A Quote by James N. Frey

Fiction writers come up with some interesting metaphors when speaking of plot. Some say the plot is the highway and the characters are the automobiles. Others talk about stories that are "plot-driven," as if the plot were neither the highway nor the automobile, but the chauffeur. Others seem to have plot phobia and say they never plot. Still others turn up their noses at the very notion, as if there's something artificial, fraudulent, contrived.

James N. Frey

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About Artificial Automobile Characters Chauffeur Come Come Up Contrived Driven Fiction Fiction Writer Fiction Writers Fraudulent Highway Interesting Metaphors Neither Never Nor Noses Notion Others Phobia Plot Say Seem Some Some Interesting Something Speaking Still Stories Talk Turn Up Very Were Writers

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James N. Frey
American - Writer
Born: March 15, 1943

Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT. I say don't worry about plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens? The development of relationship creates plot.

Anne Lamott

I don't think plot as a plot means much today. I'd say that everybody has seen every plot twenty times. What they haven't seen is characters and their relation to one another. I don't worry much about plot anymore.

Howard Hawks

The characters are the plot. What they do and say and the things that happen to them are, in a sense, what the plot is. You can't take character and plot apart from each other, really.

Terry Pratchett

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.

Jim Jarmusch

Plot comes first. The plot is the archictecture of your novel. You wouldn't build a house without a plan. If I wrote without a plot, it would just be a pile of bricks. Characters are your servants. They must serve your plot.

Barbara Kingsolver

Most short stories have but one plot. The very best, however, have what I call a plot-and-a-half – that is, a main plot and a small subplot that feeds in a twist or an unexpected piece of business that ads crunch and flavor to the story as a whole.

Elizabeth Sims

The romance is the primary plot in a story that has two plots. The second plot is not a subplot, but one that is interwoven with the romance plot (if that makes sense.) A story needs compelling characters in a compelling plot.

Madeline Hunter

The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.

Franz Grillparzer

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.

Jeffery Deaver

I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.

Clive Cussler

As writers and readers, we're drawn to conflict. It's that ancient theory of plot that's written on the whiteboard during every fiction workshop, characters who want something overcoming obstacles as a way to create narrative momentum and suspense. So there's that, that trauma gives us more plot.

Leslie Pietrzyk

Plot a murder, you're saying. But every plot is a murder in effect. To plot is to die, whether we know it or not.

Don DeLillo

They plot, they plot, sleeping or afoot they never let up.

Thomas Pynchon

Plots are artificial. Does your life have a plot? It has characters. There is a narrative. There's a lot of story, a lot of character. But plot? Eh, no.

Richard Linklater

Obviously, a theatrical masterpiece needs more than a plot; many television shows are nothing but plot, and it is doubtful that they will stand the test of time. But I also don't think that making fun of plot or acting like we're all somehow 'above' structure is such a good idea.

Theresa Rebeck

Baseball is part of America's plot, part of America's mysterious, underlying design-the plot in which we all conspire and collude, the plot of the story of our national life.

Albert Allen Bartlett

A Quote by James N. Frey

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