Plot Change Quotes

When I started 'Case Histories,' the characters were all going to Antarctica on a cruise. The first part was called 'Embarkation.' It was supposed to be about everyone preparing to embark on the cruise, but it mushroomed into an entire book.

The reader wants to see something happen between pages one and four hundred, and nothing happens if the characters don't change.

In 'Notting Hill,' I was part of a whole plot line over six scenes that was completely taken out. That was rather depressing.

The only aspect I'd probably change in some of my films is the death of the heroine. I wish I'd kept some of them alive.

It can certainly happen that characters in more sophisticated stories can 'take over' as they develop and change the author's original ideas. Well, it certainly happens to me at times.

We should just go back to, like, episode 30 and re-break from there and just make it a spaceship. That would be the unexpected reboot of 'Lost.'

'Liv and Maddie' actually started out as a different show called 'Bits and Pieces,' and it was a completely different plot, although it was the same cast.

Eventually, while researching, you'll learn something you didn't want to know. Some fact that ruins a plotline you had in mind. The good news is that sometimes, learning all the facts can make for a much more interesting story than you originally had in mind.

There have been times I thought that when I got a certain point in the story, a certain character was going to do a certain thing, only to get to that point and have the character make clear that he or she doesn't want to do that at all. That long phone conversation I thought the character was going to have? He hangs up the phone before the other person answers, and twenty pages of dialog I had half written in my head go out the window.