Plotting Quotes

I do a lot better if I sit around and think about a character for a couple of months.

Find your own way into your story. Find your own way into your game.

Our adversaries no long fear us, and our enemies are plotting against us.

If someone said, 'Sit down and write a 'Community' episode,' I would be panicked.

If any one plot against the king's life, of himself, or by harboring of exiles, or of his men; let him be liable in his life and in all that he has.... He who plots against his lord's life, let him be liable in his life to him, and in all that he has ...

Very few of my characters are based on people I've known. It is too constricting.

The things that keep me awake at night are things like textures and instrumentation and plotting out what things are going to do and what the sounds are that I'm trying to capture.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

Everyone has early fiction fantasies, but it wasn't until my second child Betsy was born that I allowed the urge to write a novel bubble up.

The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.

I don't really decide what the core of the story is before I write. I write to figure out what the story is. And I think the characters end up talking to you and telling you what they want to be doing and what is important to them. So in some ways, your job is to listen as much as it is to write.

When I'm writing fiction I'm thinking, God, this is so hard - I have to make all this stuff up! I wish I were writing a nonfiction book where all the facts are laid out and I don't have to be so much at sea.

I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important.

There's nothing lovelier than having a newborn and still plotting a dark conspiracy.

I tend to plan as I write. And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.

Civil war was taught them [Americans] that "the sacred right of insurrection" is as much out of place in a democratic state as in an aristocratic or a monarchical state; and that the government should always be clothed with ample authority to arrest and punish whoever plots its destruction.

They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale.

For me, the whole process involves envisioning this book in my head as I'm working.

I think of myself as an assistant storyteller.

I think writing novels has taught me more about the value of patience and being organized. I've learned to use timelines and wikis to track decisions and make sure everything still fits together. It's both easier and harder than writing short fiction.

Trying to solve the mystery is what I enjoy most about writing.

In plotting a book, my goal is to raise the stakes for the characters and, in so doing, keep the reader mesmerized.

I got into reading a lot of noir and a lot of thrillers as well, and I really admired the plotting about those and the way that they can surprise you. And obviously to surprise people and to have twists in the tale, you have to plan quite carefully.

They plot, they plot, sleeping or afoot they never let up.

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.