The Plot (The Book Series, #1)

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Good writers borrow, great writers steal. —T. S. Eliot (but possibly stolen from Oscar Wilde)

“Congratulations. I wish I read more poetry.” He didn’t, actually, but he wished he wished he read more poetry, which ought to count for something.

Either it’s a good plot or it isn’t. And if it’s not a good plot, the best writing isn’t going to help. And if it is, the worst writing isn’t going to hurt it.”

And actually, if I’m being honest about it, I’m not even sure writing can even be taught. I mean, even by the best teacher.”

One thing we do know is that writers have always helped other writers, whether or not they’re in a formal program together. We all understand that writing is a solitary activity. We do our work in private—no conference calls or brainstorming meetings, no team-building exercises, just us in a room, alone.

You’re only as successful as the last book you published, and you’re only as good as the next book you’re writing. So shut up and write.

To Jake, the word that comprised the relationship between a writer and their spark was “responsibility.” Once you were in possession of an actual idea, you owed it a debt for having chosen you, and not some other writer, and you paid that debt by getting down to work, not just as a journeyman fabricator of sentences but as an unshrinking artist ready to make painful, time-consuming, even self-flagellating mistakes.

A great story, in other words, wanted to be told. And if you weren’t going to tell it, it was out of here, it was going to find another writer who would, and you would be reduced to watching somebody else write and publish your book.

So what was Jake going to do about that? A rhetorical question, obviously. He knew exactly what he was going to do about that.

couldn’t care less. I don’t think I was young even when I actually was young, and that wasn’t yesterday.”