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Plot Quotes

Browse 1030 quotes about Plot.

Plot Quotes

“The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral.”

Writing Art Book Inspiration School Choices Stuff Views Point Of View Dialogue Crafts Plot Workshops Characterization Pacing Word Choice

Author:Garth Stein

“I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.”

Firsts Book Grows Lines Focus Scene Plot

Author:Alexander McCall Smith

“In the preface to his great History of Europe, H. A. L. Fisher wrote: "Men wiser than and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave ..." It seems to me that the same is true of the much older [geological stratigraphical] history of Europe.”

Men I Can Wisdom Seems Science Europe Harmony Wave Patterns Following Rhythm Plot Wiser Emergencies Concealed Geology Predetermined Great History

Author:D. V. Ager

“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

“I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face by saying where the eyes, nose, and mouth are.”

Feels Writing Trying Character Stories Eye Faces Term Expression Mouths Noses Theme Plot Discussing Story Writing

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“In 'Law & Order,' your main job is to stay out of the way of the plot. On another show you'd receive your script and see stuff that seems challenging and feel excited that the writers thought highly enough of you to write it for you.”

Way Feels Writing Enough Shows Seems Jobs Law Order Stuff Challenges Scripts Excited Plot In-laws

Author:Jeremy Sisto

“I can tell you that as a writer and as a reader, I regard character as king. Or queen. No matter how riveting the action or interesting the plot twists, if I don't feel like I'm meeting someone who feels real, I'm not going to be compelled to read further.”

Ifs Feels I Can Real Matter Character Action Interesting Reader Kings Regard Meetings Queens Plot Compelled Twists Meeting Someone Plot Twists

Author:Maggie Stiefvater

“I read Claire Messud's 'The Emperor's Children,' I read Joseph O'Neill's 'Netherland' - but to me, they're not 9/11 novels. In 'The Emperor's Children,' 9/11 felt to me like a piece of the plot; the novel wasn't wrestling with what 9/11 meant. And 'Netherland' felt the same way. I liked both books a lot but I don't see them as 9/11 novels.”

Way Children Book Felt Novel Pieces Plot Wrestling Emperor Claire Netherlands

Author:Amy Waldman

“To me, it all comes down to things being character-driven. It's hard for me to look beyond that. CG and all this cool stuff - so be it. But to me, it pretty much begins and ends with character-driven plots rather than technologically-driven plots.”

Looks Ends Hard Character Stuff Driven Plot Cool Stuff

Author:Billy West

“I feel like I know how to write plot.”

Knows Feels Writing Know How Plot

Author:Mike White

“There's also something happening in television similar to what happened in the '80s, when people stopped taking so many drugs and wanted to hear real instruments in music again. I think people want plot, story and characters. Those are more important than having a big star.”

People Thinking Want Important Real Character Stories Bigs Wanted Stars Happened Television Drug Happenings Instruments Plot 80s

Author:Jessica Pare

“My advice to aspiring writers of fantasy trilogies or series is that each book needs two main plots. There's the 'big story', the over-arching grand plot of the entire series, and there is the complete-in-itself, one-book plot.”

Needs Two Book Stories Bigs Fantasy Advice Series Plot Trilogies Aspiring Writers

Author:Juliet Marillier

“I'm not really a plot writer - I'm more interested in the characters and sort of small events that propel the story forward.”

Character Stories Events Plot Small Events

Author:Sara Zarr

“When the reader and one narrator know something the other narrator does not, the opportunities for suspense and plot development and the shifting of reader sympathies get really interesting.”

Knows Doe Opportunity Interesting Development Reader Suspense Plot Shifting Get Real Really Interesting Narrators

Author:Sara Zarr

“A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.”

Needs Humans Lying Human Beings Plot

Book:The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings

Source: The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings

“I don't think plot as a plot means much today. I'd say that everybody has seen every plot twenty times. What they haven't seen is characters and their relation to one another. I don't worry much about plot anymore.”

Thinking Mean Character Today Worry Havens Relation Twenties Plot

Book:Howard Hawks: Interviews

Source: Howard Hawks: Interviews

“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

“I think action should be revealed through character, so if you have a plot problem, it's probably a character problem.”

Ifs Thinking Should Character Problem Action Plot

Author:Zoe Kazan

“Storylines are how characters create the plots involved in their stories.”

Character Stories Involved Plot Storyline

Author:Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

“People see their own lives as stories; a lifelong story with a single hero or heroine... much contemporary unhappiness is due to the fact that people in high tech societies receive neither strong myths and stories from their culture nor the ability to construct their own... they lose the plot.”

