Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.
– Ray Bradbury
Tag: action
Quotable 289
Nothing will get me to shut a book faster than characters who don’t have a developed personality that informs their actions.
– Liz Tampa
Quotable 244
Writing is like sex: You should do it, not talk about it.
– Howard Ogden
Quotable 233
Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.
– Harper Lee
Quotable 192
A plot without action is like pasta without garlic, like Dolly Parton without cleavage, and like a writer without his similes.
– Dean Koontz
Quotable 162
Plot exists so the character can discover what he is really like, forcing the character to choice and action.
– John Gardner