Plot Quotes

• The main plot line is simple: Getting your character to the foot of the tree, getting him up the tree, and then figuring out how to get him down again.

  Jane Yolen

  Character, Simple, Plot Lines

  Jane Yolen (1989). “Guide to writing for children”, Writer

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• Conspiracy! Intrigue! A rapidly thickening plot! Add some bestiality and a lecherous priest and I'd say you have the beginnings of a beautiful novel.

  Marquis de Sade

  Beautiful, Add, Conspiracy

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• The characters are the plot. What they do and say and the things that happen to them are, in a sense, what the plot is. You can't take character and plot apart from each other, really.

  Terry Pratchett

  Character, Happens

  "Terry Pratchett on his latest novel, his medical diagnosis, and more". Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. November 16, 2012.

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• Plot is just a fancy way of saying 'and then.

  Erica Jong

  Fancy, Way

  Erica Jong (2007). “Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life”, p.235, Penguin

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• Plot comes first. The plot is the archictecture of your novel. You wouldn't build a house without a plan. If I wrote without a plot, it would just be a pile of bricks. Characters are your servants. They must serve your plot.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Character, House, Firsts

  The Writers Write Interview, writerswrite.co.za. February 10, 2015.

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• All plot comes from the character's trying to get something, to achieve something, wanting, desiring, longing.

  Robert Olen Butler

  Character, Trying, Longing

  Robert Olen Butler (2007). “From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction”, p.139, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.

  Harper Lee

  Writing, Character, Dimensions

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• Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

  Nancy Kress

  Character, Conflict

  Nancy Kress (2004). “Dynamic Characters”, p.159, Writer's Digest Books

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• A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise... Because this is how life is full of surprises.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Writing

  "Isaac Bashevis Singer Talks …About Everything". The New York Times Interview, www.nytimes.com. November 26, 1978.

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

  Margaret Bechard

  Character, Desire, Deepest Fear

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• Once somebody's aware of a plot, it's like a bone sticking out. If it breaks through the skin, it's very ugly.

  Louis Auchincloss

  Break Through, Skins, Ugly

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• The real story is not the plot, but how the characters unfold by it.

  Vanna Bonta

  Real, Character, Stories

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• A plot is like the bones of a person, not interesting like expression, or signs of experience, but the support of the whole.

  Ivy Compton-Burnett

  Expression, Interesting, Support

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• 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

  Purpose, Ends, Reviews

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• There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.

  Anais Nin

  Inspirational, Life, Book

  The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1, 1931-1934.

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• Character is half the reason we read. We're excited because of the plot, but we care because of the characters.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Character, Half, Care

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• The whole magic of a plot requires that somebody be impeded from getting something over with.

  Renata Adler

  Magic, Whole

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• I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face by saying where the eyes, nose, and mouth are.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Character, Eye, Writing

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.89, Macmillan

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• Character is the plot in many ways

  Junot Diaz

  Character, Way

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• The reason I collect good ideas is because plots themselves are very difficult indeed to come by.

  Roald Dahl

  Ideas, Reason, Difficult

  Roald Dahl (2017). “The Roald Dahl Treasury”, p.560, Penguin UK

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• No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.

  W. H. Auden

  Funny, Music, People

  Quoted in Time, 29 Dec 1961.

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• Think of it as the Doorway of No Return. The feeling must be that your lead character, once she passes through, cannot go home again until the major problem of the plot is solved.

  James Scott Bell

  Home, Character, Thinking

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• In a novel, the biggest symbiosis exists between plot and character. In a song, it would be the lyrics and the melody.

  Jesse Michaels

  Song, Character, Would Be

  Source: therumpus.net

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• There is no vengeance as terrible as the vengeance a coward plots in the dark of his heart.

  Glen Cook

  Heart, Dark, Coward

  Glen Cook (2007). “Chronicles of the Black Company”, p.331, Macmillan

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• Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR per G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE

  Mark Twain

  Order, Narrative, Moral

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "Notice" (1884)

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