Plot Quotes

“We can build up a significant life story of our own and enjoy the richness and depth of its plot if we don’t want to surrender to external forces to shape our lives and don’t yield to a lack of mindpower. ("Everybody his story")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“He felt the gun buck in his hand, saw his target fall forward, but he heard nothing. He was deaf.”
― Paul A. Barra, Strangers and Sojourners: A Big Percy Pletcher thriller

“When Pletcher smiled up at him, he began flexing his fingers. He might even have growled faintly.”
― Paul A. Barra, Strangers and Sojourners: A Big Percy Pletcher thriller

“The dog was standing guard at the rail of the Hatteras, looking at the harbormaster and a woman on the pier in front of her.”
― Paul A. Barra, Strangers and Sojourners: A Big Percy Pletcher thriller

“In a movie, people only talk when they want something. If your characters are not pursuing their needs in the scene, they are invariably talking about the movie they are in.”
― Dan Joseph Decker, ANATOMY OF A SCREENPLAY THIRD EDITION

“Some Cutting Advice by Stewart Stafford

Before you pick up your knife,
To run your enemy through,
Know the entry wound bleeds red,
And the exit thrust bleeds blue.

Not because they are of noble birth,
But they are protected by a mighty hand,
Not just of those moneyed and influential,
But the mightiest hands in all the land.

So stab with caution, I urge you,
For the blade jabs back in your gut,
Swallow the bile that fuels you so,
Lest it be your throat you cut.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“When I start writing a new story, I often begin with setting. Before plot, before dialogue, before anything else, I begin to see where a story will take place, and then I hear the narrative voice, which means that character is not far behind. Lately I've been thinking a lot about landscape painting and literature, and perhaps as an extension of this I have started to think through this idea of character and landscape as similar things, or at least as intimates, co-dependent.”
― Amina Cain, A Horse at Night: On Writing

“A story tells us what happened, but a plot tells us why”
― E. M. Forster

“The feeling of desperation was fast becoming more like wishing to return to a book whose plot has just reached a climax when one is torn away by workday matters.”
― Liz Braswell, Unbirthday

“plot is character in action; character is revealed and shaped by plot.”
― Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines

“You can't go wrong if all of the characters in your movie are at least as intelligent as most of the characters in your audience.”
― Roger Ebert

“We tend, in discussion, to reduce stories to plot (what happens). We feel, correctly, that something of their meaning resides there. But stories also mean through their internal dynamics—the manner in which they unfold, the way one part interacts with another, the instantaneous, felt, juxtaposition of elements.”
― George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

“The Trifecta Plot by Stewart Stafford

Break moneyed bread,
and a morsel of food,
is now a parcel of land.

Entreat in obsequious sell,
and the jewel of their loins,
is wed of beauteous hand.

Purloin the coffers golden,
and a cutpurse rules as king,
with no forswearing planned.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“One might suppose from such a beginning that Friday is to be a futuristic James Bond adventure. It’s not, though the action is often of that ilk. However, the action is rarely anything but icing on the cake and rarely servees to advance the plot.
There is a plot, though the author contrives with great grace to let it all take place in the reader’s peripheral vision.”
― Thomas M. Disch

“Dramatic tension is the real curse of the novel, because it transforms everything, even the most beautiful pages, even the most surprising scenes and observations merely into steps leading to the final resolution, in which the meaning of everything that preceded is concentrated.”
― Milan Kundera, Immortality

“The Comedy of Errors has been consistently under-appreciated, I’d argue, in part because we don’t know how to appreciate plot. Contemporary culture, the study and performance of Shakespeare, and our own intrinsic narcissism tend to encourage the view that character is destiny. Errors challenges this humanistic view of the world by emphasizing, in ways that anticipate the experience of modernity, the alienation of a mechanical universe. Think Charlie Chaplin on the accelerating assembly line in Modern Times (1936), and you have something of the comic terror captured in The Comedy of Errors.”
― Emma Smith, This Is Shakespeare

“So one elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“The Diverted Imperium by Stewart Stafford

Welcome to my lush vineyard,
As we crush poison grapes,
Forcing that last vinegar sip,
Of this “first citizen’s” foul wine.

In spite of meeting in night's shade,
It is not the taint of shame's veil,
But a new dawning concealed,
Our hand to reveal in due course.

