Quotes About Plot

He was too young to know that, in any novel with a reasonable amount of forethought, there were no coincidences.

The only reason for something to happen in a novel is that it's the perfect thing to have happen at that time.

But comedy is ingrained. A writer doesn't choose to be comic. You can choose a plot, or not to have one. You can choose your characters. But comedy is not a choice; it just comes out that way.

My becoming a Canadian citizen was part of the plot.

How is it Shadows! that I knew ye not? How came ye muffled in so hush a mask? Was it a silent deep-disguised plot To steal away, and leave without a task My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour; The blissful cloud of summer-indolence Benumbed my eyes; my pulse grew less and less; Pain had no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower: O why did ye not melt, and leave my sense Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness?

A film with an untidy plot cannot grip the audience and define their emotional response.

Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies.

I know from experience that I make the best decisions when I'm into the story and inspired by the story, not when I'm sitting there trying to plot.

In principle, this is a useful idea for writers at all stages: if a good story plot somehow won't work out right, it may be that the point of view is in the wrong place.) There

I think it possible that I have watched too many blue movies for it to have a lasting hold on me. If you grow accustomed to wall-to-wall, even the slightest shred of mystery or plot can become an agitation. Who cares why these people have found themselves in this banal, suburban tract home in Burbank? He is not a delivery man; she is not a bored housewife. They are not the stars---their orifices are. Let them open.

In mathematics, in place of characters, you have variables or unknowns. If I'm trying to plot a theorem, I try to imagine these variables interacting with each other. The boundary of their interaction is the theorem.

God is a hack," he said. "He's a writer on an awful science fiction television show, and He can't plot His way out of a box. How do you have faith when you know that?

I mean that you and I know that in this universe, God is a hack, he said. He's a writer on an awful science fiction television show, and He can't plot His way out of a box. How do you have faith when you know that?

It was then that Doc devised a method for getting revenge on a bank if anyone should ever want to. 'Rent a safety deposit box,' he said, 'then deposit in it one whole fresh salmon and go away for six months.

You get to that point in life where change is inevitable. A change in scenery, a change of wardrobe, a change in the structure of things. It's a step that's necessary in order to move your plot forward.

My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.

If life is just a stage, then we are all running around ad-libbing, with absolutely no clue what the plot is. Maybe that's why we don't know whether it's a comedy or tragedy.

But it seems to me that in these days there is a tendency to mix up the genres and forget that the novelist's business is rather to weave a plot and edify his readers than to fiddle away at producing a frontispiece or tailpiece in drypoint.

When he picked out the [gravesite] plot, my father had joked that he was moving, at last, to the suburbs.

Mary awoke from her nightmare with a pounding heart, convinced that she had only imagined Elizabeth's cruel plot. A full moon was shining into her chamber, illuminating everything around her in silvery light. That was when she noticed for the first time that there were bars on her window.

Oh my," she said, feigning innocent. She fanned a hand over her face. "Revenge is so sweet!

I am using the phrase "the hidden machinery" to refer to two different aspects of novel making: on the one hand how certain elements of the text—characters, plot, imagery—work together to make an overarching argument; on the other how the secret psychic life of the author, and the larger events of his or her time and place, shape that argument. (p. 29)

The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizens of this plight.

Friendship between two women is always a plot against another one.