Edward Hirsch Quotes

A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.

I began to be impressed by what made a good book-how you needed to have a sensible story, a plot that developed, with a beginning, a middle, and an end that would tie everything together.

In a lot of cases, writers discover that the novel needs to begin later in the action than they'd first thought.

There is no other way of writing a novel than to begin at the beginning at to continue to the end.

It's always good to have a story arch.

In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.

I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.

Use plot to buttress a story.

The conventional Aristotelian plot proceeds by means of a protagonist, an antagonist, and a series of events comprising a rising action, climax and denouement.

The only thing I knew about novels from a technical point of view was that they should have conflict.

The short story can't really hold an interesting event. It can't hold a death or a war or a loss of great magnitude the way either a long story or a novel can.

Plot is what happens in your story. Every story needs structure, just as every body needs a skeleton. It is how you 'flesh out and clothe' your structure that makes each story unique.

A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots.

An attempt to write nothing but characterization will soon bog down; I for one don't want to have somebody tell me about someone else.

I have struggles in screenwriting that lead me to a third act that's always more or less efficiently wrapped up in a fourth act that's trying to give closure to too many things.

Stories of all lengths and depths come from different parts of the cave. For a novel, you must lay in mental, physical and spiritual provision as for a siege or for a time of hectic explosions, while a short story is, or can be, a steady, timed flame like the lighting of a blow lamp on a building site full of dry tinder.

I started as a playwright. Any sort of scriptwriting you do helps you hone your story. You have the same demands of creating a plot, developing relatable characters and keeping your audience invested in your story. My books are basically structured like three-act plays.

It's nice to know when you're a part of a story, it's nice to know at least something about the beginning, middle, and end.

Essentially and most simply put, plot is what the characters do to deal with the situation they are in. It is a logical sequence of events that grow from an initial incident that alters the status quo of the characters.

I have a plot, but not much happens.

A novel, in the end, is a container, a shape which you are trying to pour your story into.

A story really isn't truly a story until it reaches its climax and conclusion.

In a story, you have to have a theme and an angle, you have to have a beginning, middle and an end. You have to have a defining moment and kick it to death. You gotta be able to recognize that, by the way. It probably takes experience.

You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen.

The central problem of novel-writing is causality.