can fall in love with someone they’ve never met.

The Lord of the Rings has two major themes. The first is "good versus evil". This classic theme is present in almost all art. In this novel good seeks to destroy evil and evil seeks to destroy good. The second theme is "the power of friendship, altruism and self-sacrifice", because there are many moments within the novel where the characters place the well-being of others above their own safety, or even survival. How do we explore these themes? We explore them through plot. The plot of a story describes the events. The plot of Lord of the Rings begins when Bilbo leaves his magic ring to Frodo, who then discovers it's evil nature through the wisdom of Gandalf. Frodo then begins a quest to destroy the ring by throwing it into a volcano. That is the basic plot which is used to explore the themes of the novel. By the way, the "quest" is what is known as a "plot device". Some other plot devises are; meet-cutes, MacGuffins, love triangles and Deus ex machina. Did you enjoy the James Bond film Skyfall? One of the themes, and here I must say that all films have more than one theme, but anyway, one of the themes is "aging out of usefulness". James Bond is becoming useless as the younger generation takes over MI6. To explore this theme we develop a plot (or story) which challenges his abilities in incredible ways. We also introduce a series of plot devices like "red herrings" to push the audience into believing that Bond is indeed becoming useless. For example, Bond is shown contemplating this painting... https://tinyurl.com/tpksgs4 ...while sitting beside the new/young/tech savvy character. The painting is The Fighting Temeraire, a famous piece of art which explores the same theme as Skyfall.

Thank you David Thanks again Anna Thank you for correcting my mistakes

sad that I can not delete....