Quotes About Plot

Remember, Remember, the fifth of November: Gunpowder, Treason and Plot. We know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot . . .

A show like Knots or any other show that can be called a soap opera does terribly in syndication because if you're a viewer and you miss a week you don't know what's going on.

You set up a story and it turns inside out and that is, for me, the most exciting sort of story to write. The viewer thinks it's going to be about something and it does the opposite.

Giving consumers the choice of having it all in one big bite means different viewers are in many different places in the book, making it hard to discuss without spoiling the plot. The intervals between first-run programming provide a space for communion and that tantalizing sense of anticipation.

The more films and TV shows I spoil for myself, the more I am convinced that truly interesting stories can't be ruined - the plot thickens with the viewing like a rich sauce.

It was a challenge for me to do a plot because I'd been an essayist and a journalist. I had to be vigilant about moving things along and being entertaining.

The villain in superhero movies is often, I think, what makes the movie.

I'd love to do a James Bond-y kind of villain!

Usually, you just have a hero and a villain - in any movie, not just a superhero movie.

I have always felt a comedy's story is undercut if you have a villain who is not really menacing.

See, a villain takes the story forward. If everything centers around nice people, then there will be no twists and turns.

Browning's tragedies are tragedies without villains.

Soap opera seems to be a dirty word, but actually they are the most popular shows we have. People want to know what happens next, people hate the villains and love the lovers. It's good, fun TV. But I wouldn't call 'Downton' a soap opera as such.

I don't want to write about violence, and I don't want to hang a plot on a murder. I think it's cheap.

Two things I do well in books are sex and violence, but I don't want gratuitous sex or violence. The sex and violence are only as graphic as need be. And never included unless it furthers the plot or character development.

I don't like to go to the movies to see violence or some kind of spy thing with all kinds of information you have to assimilate to understand the plot.

DePaul's plot to deny me tenure had nothing to do with my faults. In fact, and ironically, it viciously attacked me and destroyed my career because of my virtues. Which, although few in number, they still found threatening.

Storytelling is ultimately a creative act of pattern recognition. Through characters, plot and setting, a writer creates places where previously invisible truths become visible. Or the storyteller posits a series of dots that the reader can connect.

Ooh conflict, the heart of any juicy story.

She was making a conscious effort to take with her all the best things about the world she wanted to leave, just in case memories could be car-ried in one's pockets and used to plot out the course of whatever it was that came next

A foreign enemy out to destroy America could not have devised a more effective and insidious plot.

The beginning of a plot is the prompting of desire.

Characters are story. And any great plot or subplot is driven by the characters' wants and desires.

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