A Quote by Janet Evanovich

When you get ready to write your novel, outline it first. There's nothing worse than getting halfway through and realizing you've painted yourself in a plot corner.

Janet Evanovich

Quote Topics

Corner First Get Getting Halfway Nothing Novel Outline Painted Plot Ready Realizing Than Through Worse Write Your Yourself

Quote Author

Janet Evanovich
American - Writer
Born: April 22, 1943

I am a big proponent of writing a great outline. That way you can avoid hitting a roadblock. There is no worse feeling than writing yourself into a corner but if you've figured it all out in the outline then you won't have that problem.

Michael Showalter

I don't start a novel until I have lived with the story for awhile to the point of actually writing an outline and after a number of books I've learned that the more time I spend on the outline the easier the book is to write. And if I cheat on the outline I get in trouble with the book.

John Grisham

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

I'm a pantser. I try to plot. I always try to plot. I end up with a few paragraphs that basically outline the gist of the story.But I never get much beyond that. I get too impatient to write.

Pamela Clare

Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your novel. If you are writing a plot-driven genre novel make sure all your major themes/plot elements are introduced in the first third, which you can call the introduction. Develop your themes and characters in your second third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries and so on in the final third, the resolution.

Michael Moorcock

To me, one of the big fears of doing a big huge graphic novel is locking yourself into one style and getting halfway through it and going, 'Oh I made the wrong choice,' which is a recurring nightmare I have.

Adrian Tomine

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

To anyone who has served in Washington, there is something oddly familiar about [having your portrait painted]. First, you're painted into a corner, then you're hung out to dry and, finally, you're framed.

Warren Christopher

Invest in yourself. It's like being a boxer, you've got to be in training so that when the bell rings, you get your direction you come out of the corner and you're *ready*. Do not let the audition be the first thing you've done in six months.

Karl Urban

With my first book, I was hired to write a draft of the script. I was so young and less confident. They put me through seven or eight drafts and it was just getting worse and worse, and then the film was never made.

Emma Donoghue

You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?

Edward Albee

The DNA of the novel - which, if I begin to write nonfiction, I will write about this - is that: the title of the novel is the whole novel. The first line of the novel is the whole novel. The point of view is the whole novel. Every subplot is the whole novel. The verb tense is the whole novel.

Mary Kay Zuravleff

There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, 'Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth.'

Douglas Adams

Write a nonfiction book, and be prepared for the legion of readers who are going to doubt your fact. But write a novel, and get ready for the world to assume every word is true.

Barbara Kingsolver

There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, "Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth." It's funny.

Douglas Adams

The feeling of being halfway through a show and just realizing that there's nothing you can do to save it - it's a horrible feeling.