Quotes About Plot

#1. A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is - full of surprises.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

#2. I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story - better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.

John Irving

#3. Plot a murder, you're saying. But every plot is a murder in effect. To plot is to die, whether we know it or not. [ ... ] To plot, to take aim at something, to shape time and space. This is how we advance the art of human consciousness. (WN 291-2)

Don DeLillo

#4. I always think plot is what you fall back on if you can't write, to keep things going.

Meg Rosoff

#5. One elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

#6. LIFE HAS NO PLOT, WHY MUST FILMS OR FICTION?

Jim Jarmusch

#7. 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!

Devon Monk

#8. I'm frustrated when I see movies in which I feel like the plot is being told to me instead of shown to me.

Channing Tatum

#9. The character can never be static from book to book. People might think you just come up with a new plot and stick this guy in. Well, he has to be as new as the plot every time.

Michael Connelly

#10. I feel a lot of adult fiction looks down on plot as a lesser form of literature.

Lauren Oliver

#11. When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what's going on in the plot, I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish, so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why, but it calms me, calms my brain.

Tea Obreht

#12. I've always wrestled with the difference between plot and structure, and after re-reading a lot of writing books I realized I wasn't alone.

Jeff VanderMeer

#13. Character is the plot in many ways

Junot Diaz

#14. There is no 'right' way to begin a novel, but for me, plot has to wait. The character comes first.

Susan Isaacs

#15. The world of fiction is a sovereign world that comes to life in the author's head and follows the rules of art, of literature. And that is the major difference that is reflected in the form of the work, in its language and its plot. An author invents every aspect of a fiction, every detail.

Imre Kertesz

#16. I am greedy for both Hollywood and Bollywood. For me, Bollywood is not new, as it is something that I grow up on ... I know the plot ... stories and characters that are written and made. I haven't got the right opportunity to show my work in Bollywood.

Tena Desae

#17. I came. I saw the enormous possibilities and power of the human mind. It is the biggest plot of fertile land in the world. We just have to find the right see and the right technique of cultivation.

Debasish Mridha

#18. ... the primary trait of young adult literature is that the author's emphasis is on plot and character and not on his own brilliance. And because few people talk about whether a young adult work is commercial or literary; the two are still in sync, and everyone's benefitting.

Eliot Schrefer

#19. Plot, or evolution, is life responding to environment; and not only is this response always in terms of conflict, but the really great struggle, the epic struggle of creation, is the inner fight of the individual whereby the soul builds up character.

William Wallace Cook

#20. If you let Barnum & Bailey interpret a plot by Stendahl, it might come out to be something like the 1972 Democratic convention.

Gloria Steinem

#21. 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.

Juliet Marillier

#22. I definitely feel that plot flows from character. I don't believe that you can construct a plot and insert people into it.

Lisa Unger

#23. In the real world, babysitting is a groovy way for young people to learn responsibility (and earn a little pocket money).
In the Terrorverse, it's a plot device used to kill teenagers.

Seth Grahame-Smith

#24. A lot of (children's literature) beginners get bogged down by morals. A moral should never be driving the story. And a moral should never be confused with a plot. You can't preach to kids, and you can't talk down to them, either. It's amazing how they sense condescension.

Patty Smith

#25. So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

Jeffery Deaver

#26. I love the Shakespeare history plays; I love the struggle for the crown as a plot.

Mark Gatiss

#27. You can't have a movie with a group of people that are significant players in the story, that push forward the plot, without introducing at least one or two of them.

Evangeline Lilly

#28. As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes.

Andre Dubus III

#29. Fitzgerald's plot may suggest that the American Dream is a mirage, but his words make that dream irresistible.

Maureen Corrigan

#30. The friend I can trust is the one who will let me have my death.
The rest are actors who want me to stay and further the plot.

Adrienne Rich

#31. Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms.

Connie Willis

#32. An action movie should, like any other, follow the narrative traditions of literature. That means there should be subtlety, a slow build and a gradual bringing together of all the separate threads of the plot. To see all of it coming together slowly is very rewarding for the audience.

Shane Black

#33. An idea has no worth at all without believable characters to implement it; a plot without characters is like a tennis court without players. Daffy Duck is to a Buck Rogers story what John McEnroe was to tennis. Personality. That is the key, the drum, the fife. Forget the plot.

Chuck Jones

#34. This is nuts," Travis said, putting A Tale of Two Cities back where he'd gotten it. "I'm giving plot synopses to a dog, for God's sake!" Dropping

Dean Koontz

#35. I wonder if Stephen King ever uses dreams in his writing. You know, as yeast to make the plot rise.

Stephen King

#36. He must shape simultaneously (in an expanding creative moment) his characters, plot, and setting, each inextricably connected to the others; he must make his whole world in a single, coherent gesture, as a potter makes a pot ...

John Gardner

#37. The aim is to produce specific results by your actions, so you begin to do things on purpose. If I leave things to chance, I am losing the plot to make success deliberate, meaning I am increasing my chances of failing in any given task.

