Plot Quotes

I would love to travel to the future to plot out some things so there's no more guess work.

I read a lot of literary theory when I was in graduate school, especially about novels, and the best book I ever read about endings was Peter Brooks' 'Reading for the Plot. '

It was important to me to put together a future history that would scan, and serve as the backdrop to the domestic story. Economics is really what drives the plot.

I definitely feel that plot flows from character. I dont believe that you can construct a plot and insert people into it.

I have a catch-phrase to describe my plot-generation technique -- 'What's the worst possible thing I can do to these people?'

The rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask: 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to *this* guy?' And then do it.

The general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways genuine intelligence combines with equally genuine ignorance.

Oh, how great is the power of truth! which of its own power can easily defend itself against all the ingenuity and cunning and wisdom of men, and against the treacherous plots of all the world.

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.

plot is character in action.

But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.

Younger people have greatest fears. Why is that? Because they don't know the plot. They don't know their own individual plot... they don't know what's going to happen to them.

Plot is merely the mechanism by which your character is forced up against her deepest fears and desires.

I love the Shakespeare history plays, I love the struggle for the crown as a plot.

In comedy, the witty style wins out over every mishap of the plot.

It takes work to plot a course that is both thrilling and truthful, but it's worth it.

I think I was annoyed going through the '90s just as a guy who loves music. There wasn't a lot of music for me. Everything was groove driven. We lost the plot with the melody. There's no more melody.

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.

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.

I feel like I know how to write plot.

Every search has its own momentum. It is why a search makes such an excellent plot for a film or story.

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.

It seems to me that the basic plot of all historical novels is a romance swept aside by history.

Working on the plot/story idea for my next novel ... It always takes time.

I think people try to jam a lot of artificial plot devices into a lot of romantic comedies, and they don't treat it with the respect I believe it deserves.

The characters write the plot. Their natures do.

There's not a woman in the book, the plot hinges on unkindness to animals, and the black characters mostly drown by Chapter 29.

I'm a pantser. I try to plot. I always try to plot. I end up with a few paragraphs that basically outline the gist of the story.But I never get much beyond that. I get too impatient to write.

I know from experience that I make the best decisions when I'm into the story and inspired by the story, not when I'm sitting there trying to plot.

I do try to plot about a chapter ahead once I get going. I have a list of upcoming scenes with little notes about them. But sometimes the story changes and I don't end up following that.

I like fast plots with things that explode.

Sometimes I'll hear a phrase or a word and write it down in my little black notebook (a writer's best mate), then come back to it and work a plot around it.

In writing, I'm totally anti-plans of any kind. All my attempts to plan and plot novels have come to grief, and in expensive ways.

I like having a plot, I like characters with a reason to get up in the morning.

To save my son, I would plot with the devil himself.

If a writer is true to his characters they will give him his plot. Observations must play second fiddle to integrity.

Nothing aids which may not also injure us. Fire serves us well, but he who plots to burn His neighbor's roof arms his hands with fire.

Terrorist bombers on the left, fascist plots on the right.

When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun.

I like writing non-fiction - and when you pick a [non-fiction] subject, it saves you the hassle of coming up with a plot.

My muse is an ungrateful harlot who’s abandoned me to actually come up with my own plots.

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.

I had to learn the image is not the word, which is a jolt for a literary soul. But it has served me well in terms of understanding plot, in terms of watching actors develop characters.

Paul Levinson has outdone himself: The Plot to Save Socrates is a philosophically rich gem full of big ideas and wonderful time-travel tricks.

Steve [King] has been incredibly supportive. He's also really good about getting back to me when I have questions about plot or characterization.

I've paid the price; I definitely have a reputation that precedes me, and there is a camp that plots my demise. But then again... it's funner that way.

A lot of my early career, I wrote story songs that had narratives, that had plots.

I actually think it's going to be the intriguing plot [ in Black Snake Moan] point that brings people into the film.

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.