Plot Quotes

Be a good listener in the special way a story requires: note the manner of presentation; the development of plot, character; the addition of new dramatic sequences; the emphasis accorded to one figure or another in the recital; and the degree of enthusiam, of coherence, the narrator gives to his or her account.

~ Robert Coles

Now the second common characteristic of fiction follows from this, and it is that fiction is presented in such a way that the reader has the sense that it is unfolding around him. This doesn't mean he has to identify himself with the character or feel compassion for the character or anything like that. It just means that fiction has to be largely presented rather than reported. Another way to say it is that though fiction is a narrative art, it relies heavily on the element of drama.

~ Flannery O'connor

The telling of any character is what they do in a different situation.

~ Sara Sheridan

By mastering character and plot, you give your book a fighting chance and withoutcharacter and plot, no book can survive.

~ Craig Hart

He must shape simultaneously (in an expanding creative moment) his characters, plot, and setting, each inextricably connected to the others; he must make his whole world in a single, coherent gesture, as a potter makes a pot...

~ John Gardner

We are all the construction of a story and it is only at the end that we can assess the value of the plot. (Everybody his story)

~ Erik Pevernagie

Plot twist: everything goes exactly as planned.

~ Criss Jami

Storytelling began as a way for humans to relay information, from where to find food sources to the benefits of familial bonding, because fictional stories were the easiest way to memorize and communicate a complete set of information. We remember information best when it is delivered in the form of a plot, which is called 'semantic memory.' Stories still serve a definitive purpose and the stronger the purpose, the clearer the story.Fire Up Your Writing Brain

~ Susan Reynolds

We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come second—compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait.

~ Aristotle

We must carefully cultivate the voice that speaks to us because an internal voice is the ultimate narrator of our charming and delightful personal story or the documentarian of our tragic and disgraceful plotlines. Stories that we tell ourselves become our functional reality, which format structures the concourse of the nested emotional control panel that guides and girds us through the din of the present.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

What monster sleeps in the deep of your story? You need a monster. Without a monster there is no story.

~ Billy Marshall

Taken together the Internet reads like the grandest character-driven novel humanity has ever known. Not much plot though.

~ Victor Lavalle

A director's dream? No, Bollywood reality in 1995.Business is booming, but cliché's are passée. A different sort of breeze-fresh, young-is unsettling fatigued conventions.

~ Anupama Chopra

The truth is that, just as in the other imitative arts one imitation is always of one thing, so in poetry the story, as an imitation of action, must represent one action, a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. For that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole.

~ Aristotle

Don't resist the urge to burn down the stronghold, kill off the main love interest or otherwise foul up the lives of your characters.

~ Patricia Hamill

(In reply to the question, 'Would you like some suggestions for a plot for your next book?')There are three problems with getting plot suggestions from other people. The first is that ideas are the easy part of writing; finding the time and energy to get them down on paper is the hard part. I have plenty of ideas already. Which brings me to the second problem: the ideas that excite you, the ones you think would make a terrific book, are not necessarily the same ideas that excite me. And if a writer isn't excited about an idea, she generally doesn't turn out a terrific book, even if the idea is terrific. And the third problem with my using your suggestions is that, theoretically, you could sue me if I did, and that tends to make publishers nervous, which makes it hard to sell a book. So thank you, but no.

~ Patricia C. Wrede

A life without trouble and tragedy is boring and not a plot for comedy.

~ Debasish Mridha

Christ in a Pinata` how have I over complicated the plot?

~ Scott Parker

He had no big plan for this. He had not prepared for the day when he would be fighting his own work. He had not plotted against his own plots.

~ Dean F. Wilson

A novel is a tricky thing to map.

~ Reif Larsen

Plot joined the expedition unwooed, as a necessary companion. It was not the scout. The scout was a certain mood. I followed that mood, and let the shape of the story flow from that.

~ Bonnie Friedman

The biggest twist in fiction might be a story ending exactly how you thought it would.

~ Kevin Focke

Some days I feel more like a scribe than a creator. I will have the major points fleshed out, but there is always a turn or two that I didn't see coming, or which came earlier than I expected it to, or not at all...

~ J. Neven-Pugh

Not telling everything you know is not the same as telling a lie.

~ Glenda Bailey-Mershon

The person you are (in total, at that moment in time) is what creates the story you're writing. It's infused in every piece of punctuation, in the plot, in the most minor character who crosses the page. It's all your voice.

~ Victor Lavalle

Archive material is a fabulous starting point - individual documents are like signposted roads, heading to a variety of intriguing possibilities.

~ Sara Sheridan

...you mean you don't fit characters into a plot? excatly...

~ John Geddes

Despite my affection for subtext and plot and prose at its best... life, it turns out, is nothing more than the finer details.

~ Bailey Vincent

T[he rules of writing] require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.

~ Mark Twain