Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize motive and psychology whereas thrillers rely more heavily on action and plot.
In the story of life, the prologue and epilogue are written by God. Yet the plot has been given to us; therefore we should write the best prose we can.
You need to know the characters as living, breathing people before you start the plot; otherwise, you'll feel panic, anarchy and chaos.
It's very liberating for me to realize that I don't have to step up to the plate with a plot that involves the U.N. Security Council.
Usually I'll write all the way through to an end, and then I go back and try to fix the ending so that it makes sense. I don't think out the plot ahead of time.
I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the ...
The writer must face the fact that ordinary lives are what most people live most of the time, and that the novel as a narration of the fantastic and the adventurous is really an escapist plot; that aesthetically, the ordinary, the banal, is what you ...
I don't think I'm a natural novelist. Plot is definitely one of my weaker points. I've been working on it a long time, and it's not getting much better.
Francis: You fools, this man is plotting our doom! We die at dawn! He is Caligari!
Probably careful plotting reflects my personality. I am meticulous by nature. I can't imagine speed-writing anything that happens to pop into my head.
I have 20 or 30 books completely plotted out in my mind - mysteries, thrillers, horror, romance, science fiction. You name it.
The stories about epidemics that are told in the American press - their plots and tropes - date to the nineteen-twenties, when modern research science, science journalism, and science fiction were born.
The activists will not stop in trying to impose their extreme views on the rest of us, and they have now plotted out a state-by-state strategy to increase the number of judicial decisions redefining marriage without the voice of the people being hear...
I was studying to be an architect, I wasn't plotting to join the movies. Films were just another career option. I took acting up with the same schoolgirl enthusiasm I had for examinations. Acting is a job and I take it very seriously.
My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.
As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes.
It is also in the interests of the tyrant to make his subjects poor... the people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting.
Occasionally a particular word or phrase in a letter or diary has sparked an entire plot - like an echo from history, still very alive.
Bread and water will not break me, and if you choose to isolate me, I shall have only but more time to plot against my oppressors.
I'm going to get even, I swear I will. Mark my words, I'm a pregnant cranky woman with insomnia. I have time to plot my revenge.
Taken together the Internet reads like the grandest character-driven novel humanity has ever known. Not much plot though.
