Plot Quotes - page 15

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)
The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of differing points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox. Differentpoints of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability. View quote
Donald Davidson (philosopher)
I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign. View quote
Nick Hornby
First comes an idea. Then, characters begin to evolve out of the landscape of that idea. And then, finally, characters dominate: plot is simply a function of what these people might do or be. Everything has to flow from their personalities; otherwise it will not be emotionally engaging, or plausible. View quote
Robert Harris (novelist)
With fiction, you can talk about plot, character and narrative, whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with. View quote
Terry Eagleton
I wrote two plotted books, got some of the fundamentals of storytelling down, then... it's sort of like taking the training wheels off, trying to write a book that's fun in the same way without relying on quite such mechanical or external beats. View quote
Jonathan Franzen
It's very liberating for me to realize that I don't have to step up to the plate with a plot that involves the U.N. Security Council. View quote
Jonathan Franzen
When I was younger, I talked to the adults around me that I respected most about how they got where they were, and none of them plotted a course they could have predicted, so it seemed a waste of time to plan too long-term. Since then, I've always gone on my instincts. View quote
Anderson Cooper
In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move. View quote
Henry Rollins
When the members of any nation have come to regard their country as nothing more than the plot of ground on which they reside, and their government as a mere organization for providing police or contracting treaties; when they have ceased to entertain any warmer feelings for one another than those which interest or personal friendship or a mere general philanthropy may produce, the moral dissolution of that nation is at hand. View quote
Nile Kinnick
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)
I've never sat there and plotted out how I was going to become successful or famous. View quote
Jennifer Aniston
I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write. View quote
J. K. Rowling
No other story I have written has anything like this effect on my readers - producing at once an unshakeable memory of the plot and an unshakeable forgettery of the title and even author. I think it may be that the story fills them so frighteningly full, that they can retain none of the side-issues. View quote
Isaac Asimov
They're puttin' music to AIDS germs--putting a drum machine behind them and a metronome beat and Ted Turner's colorizing them, goddamn it. These aren't even really people, man. It's a CIA plot to make you think malls are good. Don't you see? View quote
Bill Hicks
Why do the characters in Jane Austen give us a slightly new pleasure each time they come in, as opposed to the merely repetitive pleasure that is caused by a character in Dickens? Why do they combine so well in a conversation, and draw one another out, without seeming to do so, and never perform? The answer to this question can be put in several ways; that, unlike Dickens, she was a real artist, that she never stooped to caricature, etc. But the best reply is that her characters, though smaller than his, are more highly organized. They function all round, and even if her plot made greater demands on them than it does, they would still be adequate. View quote
Jane Austen
I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically. View quote
Alexander McCall Smith
Sometimes my plot lines are so convoluted, I get calls from friends at 3 am saying; you SOB, you'll never pull this one off. View quote
Clive Cussler
Surely it was time someone invented a new plot, or that the author came out from the bushes. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Real life seems to have no plot. View quote
Ivy Compton-Burnett
You forget everything. The hours slip by. You travel in your chair through centuries you seem seem to see before you, your thoughts are caught up in the story, dallying with the details or following the course of the plot, you enter into characters, so that it seems as if it were your own heart beating beneath their costumes. (Gustave Flaubert)
I'm really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose! View quote
Judy Blume
Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. View quote
Harvey Fierstein
So much of the literature we had to read for high school English class was filled with victimized, tragic, symbolic women who spurred the plot forward with their inevitable shunning/death/shunning-followed-by-pregnancy-followed-by-death timelines. View quote
Libba Bray
Characters, even though they're minor, shouldn't be a device. No person should be a device to move the plot along. That's when you run into problems with stereotypes. I strive, in my journalism and my fiction, to make characters as complex and complicated as they are in real life... View quote
Vanessa Hua