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.
quote by Jeffery Deaver
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I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.
quote by Jim Jarmusch
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Essentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they are in. It is a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters.
quote by Elizabeth George
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The play-writes curse
The play-writes curse
~
Give me a stage
and the world to write
give me characters
to fit my plot line
give me time and money
to assemble my script
that I may play with ideas
and work what fits
give me the option
for a sudden plot twist
give me set designers
who understand my mind
and actors to follow
whatever my command
give me wine and ink
that I may drink them both
in all my madness
give me your hope
give me this and a stage
that I may write you a play
but please I beg of you
before you give me anything
give me the opening line
poem by Matthew Holloway
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You can't remember the plot of the Dr Who movie because it didn't have one, just a lot of plot holes strung together. It did have a lot of flashing lights, though.
quote by Terry Prachett
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The Shining Star Around You
I am the shining star around you,
And like a plot size, '100 x 120' in your neighbourhood;
But, i need a lovely house on this plot to rest my muse,
For, the hatred around us today had led many to war! !
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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This means keeping many trails open at once, inevitably requiring a fairly 'parallel' plot. This plot should be discovered rather than announced, so show, don't tell.
quote by Graham Nelson
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Many Noble Men
Many noble men
Many ignoble men....
have stood back to back
And fought in trenches
For some noble cause
And died like fools
To satisfy the warmongers
Who sit in their comfortable palaces
And plot
And plot
And plot.........
How to fill their coffers
How to expand their tents
How to create a holocaust
That will turn respectable, genteel folk
Into brute beasts and killers;
And without emotion
They send,
Many noble men
Many ignoble men...............
To their untimely death.
poem by Enoch John
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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.
quote by Graham Nelson
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I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.
quote by Anita Desai
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Going mad
going mad
It would appear that I ve gone mad.
I completly lost the plot.
In a world full of hatered and pain.
In a world that is normal to others.
Mine is very insane.
Now I no im mad.
I no Im insane.
I ve lost the plot.
Im going mad its clear to me by the day.
Hearing voices seeing people.
How the hell can one say Im normal?
Amy Kerswell
poem by Amy Louise Kerswell
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So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.
quote by Jeffery Deaver
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That is what I define as a novel: something that has a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters and a plot that sustain interest from the first sentence to the last. But that is not what I do at all.
quote by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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I plot the first 5 or 6 chapters quite minutely, and also the end. So I know where I am going but not how I'm going to get there, which gives characters the chance to develop organically, as happens in real life as you get to know a person.
quote by Joanna Trollope
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Quite casually I wander into my plot, poke around with my characters for a while, then amble off, leaving no moral proved and no reader improved.
quote by Thorne Smith
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I remember the guest stars who came, they were always trying to find a new plot for their characters because they wanted to stay. It was really a great working environment.
quote by Caroline Dhavernas
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I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.
quote by David Brin
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Sestina: Terminataur
Enveloped by the glow of bedside light,
a small child listens spellbound to a plot.
A parent tells a story quite absurd
of cyborgs, birds and dinosaurs, most mean.
A science fiction tale of keen-edged claw
and culminating fast with time machine.
‘A fearsome shrewd reptilian machine
was lurking ‘mid striated cycad light.
His iridescent scaly skin and claw
advising ‘gainst the trespass of his plot.
A grey bird hovered close; what could it mean?
and conversation flowed; now that's absurd'!
‘Tyrannosaurus said, 'You're quite absurd',
'a cyborg bird with so-called time machine',
'and plans which sound both devilish and mean',
'involving death by catastrophic light'.
'You wish to beg my pardon for the plot',
'and ask respectfully to shake my claw'? ! ? ! ? ! '
‘The cyborg bird said, 'Cousin, take my claw',
'I'm your descendent, though it sounds absurd'.
'Our fourth millennium A.D. course is plot',
'whereby we triumph over man machine'.
'I'm here to guide the bird-made meteor light',
'so we can wing ascent; see what I mean'? '
‘Just then a ratty mammal, snide and mean,
who hid within the cycad's curving claw,
quick swiped the heedless bird in dusky light
and thereby foiled cretaceous scheme absurd.
The meteor missed and dinosaur machine
retained its topmost spot, in spite of plot'.
The father closes zany fiction plot
and though his sharp-toothed grin looks wily mean,
he is a loving dinosaur machine.
The sleepy dino-child lets go his claw
and slips into a dreaming world absurd.
He kisses scaly snout and dims the light.
The moral here is both absurd and light.
I mean by this: Beware the bird machine
which may still plot to claim the upper claw.
poem by Diane Hine
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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.
quote by Tony Hillerman
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Silk-Washing Temple
As the states of Wu and Yue piled plot upon plot,
the silk-washing goddess offered ease;
a pair of laughing dimples turned the prince's head,
and a hundred thousand soldiers let fall their shining spears.
Fan Li, having succeeded, went into retirement;
Wu Xu died for his advice, and his country was wiped out.
And yet, today, by the long river at Zhuji,
there's nothing but a green hill named Zhu Luo.
Typically in horror films the character just services the plot, and you really are just going from 'point a' to 'point b,' just so that you can end up at 'point c.' They are just sort of stick characters. That's just not interesting to me.
quote by Kevin Williamson
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