Archibald Marwizi

#38. It's not that bad. Conspiracy theories come up whenever people feel like the universe is too random. Absurd. If it's all an enemy plot, at least there's someone calling the shots.

James S.A. Corey

#39. As a creator of character his peculiarity is that he creates wherever his eyes rest ... With such a power at his command Dickens made his books blaze up, not by tightening the plot or sharpening the wit, but by throwing another handful of people upon the fire.

Virginia Woolf

#40. To unlock the writer's block is to keep writing until you can unknot the "not". If you cannot, then put a can in the plot and unwrap it a lot!

Ana Claudia Antunes

#41. Nature never deserts the wise and pure; no plot so narrow, be but nature there; no waste so vacant, but may well employ each faculty of sense, and keep the heart awake to love and beauty.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

#42. Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas.

Harvey Fierstein

#43. The queen of crime, Agatha Christie, was always more concerned about the clockwork cleverness of the plot, never the investigator.

Christopher Fowler

#44. Eli's long fingers cupped her face, traced the nape of her neck, kept her still, as if he needed to give her every bit of his attention, as if he could learn her like a language, plot her like a course. Eli kissed Gracie like she was a song and he was determined to hear every note.

Leigh Bardugo

#45. Plot is what happens in your story. Every story needs structure, just as every body needs a skeleton. It is how you 'flesh out and clothe' your structure that makes each story unique.

Caroline Lawrence

#46. My father used to claim that inanimate objects hate us and plot our downfall behind our backs. He was probably right.

Michael Marshall Smith

#47. In America, if you are a landowner, you own the minerals vertically underneath your plot. So if there is shale, you get a share.

Jim Ratcliffe

#48. I started as a playwright. Any sort of scriptwriting you do helps you hone your story. You have the same demands of creating a plot, developing relatable characters and keeping your audience invested in your story. My books are basically structured like three-act plays.

Suzanne Collins

#49. You learn different things through fiction. Historians are always making a plot about how certain things came to happen. Whereas a novelist looks at tiny little things and builds up a sort of map, like a painting, so that you see the shapes of things.

A.S. Byatt

#50. I love a good plot twist,

Teresa Mummert

#51. The Glittering World is a stunning phantasmagoria drawn from the world just beneath the surface, aswarm with great and memorable characters and a plot that twists and turns as it hurtles forward. A grand debut. One taste, and you'll be addicted.

Keith Donohue

#52. The ones [comedies] that I always liked, whether it's Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, or Fast Times of Ridgemont High, they were all about two hours, or a little bit over two hours. With that extra 15 or 20 minutes, you can get to real character and you're not just stuck in plot.

Judd Apatow

#53. The Thickety is a sinister, magical debut with a marvelous and shocking heroine. J.A. White's elegant writing and masterful plot kept me turning pages late into the night.

Lisa McMann

#54. Life has a very simple plot: first you're here and then you're not.

Eric Idle

#55. Most of us live in a fog. It's like life is a movie we arrived to 20 minutes late. You know something important seems to be going on. But we can't figure out the story. We don't know what part we're supposed to play or what the plot is.

John Eldredge

#56. Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

Nancy Kress

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

Alexander McCall Smith

#58. I enjoyed doing the gag covers better than the story ones because they were usually simpler. A cover based on an incident in the plot took a great deal of staging to tell a little story that was still part of the book. And it had to make sense on its own.

Carl Barks

#59. But he doesn't love her. I invented that. It is a plot if you imagine people in love
the lazy looping criss crosses of love, blows, stares, tears. No. It doesn't happen. No love. People meet, touch, stare into one another's faces, shake their heads clear, move on, forget. It doesn't happen.

Joyce Carol Oates

#60. Storytelling is ultimately a creative act of pattern recognition. Through characters, plot and setting, a writer creates places where previously invisible truths become visible. Or the storyteller posits a series of dots that the reader can connect.

Douglas Coupland

#61. In this funny debut, flashy Filipino fashion designer Boy Hernandez sees his American dream become a nightmare when he's ensnared in a terrorist plot and shipped to Guantanamo. Gilvarry nails the couture scene, but Boy's rough journey from Manolo to Gitmo is no joke.

Andrew Abrahams

#62. In commercial fiction especially, everything in the story usually contributes directly to the plot The shorter the story, the truer this is

Nancy Kress

#63. I don't think I'm a natural novelist. Plot is definitely one of my weaker points. I've been working on it a long time, and it's not getting much better.

Rick Bass

#64. The characters write the plot. Their natures do.

Norman Rush

#65. I tend to favour films that have multiple plot and story lines, multiple characters and ensemble pieces.

Spike Lee

#66. Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.

Chinua Achebe

#67. I'm more interested in plot than theme, but I hope my values find their way into my stories: kindness, sympathy, effort, and humor!

Gail Carson Levine

#68. We began to do little things, have little scenes where we just talked about things that had nothing to do with the plot. In fact, in the beginning, they didn't want us to do that. But as time went on, you see that in so many shows. I think we were the first to do that.

Don Knotts

#69. I try not to divide plot and character. I get to know a character by what they want and fear and how those internal forces play out in their lives.

