Best pages & plot Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.”

Ifs Writing Book Character Moving Purpose Behinds Reader Comfortable Pages Ultimate Smell Block Novelists Plot Outlines Phony Plausible Synopsis

Author:Clive Cussler

“History meets romance meets suspense! Compelling, original and wildly romantic, Beatriz Williams’ prose is stunning and the plot edge-of-your-seat gripping. OVERSEAS is an absolute triumph—I loved every page.”

Romance Pages Absolutes Originals Edges Triumph Suspense Seats Prose Plot Compelling Stunning Gripping

Author:Tilly Bagshawe

“I don't really know what an adverb is. A dangling participle? That sounds really rude. I don't know what character is, really. Plot seems vaguely juvenile to me. It's all about language, it's all about how you apply it to the page.”

Knows Character Seems Language Sound Pages Plot Rude Juvenile Adverbs

Author:Colum McCann

“It is a little out of touch to presume that someone wants to follow your every observation and insight over the course of hundreds of pages without any sort of payoff. That's why writing isn't a one-way street. You have to give something back: an interesting plot, a surprise, a laugh, a moment of tenderness, a mystery for the reader to piece together.”

Way Want Giving Writing Littles Moments Together Courses Interesting Laughing Pieces Mystery Streets Reader Pages Surprise Insight Observation One Way Plot Tenderness Payoff

Author:Christopher Bollen

“In a 22-page comic, figuring an average of four to five panels a page and a couple of full-page shots, a writer has maybe a hundred panels at most to tell a story, so every panel he wastes conveying a.) something I already know, b.) something that's a cute gag but does nothing to reveal plot or character, or c.) something I don't need to know is a demonstration of lousy craft.”

Knows Needs Doe Book Character Stories Five Four Couple Waste Pages Hundred Shots Average Crafts Comic Cute Plot Comic Book Demonstration Gags Conveying

Author:Mark Waid

“Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from the reader? Do you promise to observe seemly moderation in the use of gangs, conspiracies, Super Criminals and Lunatics and utterly and forever to forswear Mysterious Poisons unknown to science? Will you honor the King's English? ... If you fail to keep your promise, may other writers steal your plots and your pages swarm with misprints.”

Ifs May Use Novel Forever Failing Mystery Reader Kings Honor Promise Pages Criminals Stealing Mysterious Poison Plot Conspiracy Swear Moderation Clue Gang Swarms Mystery Novels

Author:Dorothy L. Sayers

“Night Owls is a fast, fun read that kept me turning the pages. Lauren M. Roy delivers a plot that zips, dialogue that zings, and a cast of characters you'll cheer for to the very end. Thumbs up!”

Ends Character Night Fun Pages Casts Dialogue Plot Cheer Thumbs Owl Zips Lauren Thumbs Up Night Owl Zing

Author:Devon Monk

“I better make the plot good. I wanted to make it grip people on the first page and have a big turning point in the middle, as there is, and construct the whole thing like a bit of a roller coaster ride...”

People Firsts Whole Bigs Wanted Middle Pages Plot Constructs Turning Points Roller Coaster Coasters Roller Coaster Rides

Author:Mark Haddon

“I could never be a part of an adaptation of a film where there's pressure to not disappoint the immense fan base. In those cases, they often wind up with filmed books on tape, quite uncinematic. Having said that, I'd say all the adaptations I've done are quite faithful to the original... You have to pick and choose which storylines and plot threads, because you don't have the time to kill in the film as they have in novels. All those pages with detours and plots and different storylines. But films add a lot, and you gotta keep it moving.”

“I don't really care about plot; I want to have a page-turner in a different kind of way.”

Way Want Kind Different Care Pages Plot Different Kinds Turner

Author:Barry Hannah

“I calculated the total time that humans have waited for web pages to load. It cancels out all the productivity gains of the information age. Sometimes I think the web is a big plot to keep people like me away from normal society.”

