Plot Quotes - Page 19

• 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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• 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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• 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 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'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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• 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 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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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 can't stop watching 'Pan Am.' When I was growing up, my father worked as an engineer in Turkey, and we always flew Pan Am. The stewardesses were so glamorous! When they gave me a set of those golden wings, I felt very grown-up. Not only is the show's plot full of mystery and infidelity, they get the period details just right.

  Gayle King

  Growing Up, Father, Turkeys

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• I shy away from plot structure that depends on the characters behaving in ways that are going to eventually be explained by their childhood, or by some recent trauma or event. People are incredibly complicated. Who knows why they are the way they are?

  Rachel Kushner

  Character, People, Childhood

  "I Am a Camera: An Interview with Rachel Kushner" by Sasha Frere-Jones, www.newyorker.com. June 11, 2013.

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• If you stop one terror attack in the U.S., it may be connected to multiple other plots out there that are connected. If you reveal that you stopped one plot, it may tip our hand.

  Patrick McHenry

  Hands, Terror Attacks, May

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• The time has mainly gone on getting Inform into a decent shape for public use. I suppose the plot of 'Curses' makes a sequel conceivable when compared with, say, the plot of 'Hamlet' but none is planned.

  Graham Nelson

  Gone, Use, Shapes

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