Julianna Baggott

#70. I began to write fiction on the assumption that the true enemies of the novel were plot, character, setting and theme, and having once abandoned these familiar ways of thinking about fiction, totality of vision or structure was really all that remained.

John Hawkes

#71. While Poe and the Symbolists were exploring the irrational in literature, Freud had begun to explore the resonant figure/ground double-plot of the conscious and unconscious.

Marshall McLuhan

#72. I think a lot of drama, nowadays, is character-based and development-based, but 'True Blood' is very plot-oriented.

Deborah Ann Woll

#73. You cherry-pick events that are relevant to the story question and construct a gauntlet of challenge (read: the plot) that will force the protagonist to put his money where his mouth is. Think baptism by ever-escalating fire.

Lisa Cron

#74. And I do have one surefire plot I have not and probably never will write because of my fear someone will carry it out.

Greg Iles

#75. Typically in horror films the character just services the plot, and you really are just going from 'point a' to 'point b,' just so that you can end up at 'point c.' They are just sort of stick characters. That's just not interesting to me.

Kevin Williamson

#76. It's fair to say I don't know what I'm doing. I like to plot my life and proceed carefully, but life doesn't always follow a plan.

Lisa See

#77. All women know that bridesmaid dresses are a secret plot if the devil.

Helena S. Paige

#78. The plot of the movie seemed stupid to them: Aguirre and everyone were searching for a city that it said right at the beginning did not exist. They didn't understand that that was the whole point. They didn't get that it was awesome because it was so insanely meaningless.

Jesse Andrews

#79. New dramatic writing has banished conversational dialogue from the stage as a relic of dramaturgy based on conflict and exchange: any story, intrigue or plot that is too neatly tied up is suspect.

Patrice Pavis

#80. Prices of semicolons, plot devices, prologues and inciting incidents continued to fall yesterday, lopping twenty points off the TomJones Index.

Jasper Fforde

#81. If disliking Richard be grounds for accusing a man of conspiracy, I daresay you could implicate half of Christendom in this so-called plot. Richard endears himself easiest to those who've yet to meet him.

Sharon Kay Penman

#82. This book has too much plot and not enough story.

Samuel Goldwyn

#83. I started Pilates. I'm the only guy in there. They plot before I get there: 'How can we make John look ridiculous?' Because every exercise involved my legs up, like I'm in the stirrups or something.

John Stamos

#84. The romance is the primary plot in a story that has two plots. The second plot is not a subplot, but one that is interwoven with the romance plot (if that makes sense.) A story needs compelling characters in a compelling plot.

Madeline Hunter

#85. It's one of the most liberating things I experience in writing - letting yourself get rid of a gesture or character or plot point that always nagged, even if you couldn't admit to yourself that it did.

Leslie Jamison

#86. A life without purpose is like a novel without a plot. It wanders all over the place, is hard to follow, and in the end, doesn't get particularly good reviews.

Mardy Grothe

#87. I think the further away you get from completing a book, the more responses you see to it from readers, the more your own tastes and opinions shift and the more you start to see things you could have written differently in the detail, or done differently on the broader scale of plot and character.

Joe Abercrombie

#88. Also, as an author, character has always been what I'm most interested in - much more so than plot or setting, although those are good things too.

Lauren Myracle

#89. There you are, Ariadne," said Robin. "The whole plot of your next novel presented to you. All you'll have to do is work in a few false clues, and - of course - do the actual writing.

Agatha Christie

#90. Aspirations forms the plot of success.

Michael Bassey Johnson

#91. What happens over the next few months is like the plot of a children's movie, the kind where a dog finds its owner in spite of insurmountable odds and prohibitive geography.

Lena Dunham

#92. Nonfiction ties your hands a bit, and just like writing poetry in rhyme, it can force you to make more brutal decisions in terms of word choice, plot, etc.

Emily Susan Rapp

#93. Imagine the people you fear and dislike as pivotal characters in a fascinating and ultimately redemptive plot that will take years or even lifetimes for the Divine to elaborate.

Rob Brezsny

#94. You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds

Dag Hammarskjold

#95. On November 18 of alternate years Mr Earbrass begins writing 'his new novel'. Weeks ago he chose its title at random from a list of them he keeps in a little green note-book. It being tea-time of the 17th, he is alarmed not to have thought of a plot to which The Unstrung Harp might apply.

Edward Gorey

#96. The poem has to bear the weight with image, language ... the screenplay with dialogue, plot ...

Julianna Baggott

#97. Culture is a plot against the expansion of consciousness.

Terence McKenna

#98. This is the problem when you create enemies, Erika. They go off and plot, and often flourish in the shade.

Robert Bryndza

#99. This was how I was going to die - not in battle, not from the plot of some Council member hell-bent on destroying me, but trampled to death by a bunch of pure-bloods. Of all the ways to die.

I was so going to haunt every last one of them.

Jennifer L. Armentrout

#100. High heels are a plot against women, they throw our spines out and stop us from standing on the ground.

Jennifer Clement