People Thinking Humans Sometimes Bigs Age Information Internet Normal Pages Gains Productivity Like Me Plot Load Information Age Web Page

Author:Scott Adams

“I became much more interested in plot when I really didn't consider myself a writer anymore. When I was in an art context and I started to do installations, that was when writing of mine almost returned to fiction. Earlier I felt like I didn't have anything to write about, I could only concentrate on the page, I could only concentrate on words.”

Writing Art Felt Fiction Mines Pages Plot Installation

Author:Vito Acconci

“In the years since The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, Voinovich has sharpened his satire, and Monumental Propaganda is a novel that slashes and rips -- but not on every page. He expands his narrative to accommodate shrewd philosophy and inventive portraiture, a very amusing disquisition on Soviet latrines and a number of outlandish plot developments. In his translation, Andrew Bromfield deftly shifts his tone and tools as required, remaining true to Voinovich's Vonnegut-like playfulness and appreciation of the absurd.”

“The books people are writing today, they're too long. You get a little bit of plot, and then pages and pages of Creative Writing. They teach classes in how to do this. They should teach classes in how to stop!”

People Should Writing Littles Long Book Today Bits Class Teach Creative Little Bit Pages Plot Creative Writing

Author:Douglas Adams

“A novel can educate to some extent, but first a novel has to entertain. That's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with - who may not often read anything but the Sears catalog - to read my books.”

“Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.”

Matter Character Voice Stage Pages Wounds Internals Plot Length Seconds Monologues

Book:A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-fiction

Source: A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-fiction

“I was born in the era of the novel. I've written many, as well as collections of poetry, and essays for mouthing off. I've written to inches, word-counts, page-counts, even the sonnet and the screenplay (which I call a plot poem). I write narrative. That's it. I just want to tell it.”

Want Writing Wells Born Novel Written Pages Eras Narrative Collections Plot Inches Essays Sonnet Screenplays

Author:Julianna Baggott

“The writer I adore is Ivy Compton-Burnett.I couldn't get more than a few pages in when I first read her. In many ways, she is very clumsy and her plots are rubbish. But we don't read her for that. There are pages and pages of dialogue. What it requires is real effort and attention.”

Way Firsts Real Effort Attention Pages Dialogue Plot Adore Rubbish Ivy Clumsy Compton

Author:Hilary Mantel

“If you read a book that's fiction and you get caught in the characters and the plot, and swept away, really, by the fiction of it - by the non-reality - you sometimes wind up changing your reality as well. Often, when the last page is turned, it will haunt you.”

Ifs Wells Book Sometimes Character Reality Lasts Fiction Wind Pages Caught Plot Swept Away

Author:Jodi Picoult

“I think it's a bit like coming to the end of a book. The plot's in its thickest, all the characters are in a mess, but you can see that there aren't fifty pages left, and you know that the finish can't be far off.”

Thinking Knows Book Ends Character Left Bits Pages Mess Fifty Plot

Book:MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR

Source: MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR

“Living "in" a story, being part of a narrative, is much more satisfying than living without one. I don't always know what narrative it is, because I'm living my life and not always reflecting on it, but as I edit these pages I am aware that I have an urge to see my sometimes random wandering as having a plot, a purpose guided by some underlying story.”

Knows Sometimes Stories Purpose Pages Wander Narrative Plot Urges Satisfying Living My Life Reflecting Edits

Book:Bicycle Diaries

Source: Bicycle Diaries

“I like big books and I cannot lie. You other readers can’t deny That when a kid walks in with The Name of the Wind Like a hardbound brick of win. Story bling. Wanna swipe that thing Cause you see that boy is speeding Right through the book he’s reading. I’m hooked and I can’t stop pleading. Wanna curl up with that for ages, All thousand pages. Reviewers tried to warn me. But with that plot you hooked Me like Bradley. Ooh, crack that fat spine. You know I wanna make you mine. This book is stella ’cause it ain’t some quick novella.”

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