Mark Duplass Quotes

'Homeland' really is one of those shows where they start to write more or less depending on what's kind of going on in a relationship between characters.

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

I try to end every chapter with an air of suspense. I try to leave the reader wanting to turn the page.

The only way I could finish a book and get a plot was just to keep making it longer until something happens.

Plot is the knowing of destination.

My stories do have plot. They're not just scattered language; they're controlled, toward an end.

What interests me about fiction is plot. And what interests me about plot is whether someone tells a story that moves me within the constraints of storytelling. And I have narrowly defined storytelling.

I might spend 100 pages trying to get to know the world I'm writing about: its contours, who are my main characters, what are their relationships to each other, and just trying to get a sense of what and who this book is about. Usually around that point of 100 pages, I start to feel like I'm lost, I have too much material, it's time to start making some choices. It's typically at that point that I sit down and try to make a formal outline and winnow out what's not working and what I'm most interested in, where the story seems to be going.

A good novel is an indivisible sum; every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.

Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.

But it isn’t a rough draft either. The one I turned in several months ago was rough. There were some bad plot holes, some logical inconsistencies, pacing problems, and not nearly enough lesbian unicorns.

"Novels and gardens," she says. "I like to move from plot to plot."

Plot and scene are still the hardest things for me, though I think they're the building blocks of what makes a story work.

But keep characters in propinquity long enough and a story will always develop a plot.

When we did the first sequel [of the Austin Powers] , it was on coattails of the first one doing so well when it was released on video, so we really didn't know what to do with the second plot.

The challenge for any fiction writer is that your job involves simply sitting at a desk for a very, very long time.

Structure is, for me, the most fun challenge about writing novels.

The story [for the western genre] is everything. Whether it's a book or a screenplay, the story drives everything. And if you just go out and try to make one by putting on boots and jumping on a horse and riding off... If you don't have the material, the characters and the things to overcome and conflicts that give life to drama, you don't have it.

The inciting incident is how you get (characters) to do something. It's the doorway through which they can't return, you know. The story takes care of the rest.

While I am usually in despair when a movie abandons its plot for a third act given over entirely to action, I have no problem with the way Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ends, because it has been pointing toward this ending, hinting about it, preparing us for it, all the way through. What a glorious movie.

My hope is that I'm going to continue to make more and more challenging work that's going to come out more and more interesting. I don't know if that will always continue to happen, but every one of my films has definitely been a progression as far as complexity of narrative, character, and plot.

I don't ignore continuity, and try my best to stick as closely to the current status quo as possible, but it's not my primary concern when I start a story.

The poem has to bear the weight with image, language... the screenplay with dialogue, plot.

I think my major challenge, very frankly, is to maintain the traction, ... I've seen many campaigns here in the state of New Hampshire look good for a while, and then the air comes out of the balloon.

Resolution and conclusion are inherent in a plot-driven narrative.