People Facts Stories Culture Strong Loses Ability Learning Teaching Hero Dues Myth Contemporary Plot Unhappiness Constructs Lifelong Heroines

Author:Guy Claxton

“Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of irrational parts.”

Should Possibility Poet Philosophical Mathematical Tragic Plot Irrational Impossibility Improbable Probable Cause

Author:Aristotle

“Life is replete with comedy, drama, horror, suspense, tragedy, romance, mystery, fantasy and a good dose of fiction. While at times the plot may seem to be lacking, the special effects alone are well worth the price of admission.”

Life Wells May Seems Romance Life Is Fiction Fantasy Comedy Mystery Special Effects Drama Horror Tragedy Suspense Plot Lacking Dose Admission Special Effects

Author:Derek R. Audette

“This book has too much plot and not enough story.”

Book Enough Stories Funny Too Much Stupid Plot

Author:Samuel Goldwyn

“I'd love to be able to write crazy epic plots. I'm working on it.”

Writing Able Crazy Plot Epic

Author:Jami Attenberg

“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

“Oh! think what anxious moments pass between The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods, Oh! 'tis a dreadful interval of time, Filled up with horror all, and big with death!”

Thinking Moments Bigs Lasts Birth Periods Horror Conscience Filled Plot Anxious Intervals Filled Up

Book:The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison

Source: The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison

“Nor is there any law more just, than that he who has plotted death shall perish by his own plot.”

Law Murder Plot

Author:Ovid

“My center does not come from my mind - it feels in me like a plot of warm moist well tilled earth with the sun shining hot on it... It seems I would rather feel starkly empty than let any thing be planted that cannot be tended to the fullest possibility of its growth.”

Feels Mind Wells Doe Seems Earth Growth Sun Possibility Empty Hot Shining Warm Plot

Book:Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life

Source: Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life

“Motivation is the power behind plot.”

Motivation Behinds Plot

Author:Elizabeth Moon

“I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.”

Should Believe Character Stories I Believe Creating I Believe In Suspense Plot Creating Characters

Author:Ernest Gaines

“Life and career are the same thing. Every life has to have a plot and a plan. You have to recognize this early and be quite cold-blooded in the discovery and articulation of that plot.”

Careers Plans Cold Discovery Plot Articulation Cold Blooded

Author:Iain Sinclair

“Time and times are but cogwheels, unmatched, grinding on oblivious to one another. Occasionally - oh, very rarely! - the cogs fit; the pieces of the plot snap together momentarily and give men faint glimpses beyond the veil of this everyday blindness we call reality.”

Men Giving Reality Together Pieces Fit Everyday Plot Blindness Glimpse Veils Snaps Oblivious Cogs

Book:THE CTHULHU MYTHOS – Complete Collection: The Children of the Night, The Black Stone, The Thing on the Roof, The Challenge From Beyond & The Fire of Asshurbanipal: The Gateway into the Ancient Dimension of Terror Inhabited with Unspeakable Creatures, a Pantheon of Alien Extra-Dimensional Deities and Mythical Horrors Which Predate Humanity

Source: THE CTHULHU MYTHOS – Complete Collection: The Children of the Night, The Black Stone, The Thing on the Roof, The Challenge From Beyond & The Fire of Asshurbanipal: The Gateway into the Ancient Dimension of Terror Inhabited with Unspeakable Creatures, a Pantheon of Alien Extra-Dimensional Deities and Mythical Horrors Which Predate Humanity

“Reprimand and rebuke should be accepted as healing remedies for vice and as conducive to good health. From this it is clear that those who pretend to be tolerant because they wish to flatter---those who thus fail to correct sinners---actually cause them to suffer supreme loss and plot the destruction of that life which is their true life.”

Should Suffering Wish Causes Loss Healing Clear Failing Destruction Saint Vices Accepted Supreme Sinner Plot Remedy Good Health True Life Rebuke

Author:Saint Basil

“When Moses was alive, these pyramids were a thousand years old. Here began the history of architecture. Here people learned to measure time by a calendar, to plot the stars by astronomy and chart the earth by geometry. And here they developed that most awesome of all ideas - the idea of eternity.”

People Years Ideas Earth Stars Alive Thousand Eternity Architecture Astronomy Plot Thousand Years Moses Geometry Pyramids Calendars Most Awesome

Author:Walter Cronkite

“I don't relax, I don't celebrate. I sit and plot.”

