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)
Small Town Fun
Juan Preciado goes to Comala in search of his long-lost father, Pedro Páramo. We can tell things are going to get weird when most of the people seem to know things they can't possibly know, and almost all of them are also Pedro Páramo's children. This is just the tip of the creepytown iceberg.
Rising Action (Conflict, Complication)
Hostess with the Ghostess
Juan Preciado starts to realize that everyone in Comala is, um, dead. This includes the woman that is putting him up. He hears all the deados talking about the terrible things that his father, Pedro Páramo, did. At first Juan Preciado tries to make sense of everything, but finally he gives in to the fact that people are disappearing left and right and he starts asking people point-blank whether or not they're dead. That's an awkward conversation-starter.
Climax (Crisis, Turning Point)
Good-bye, Narrator
Juan Preciado, our narrator, dies of fright when it really sinks in that all the voices he hears in Comala are the voices of the dead. It is highly unusual for a first-person narrator to die halfway through a story, and even more unusual for him to continue narrating after the fact. But this is Comala, and Juan finds himself co-habitating in a coffin.
Falling Action
Hello, Pedro
In a coffin, Juan Preciado finally starts to figure out the life story of his father, Pedro Páramo. He hears Pedro's last wife, Susana, and many others talking about Pedro's dirty deeds (not all of them done dirt cheap, either). Questions brought up in the first part of the novel finally start to be answered.
Resolution (Denouement)
Goodbye, Pedro
Juan Preciado learns that Pedro Páramo was so sad after the death of Susana that he effectively killed off the town by shutting down his ranch (which employed everyone) and also died himself. Juan Preciado's reason for going to Comala is finally laid to rest, and so is the novel.