Plot Quotes - Page 8

• I took many notes, more than usual before I sat down and wrote Act One, Scene One. I had perhaps eighty pages of notes. . . . I was so prepared that the script seemed inevitable. It was almost all there. I could almost collate it from my notes. The story line, the rather tenuous plot we have, seemed to work out itself. It was a very helpful way to write, and it wasn't so scary. I wasn't starting with a completely blank page.

  Charles Busch

  Writing, Work Out, Scary

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• I usually base my characters on composites of people I know. One trumpet player in SIDE MAN is really a mix of four different guys I knew growing up. Patsy , the waitress, is a mix of about three different people. I like doing it that way. I start with the characters, as opposed to plot, location, or some visual element. I write more by ear than by eye. I always work on the different sound of each character, trying to make sure each has a specific voice and speech pattern, which some writers could care less about.

  Warren Leight

  Growing Up, Eye, Writing

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• Consider: for all the gobbledegook [film studio] executives spout about backstory, all that we, the audience, want to know is what happens next. That's the only thing that's going on. . . . Character is nothing other than action, and character-driven means The plot stinks, and you'd better hope the star is popular enough to open the movie in spite of it.

  David Mamet

  Stars, Character, Mean

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• I had a plot connection that nobody understood for this fourth character, and decided, Oh, nobody gets it, that's all. I'll write another draft to make her make sense. It took me awhile to learn that these three people were the core of this play, which seems so obvious now.

  Richard Greenberg

  Writing, Character, Play

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• I love to play with language; make it do tricks, turn a word inside out to see if it's got a hidden meaning tucked away somewhere, or perhaps find that it's capable of an extra entendre or two. . . . Plotting is nothing I did, or do, naturally. It is the hardest part of the writing process. No matter how many times you plot a script successfully, the next one, representing new and uncharted territory, convinces you that you really don't know how to do it at all.

  Larry Gelbart

  Writing, Play, Two

  "Laughing matters". Book by Larry Gelbart, www.nytimes.com. 1982.

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• I was not interested in doing the plot of Oedipus in blackface. I did wonder, what would these people have been like if they hadn't been in that situation?... One could look at Oedipus, or at my character Augustus, as a cynical schemer who did everything because he was hungry for power. But that's just too easy. I'm more interested in how humans can embody conflicting goals and emotions.

  Rita Dove

  Character, Oedipus, People

  "The darker face of the earth". American Theatre, November 1, 1996.

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• Three characteristics a work of fiction must possess in order to be successful:
  
  1. It must have a precise and suspenseful plot.
  
  2. The author must feel a passionate urge to write it.
  
  3. He must have the conviction, or at least the illusion, that he is the only one who can handle this particular theme.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Writing, Successful, Order

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Raphael Soyer (1981). “Lost in America”, Doubleday Books

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• What the devil does the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?

  George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham

  Devil, Doe, Fine Things

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• Every so often you want to map out your plot mythology but never so specifically that you can’t let a story surprise you. You want to allow the type of action of the writer’s room so that you have the ability to take a left turn.

  Eric Kripke

  Want, Rooms, Stories

  "Creator Eric Kripke Discusses The Essential Supernatural: On the Road with Sam and Dean Winchester". Interview with Amanda Dyar, www.dreadcentral.com. December 18, 2012.

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• I believe the most intricate plot won't matter much to readers if they don't care about the characters, especially in a series. So I try to focus hard on making each character, whether villain or hero, have an interesting flaw that readers can relate to.

  Jeff Abbott

  Believe, Hero, Character

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• What I loved about romances was the character, and I think I still bring that to my novels. What romance taught me was that the 'who' will always matter more than the 'what.' It's fun to come up with plots, but I want to make sure the reader cares about who it's happening to.

  Lisa Gardner

  Fun, Character, Thinking

  "Cosmo's Book Club: Meet Your Next Must-Read". Interview with Gabrielle Frank, www.cosmopolitan.com. March 9, 2010.

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• I like to believe my suspense novels marry the strong characters from my romance writing past, with the twisty, clever plots of my mystery writing present.

  Lisa Gardner

  Strong, Clever, Believe

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• 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.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Steps, Realizing, Step Up

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• I'm not a good crime writer. I'm not good with plots... so I have to do something else.

  Karin Fossum

  Crime

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• My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.

  Jeffery Deaver

  Book, Character, Useless

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• I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.

  Anita Desai

  Character, Trying, Stories

  "Class Interview with Anita Desai". www.baruch.cuny.edu. 2003.

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• My temper manifests itself when I can't find something. I could swear that there is a plot against me to put kitchen utensils in the wrong drawers.

  Tom Conti

  Kitchen, Utensils, Drawers

  "This much I know: Tom Conti". Interview with Shahesta Shaitly, www.theguardian.com. March 26, 2011.

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• A lot of cop shows, because they have the restraints of having a new case every episode, the victims often become these kind of nameless, faceless plot points, and as an audience we don't feel anything for those people.

  Mireille Enos

  People, Kind, Cop

  "Angelface Mireille Enos Hunts Devils on The Killing". Interview with Jennifer Arrow, www.today.com. April 23, 2011.

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

  Nancy Kress

  Writing, Fiction, Stories

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• Fiction writers come up with some interesting metaphors when speaking of plot. Some say the plot is the highway and the characters are the automobiles. Others talk about stories that are "plot-driven," as if the plot were neither the highway nor the automobile, but the chauffeur. Others seem to have plot phobia and say they never plot. Still others turn up their noses at the very notion, as if there's something artificial, fraudulent, contrived.

  James N. Frey

  Character, Writing, Interesting

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• 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

  Writing, Character, Gestures

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• I always have one or two, sometimes more, Navajo or other tribes' cultural elements in mind when I start a plot. In Thief of Time, I wanted to make readers aware of Navajo attitude toward the dead, respect for burial sites.

  Tony Hillerman

  Attitude, Two, Mind

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• My key interest in choosing scripts is character-driven stories, because there are so many stories that sacrifice character for plot.

  Lasse Hallstrom

  Character, Sacrifice, Keys

  "Soft-centred". Interview With David Eimer, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2001.

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• We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of Westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration.

  Hu Jintao

  Long, Fields, Dividing

  "China’s President Lashes Out at Western Culture" by Edward Wong, www.nytimes.com. January 3, 2012.

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• I began to be impressed by what made a good book-how you needed to have a sensible story, a plot that developed, with a beginning, a middle, and an end that would tie everything together.

  Dorothy Fields

  Book, Ties, Together

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