Celebrate Relax Plot Mma

Author:Conor McGregor

“I plot my ascent daily.”

Plot Mma Ascent

Author:Conor McGregor

“The era of television in which I grew up was much simpler than now. Its conventions were quite transparent and fun to think about. Who could ever remember the plot of those shows?”

Thinking Shows Remember Fun Television Grew Grew Up Eras Plot Conventions Transparent

Author:Joe Bradley

“In the theater, you're so much more in charge as an actor. For better or for worse, you know what the audience is seeing. But you can be acting your socks off on film, and then you see the movie, and the camera is on the other actor, or they've cut out the lines you thought were significant, or they've adjusted the plot. So much of it is out of your control.”

Knows Film Actors Lines Acting Audience Cutting Seeing Theater Cameras Significant Plot Sock

Author:Susan Sarandon

“Attention spans are changing. It's very noticeable. I am very aware that the kind of books I read in my childhood kids now won't be able to read. I was reading Kipling and PG Wodehouse and Shakespeare at the age of 11. The kind of description and detail I read I would not put in my books. I don't know how much you can fight that because you want children to read. So I pack in excitement and plot and illustrations and have a cliffhanger every chapter. Charles Dickens was doing cliffhangers way back when. But even with all the excitement you have to make children care about the characters.”

“My sister and brother are both writers as well. We are constantly discussing story and plot lines. And I love to discuss story ideas with my husband.”

Wells Ideas Stories Lines Brother Husband Plot My Husband My Sister Brothers And Sisters Discussing Plot Lines

Author:Ruta Sepetys

“That’s the problem with fiction — or the charm, if you want. Even mediocre plots have a way of sinking their hooks into you, until you find yourself concerned for the fates of characters who aren’t even fully convincing.”

Ifs Way Want Character Problem Fiction Fate Concerned Charm Plot Finding Yourself Mediocre Hook Convincing Sinking

Author:Charles McGrath

“When a book is just a plot, you know, two men fight for the love of a woman in a wild frontier, I immediately ask, 'Why?'”

Knows Men Two Book Fighting Asks Plot Frontiers

Author:Nicolas Roeg

“Unlike most wars, which make rotten fiction in themselves - all plot and no characters, or made-up characters - Vietnam seems to be the perfect mix: the characters make the war, and the war unmakes the characters. The gods, fates, furies had a relatively small hand in it. The mess was man-made, a synthetic, by think tank out of briefing session.”

Thinking Men Made War Character Hands Seems Perfect Fiction Fate Mess Plot Vietnam Session Fury Tanks Rotten Synthetic Briefing Small Hands

Author:Wilfrid Sheed

“As for 'story' I never yet did enjoy a novel or play in which someone didn't tell me afterward that there was something wrong with the story, so that's going to be no drawback as far as I'm concerned. "Good Lord, why am I so bored" "I know; it must be the plot developing harmoniously." So I often reply to myself, and there rises before me my special nightmare that of the writer as craftsman, natty and deft.”

Knows Play Stories Enjoy Lord Novel Special Concerned Developing Bored Nightmare Plot Craftsman Drawbacks So Bored

Author:E. M. Forster

“In economics, unlike fiction and the theater, there is no harm in a premature disclosure of the plot: it is to see the changes just mentioned and others as an interlocked whole.”

Whole Fiction Economics Theater Harm Plot Premature Disclosure

Book:the new industrial state

Source: the new industrial state

“From plots and treasons Heaven preserve my years, But save me most from my petitioners. Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave; God cannot grant so much as they can crave.”

Years Heaven Graves Preserves Plot Grants Crave Womb Barren Save Me

Author:John Dryden

“Culture is a plot against the expansion of consciousness.”

Culture Consciousness Plot Expansion

Author:Terence McKenna

“Fine wits destroy themselves with their own plots, in meddling with great affairs of state.”

States Fine Affair Wit Plot Meddling

Book:The table-talk of John Selden, with a biogr. preface and notes by S.W. Singer

Source: The table-talk of John Selden, with a biogr. preface and notes by S.W. Singer

“A dream inspiring a story is different than placing a description of a dream in a story. When you describe a character's dream, it has to be sharper than reality in some way, and more meaningful. It has to somehow speak to plot, character, and all the rest. If you're writing something fantastical, it can be a really deadly choice because your story already has elements that can seem dreamlike.”

Ifs Way Writing Different Character Stories Dream Reality Seems Choices Speak Elements Meaningful Description Plot

Author:Jeff VanderMeer