A Quote by Margaret Bechard

Plot is merely the mechanism by which your character is forced up against her deepest fears and desires.

Margaret Bechard

Quote Topics

Against Character Deepest Deepest Fear Desires Fears Forced Her Mechanism Merely Plot Up Which Your

Quote Author

Margaret Bechard
American - Author
Born: 1953

Developing a character with genuine depth requires a focus on not just desire but how the character deals with frustration of her desires, as well as her vulnerabilities, her secrets, and especially her contradictions. This development needs to be forged in scenes, the better to employ your intuition rather than your intellect.

David Corbett

I believe man is stripped naked when he's in conversation with God. Your deepest fears, strongest desires, highest hopes - they're all there when you are talking to God.

Kay Kay Menon

Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there's an explosion-that's Plot.

Leigh Brackett

You will be surprised to learn how some very knowing people have misunderstood Plotto. On glancing at it, some of the intelligentia have jumped at the false conclusion, that Plotto is a dictionary of situations, a mechanism that yields a cut and dried plot by the mere use of a thumb index. Plotto, to the contrary, merely suggests the situations for the plot, explains what is to be done through Purpose and Obstacle and even offers suggestions as to the way in which it should be done.

William Wallace Cook

With maternal love, life makes a promise at dawn that it can never hold. You are forced to eat cold food until your days end. After that, each time a woman holds you in her arms and against her chest, these are merely condolences. You always come back to yell at your mother's grave like an abandoned dog. Never again, never again, never again.

Romain Gary

'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.

Ashwin Sanghi

The angels already know how you feel, but they want you to pour out your heart to them, because then you are admitting your deepest fears to yourself. That way, it gets the demons - the angels don't use that word - so, rather, the negative energy out of you, helping you surrender it to God. A lot of us are afraid to tune into our deepest fears, but when you admit them to the angels there is this relief that actually helps you to be more effective and to more clearly hear your divine guidance.

Doreen Virtue

If you can remove a female character from your plot and replace her with a sexy lamp and your story still works, you're a hack.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

Increasing your repertoire has the advantage that you don't have to give up enjoying what you already like: it is always easier to add new behaviors than to deny your deepest desires.

Dossie Easton

Chris Claremont once said of Alan Moore, "if he could plot, we'd all have to get together and kill him." Which utterly misses the most compelling part of Alan's writing, the way he develops and expresses ideas and character. Plot does not define story. Plot is the framework within which ideas are explored and personalities and relationships are unfolded.

Warren Ellis

No", Tori said, " I kidnapped her and forced her to escape with me. I've been using her as a human shield against those guys with guns, and I was just about to strangle her and leave her body here to throw them off my trail. But then you showed up and foiled my evil plans. Lucky for you, though. You get to rescue chloe again and win her undying grattitude.

Kelley Armstrong

Live with your lips pressed against your fears, kissing your fears, neither pulling back nor aggressively violating them.

David Deida

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

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.