Quotes About Plot

This is called the theory of narrative causality and it means that a story, once started, takes a shape. It picks up all the vibrations of all the other workings of that story that have ever been.

MARY: Hysterical mutism is most often associated with trauma, such as an assault of some sort. I learned that in Vienna, when we were discussing symptoms of madness before Diana was— CATHERINE: Could you please not spoil the plot for our readers? You can talk about researching symptoms of madness all you want when I get to Vienna. I mean when you get to Vienna, later in the narrative.

Judgments and secrets are what make a good novel.

The key is a good story. If you have a good story, you have enough emotional beats that you can hit.

I think that different pleasures work for different readers - a friend of mine won't read anything that's not a cardiovascular sort of page-turner. I tend to care less about plot, but I'm a sucker for humor and strangeness.

Is a twist less satisfying if you know it's coming? Is a twist that you can't predict symptomatic of bad construction? These are things to consider when writing.

The Beauties" by Anton Chekhov, "The Doll's House" by Katherine Mansfield, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J. D. Salinger, "Brownies" or "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" both by ZZ Packer, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel, "Fat" by Raymond Carver, "Indian Camp" by Ernest Hemingway.

W-MT: There was a book I read about in the New York Times Book Review. It had a red cover, maybe? A.J.: Yeah, that sounds familiar. [Translation: That is excessively vague. Author, title, description of the plot—these are more useful locators. That the cover might have been red and that it was in the New York Times Book Review helps me far less than you might think.] Anything else you remember about it? [Use your words.]

He is a reader, and what he believes in is narrative construction. If a gun appears in act one, that gun had better go off by act three.

W-MT: There was a book I read about in the New York Times Book Review. It had a red cover, maybe? A.J.: Yeah, that sounds familiar. [Translation: That is excessively vague. Author, title, description of the plot—these are more useful locators. That the cover might have been red and that it was in the New York Times Book Review helps me far less than you might think.] Anything else you remember about it? [Use your words.] A.J.

If a gun appears in act one, that gun had better go off by act three.

Es menos satisfactorio un giro si se ve venir? ¿Un giro que no podemos prevenir es síntoma de mala construcción? Hay que plantearse estas cosas al escribir.

Proto-postmodernist story of a habitual gambler and his bested frog. The plot isn't much, but it's worth reading because of the fun Twain has with narrative authority. (In reading Twain, I often suspect he is having more fun than I am.)

I was racing to pull on my pants, since it seemed ridiculous to be standing in my underwear as the deputy head of Russia's spy agency spilled his guts about some earthshaking plot.

is boring to most people. Nothing happens. On the other end of the spectrum is the story that uses characters who are simply buffeted around by the story. Things happen to them, and character and

The evil plan is most harmful to the planner

My needs were simple. I didn't bother much with themes or felicitous phrases and skipped fine descriptions of weather, landscapes and interiors. I wanted characters I could believe in and I wanted to be made curious about what was to happen to them.

Narrative Tension is primarily about witholding information.

Turning points are the inventions of storytellers and dramatists, a necessary mechanism when a life is reduced to, traduced by a plot, when a morality must be distilled from a sequence of actions, when an audience must be sent home with something unforgettable to mark a character's growth.

Younger people have greatest fears. Why is that? Because they don't know the plot. They don't know their own individual plot... they don't know what's going to happen to them.

There's almost always a point in a book where something happens that triggers the rest of the plot.

I think my favorite film of all time has to be 'The Illusionist' by Sylvain Chomet. Beautiful plot, beautiful story. You know, not much happens, but it's beautiful. And when I was young, 'The Triplets of Belleville' was one of my favorite movies. I liked his style a lot.

I think a lot of composers get into trouble just making up a plot and expecting an audience to follow that.

I think a lot of drama, nowadays, is character-based and development-based, but 'True Blood' is very plot-oriented.