A Quote by Jane Rule
Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.
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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.
I don't think I'm a natural novelist. Plot is definitely one of my weaker points. I've been working on it a long time, and it's not getting much better.
'Rozabal' was theological while 'Chanakya' is political. Unlike 'Rozabal,' which was about research, the aim of 'Chanakya' is plot, plot, plot, which carries the character. The common DNA, of course, is history.
Try this experiment: Pick a famous movie - 'Casablanca,' say - and summarize the plot in one sentence. Is that plot you just described the thing you remember most about it? Doubtful. Narrative is a necessary cement, but it disappears from memory.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I find that I am much slower in the beginning of a book. I am thinking of the plot, of the characters and who they are, and where they are going. I often throw out a lot of the writing I start with, because the characters and plot improve as I write. Or perhaps I should say it is my hope they will improve as I write.
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.
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.
You can only see 'Star Wars' for the first time once, and people are watching it again and again and again, and it's a testament to the strength beyond the plot twists that it has. The narrative strength that it has is that it can be enjoyed even though you know the biggest plot elements in it.
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.
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.
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.
But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.
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