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
It's a Hard Knock Life
As the curtain rises on Billie Jo's story, we get a glimpse of the status quo for the Kelbys. Billie Jo's family might look pretty normal on the surface, but there's more to the picture than meets the eye. Amid the hard times of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, Billie Jo struggles with meeting her parents' expectations, especially her father, who wanted her to be a boy.
While she loves life on her parents' farm and playing piano with local musicians, she longs to see what lies beyond her small Oklahoma hometown. Things seem to be looking up, though, as Ma is going to have another baby, bringing a much-needed dose of hope to their home.
Rising Action
Up in Smoke
Life as Billie Jo knows it comes to an abrupt end when a series of mistakes lead to deadly consequences. Ma mistakes a bucket of kerosene for water while making coffee and starts a fire, while Billie Jo accidentally throws the flaming bucket in her direction in an attempt to get it out of the house. Then Ma dies in childbirth a few days later, plus Billie Jo's hands are scarred by the flames. Needless to say, she and her father are never going to be the same.
Climax
She Took the Midnight Train Going Anywhere
As time passes, Billie Jo has a harder and harder time communicating with her father. The situation with the farm grows direr, as the dusty, drought conditions keep wheat from growing. When she realizes that Daddy has spots on his skin and isn't getting them looked at despite a family history with cancer, she reaches her breaking point. If he's going to die and leave her alone, it's time for Billie Jo to move on—so she leaves her house in the middle of the night and hitches a ride on a boxcar.
Falling Action
There's No Place Like Home
An encounter with a drifter on the train causes Billie Jo to reconsider her decision to leave, and she decides to return home where she belongs. Her father picks her up at the train station and the two begin to finally talk things out—he agrees to go to the doctor and Billie Jo chooses to forgive her father for leaving the kerosene by the stove. The struggle they've been through over the last year is at last starting to draw to a close.
Resolution
Back in the Saddle Again
Having learned from Billie Jo's short-lived exodus west, she and Daddy emerge from their grief and hardship to begin a new life. Louise, the teacher from a night school class he attended, slowly joins their family as Daddy's lady love, and Billie Jo starts using her hands more to get them to heal. She enjoys playing piano for Louise when she visits and looks forward to the day she marries her dad.