Plot Quotes - Page 9

• I'm obviously very keen on the theater and I think it's inevitable that some of the orchestral and chamber pieces have got dramatic elements which might even suggest an unspecified dramatic plot of some kind or other, even though it's not in my mind at the time.

  Peter Maxwell Davies

  Thinking, Mind, Elements

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• They all laughed. I drew their pictures and they asked for copies and I handed them out as if they were my tickets to the show. In the Navy Yard, I could drink with men because I worked with men; in the Parkview, I could drink with men because I drew their pictures. The world was a grand confusion. Finally, when I was bleary, when my hand wouldn't do what I wanted it to do, I went home. I would lie alone in the dark, feeling that I was a character in a story that had lost its plot.

  Pete Hamill

  Lying, Character, Home

  Pete Hamill (1994). “A Drinking Life: A Memoir”, Wheeler Pub Incorporated

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

  Ray Davies

  Bombers, Politics, Fascists

  Song: Have Another Drink, Album: Soap Opera

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• Every book has got its challenges. You run into a plot point that you can't figure out, or a scene that you struggle to write and have to write 50 times.

  Justin Cronin

  Running, Struggle, Book

  "Book Talk: "Fun" bestsellers a big switch for Justin Cronin". Interview with Elaine Lies, www.reuters.com. November 1, 2012.

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• Crime fiction makes money. It may be harder for writers to get published, but crime is doing better than most of what we like to call CanLit. It's elementary, plot-driven, character-rich story-telling at its best.

  Linwood Barclay

  Character, Fiction, Stories

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• 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

  Writing, Stories, Conflict

  Patrice Pavis (2003). “Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture”, p.57, Routledge

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• It is possible to combine a story line and plot line in the same work. Usually the storylines comes first, serving as a background to the plot line, but not always.

  James N. Frey

  Writing, Plot Lines, Stories

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• The beginning of a plot is the prompting of desire.

  Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

  Writing, Desire

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• The opposing missions of the various characters create the plot.

  James N. Frey

  Writing, Character, Missions

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• Peace proposals unaccompanied by a sworn covenant indicate a plot.

  Sun Tzu

  Peace, Art Of War, Covenant

  Lionel Giles', Sun Tzu (1910). “Sun Tzu's Art of War - Illustrated & Translated for Modern Readers”, p.25, SJ Creations Tokyo

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• [Reviewing the New York City Telephone Directory] But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the weakness of plot is due to the great number of characters which clutter up the pages. The Russian school is responsible for this.

  Robert Benchley

  Funny, New York, Humorous

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• I'm not interested in plots. I'm interested only in the characterization of people and what they do.

  Erskine Caldwell

  People, Not Interested, Characterization

  Erskine Caldwell (1988). “Conversations with Erskine Caldwell”, p.182, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The idea that I'm going to have to sit down to write some fiction where I'm going to have to think of a plot would really scare me, because it would come out a mess.

  Tracey Emin

  Writing, Thinking, Ideas

  Interview with Stephan Collishaw, www.believermag.com. April 2004.

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• ... We must remember that there's more than one story and plot in every novel. There are at least as many stories as there are main characters, and each of these stories has to have multiple plots to keep it going - blood and bone, nerve and tissue, forgotten longing and unknown events.

  Walter Mosley

  Character, Writing, Blood

  Walter Mosley (2009). “This Year You Write Your Novel”, p.28, Hachette UK

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• I once had an editor advise me, as I was revising one of my early novels, to add more characters. I played around with the idea. As soon as I'd decided a few fresh faces and give them something to do, I realized that what my editor had really asked for was more plot. Ding. More characters equals more action.

  Elizabeth Sims

  Writing, Character, Ideas

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• 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.

  Terry Eagleton

  Home, Character, Fiction

  "A puritan at play" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. March 15, 2008.

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• I look for material that both interest me and challenges me. If I am drawn to the material and I have to work hard at it, the characters and the plots reflect the hours and hours of research.

  David Baldacci

  Hard Work, Character, Challenges

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• 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

  Book, Stories, Littles

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• God, I'd love to do a big commercial movie that made a lot of money and whose plot was interesting too.

  Bob Balaban

  Interesting, Made, Bigs

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• 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

  Mean, Together, Literature

  "Crash, bang, wallop what a picture" by Sam Delaney, www.theguardian.com. May 21, 2009.

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• 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

  Thinking, Long, Novelists

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• 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.

  Ned Beauman

  Book, Writing, Important

  "Guardian first book award shortlist: Ned Beauman". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. October 29, 2010.

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• 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.

  Libba Bray

  Pregnancy, School, Class

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• 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!

  Judy Blume

  Character, Ideas, Happens

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• Why does God allow evil in the world? To thicken the plot.

  Ramakrishna

  Evil, Doe, World

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