Plot Creation Quotes

The difficulty in the way of writing a children's play is that Barrie was born too soon. Many people must have felt the same about Shakespeare. We who came later have no chance. What fun to have been Adam, and to have had the whole world of plots and jokes and stories at one's disposal.

I do take this insane pleasure in world-building. I get the world in my head, but I have to make sure everyone else gets it.

You come up with a story line, you hire the writer, the director, the stars, the set designer.

There's nothing more liberating about starting with something that is not written. You pretty much create the history of that character and that character's life story.

Being an author means, almost by definition, that you make up characters and then complicate their lives. That's it, really. You make up characters and give them problem after problem after problem.

There were a couple times when we started working out the stories - and I was doing this with Jim Vallely and our friend Dean Lorey, who was on the show originally - and we were working on a movie. There would be some fan fiction things that would scoop us. It happened a couple times, where I thought, "Well, we can't do that!"

I always begin with a character or characters, and then try to think up as much action for them as possible.

I've quit writing screenplay [adaptations]. It's too much work. I don't look at writing a novel as work, because I only have to please myself. I have a good time sitting here by myself, thinking up situations and characters, getting them to talk - it's so satisfying. But screenwriting's different. You might think you're writing for yourself, but there are too many other people to please.

As my kid gets a little bit older, if I feel like I have a little bit more time on my hands, I'd like to get more into developing ideas and writing things.

Usually, with a novel, you start with no idea what to do because your job is to create convincing characters and then they just run around getting crazy. The problem with writing a memoir, obviously, is you can't do that because you sort of know what's going to happen. Because you're the character.

Any plot you impose on your characters will be onomatopoetic: PLOT. I say don't worry about plot. Worry about the characters. Let what they say or do reveal who they are, and be involved in their lives, and keep asking yourself, Now what happens? The development of relationship creates plot.

Creating the fictional background for a game world isn't significantly different from creating a background for fiction.

I don't do research for my novels. Obviously, in my other line of work as a reporter and a columnist, I've had the opportunity to get to know both social workers and TV talk-show hosts.

Storylines are how characters create the plots involved in their stories.

The characters emerge from my rather twisted mind. That's another enjoyable part of the job making stuff up.

Working on the plot/story idea for my next novel ... It always takes time.

I have the power to write these books where I invent characters that I really like, and it gets to come out the way they want it to come out, and I get to make it happen.

Even a dream as inspiration doesn't mean anything unless you then find that it's sparked an actual story with a plot.

I knew the beginning and the end – I just had to dream up a convincing middle.

Making up characters and places and plots, unlike fixing your plumbing or doing dishes, is anything but practical or rational. I write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right.

I have a scenario but almost always it's entwined with at least one person to begin with. Then I sort of expand from there and I'm thinking about books novels. I've got these scrolls of paper that I hang up in my office and this is my idea room, my nightmare factory, and I have a big title at the top of the scroll and on the left hand side I have these character sketches on the characters, and then once I figure out who they are I can figure out what they want and once I figure out what they want I'm able to put obstacles in the way of that desire, and that's where plot springs from.

I am a writer. Imagining what someone would say or do comes to me as naturally as breathing.

The germ of a story is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood.

What happens in a play is determined to a certain extent by what I thought might be interesting to have happen before I invented the characters, before they started taking over what happened, because they are three-dimensional individuals, and I cannot tell them what to do. Once I give them their identity and their nature, they start writing the play.

Nobody mentioned this in any of the reviews, but the reason we came up with that plot for 'Reno 911: Miami' is because we thought it was just the stupidest title for a movie that we could think of.