Altars Quote by David Shields

If you over-plot your book you strangle your characters. Your characters have to have enough freedom and life to be able to surprise you.

— Alan Lightman

This book has too much plot and not enough story.

— Samuel Goldwyn

Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least…

— Ned Beauman

After these three novels I gave up writing novels for a time; I was dissatisfied with romantic doom, yet didn't see much way around…

— Nicholas Mosley

That’s the problem with fiction — or the charm, if you want. Even mediocre plots have a way of sinking their hooks into you,…

— Charles McGrath

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself

— Alice Hoffman

Also, as an author, character has always been what I'm most interested in - much more so than plot or setting, although those are…

— Lauren Myracle

I have never thought that I have sacrificed anything being a writer. That might not be true, maybe I have sacrificed something. Maybe I've…

— Walter Mosley

People who were more concerned with themselves and looking good to their readers then they were with the characters sacrificed a series for the…

— Len Wein

The idea of sacrifice is integral to the John Henry myth. Heroic figures have to die in order for us to have our stories;…

— Colson Whitehead

I believe the most intricate plot won't matter much to readers if they don't care about the characters, especially in a series. So I…

— Jeff Abbott

I'm not an enormous proponent of plot as a reader. It's about other things; my reading has become specialized over the years.

— Patrick deWitt