Fellow senators, my brethren!
Men of honour, and, you, Brutus;
The noblest of all at our gathering,
But your eyes are on yonder hill.

Our dreamer’s conference tonight:
Seeks sacrifice, not bloodlust;
A fly caught in Necessity’s web,
And, is no more, for that is Nature.

Stakes of the bear pit arranged,
A swift consumption of power,
Nipping retaliation in the bud,
Smoothing our ascendancy.

A patriot in a traitor's pall?
Liberty's stars in alignment
Or noose of the ill-omened?
History’s verdict in absentia.

The hand beneath the cloak
Shakes the dagger mightily,
Mercy’s coup de grâce stills,
Bloody tip to inked treaties.

Once the bloodshed has passed,
Martial backing shall follow,
And our regime commences,
The Imperium by right diverted.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“In my education it seemed I was always being told to mistrust plot as a phony conceit that betrayed and warped literary art. This, of course, is total bullshit, one of the more useless remnants of so-called modernism. The truth is that life breaks down into plot quite neatly when we choose to see it that way, and narrative is one of the most fundamental human instincts there is.”
― Nic Pizzolatto

“Whoever comes attack and kill you will make a plot of guilt, considers himself good and consider you bad.”
― Kamaran Ihsan Salih

“You wrote me and all these other people into a story that robbed us of our free will. These past few weeks, I felt like someone was forcing me to do things I didn't want to do, feel things I didn't want to believe. As if an unseen force was guiding my every movement. You turned us from people into characters with stories that you predetermined. You were playing with our lives without even knowing it. And you put us in terrible danger.”
― Ellen Oh, The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee

“I suppose my attitude toward the creative process is much like that of Alexandre Dumas pere when he was approached by a young aspirant who boasted that he was going to write a novel much better than either “The Three Musketeers” or “The Count of Monte Cristo”.
‘Have you an attractive setting?’ the veteran writer asked politely, and the young man replied: ‘The greatest! Ominous islands. Gleaming castles. Wooded glens with gracious mansions.’
‘Have you interesting characters?’
‘Kings and princesses and dubious cardinals.’
‘But have you a logical plot to tie this together?’
‘A most ingenious one. Twists and turns that will bewilder and delight.’
Said Dumas: ‘Young man, you’re in excellent shape. Now all you need are two hundred thousand words, and they’d better be all the right ones.’”
—Chapter IX, “Intellectual Equipment”, pages 311-312”
― James A. Michener, The World Is My Home a Memoir

“Your agency bio lists that you enjoy "tightly plotted novels" told from "a distinct point of view" with "dynamic, engaging characters" that make you "laugh or cry." Given that my novel is, in fact, a book, I believe it would be the perfect fit for your list.”
― Zilla Novikov, Query

“Some things transcend human understanding and whatever this feeling is that Siren's planted within me has taken root and I have a bad feeling that trying to remove it will do permanent damage to my insides.”
― Candice Clark, The Fence and the Musician

“The woman was fucking infuriating.

Incapable of compromise, stubborn to a fault, and, God help me, the most stunning creature I've ever had the misfortune of fucking.”
― Candice Clark, The Fence and the Musician

“Healing cannot be counted or weighed or measured. It's redefined everyday, simply by opening your eyes.”
― Candice Clark, The Fence and the Musician

“I need you to understand, I breathe for you now. If you walk out that door, you'll leave me gasping for air and there won't be enough oxygen in the world to save me.”
― Candice Clark, The Fence and the Musician

“Now, the mere repetition made the things to me rather more weird than more rational. It was as if, having seen a curiously shaped nose in the street and dismissed it as an accident, I had then seen six other noses of the same astonishing shape. I should have fancied for a moment that it must be some local secret society. So one elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot.”
― G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“To create an immersive experience, trigger curiosity by introducing a mystery, evoke empathy by drawing readers into the inner world of a protagonist facing a challenge, and ignite imagination by painting a vivid scenario that hints at a broader conflict.”
― Will Raywood, Trust Your Story: Master Storytelling and Build a Successful Creative Writing Career

“What truly matters isn’t your feelings or even those of your characters—it’s the emotional experience of your audience.”
― Will Raywood, Trust Your Story: Master Storytelling and Build a Successful Creative Writing Career