Plot Twist Quotes

We tend to think that the future happens later, but we're creating it in our minds every day. When the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists.

When you’re in The System, like after being arrested, you’re no longer a participant. You’re being processed. Instead of an easy to ignore, well-greased cog, you become a sharp edge that needs to be ground down.

I picked up one of the books and flipped through it. Don't get me wrong, I like reading. But some books should come with warning labels: Caution: contains characters and plots guaranteed to induce sleepiness. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery after ingesting more than one chapter. Has been known to cause blindness, seizures and a terminal loathing of literature. Should only be taken under the supervision of a highly trained English teacher. Preferably one who grades on the curve.

You were always afraid of being caught while making love, and that fear never allowed you to completely surrender to any of your partners.

Rituals can be reliable safeguards, but plot twists in the theatre of our life should not freak us out. If we are willing to transform ourselves and confront our inner self with the rites of our inner world, we can allow a dialogue within ourselves. In our existential challenge, faltering can give us a choice between ignoring, accepting, or integrating the plot twists on our path. ("Digging for white gold" )

Only human after all, she whispered.

Hello Charles, came the voice. I am the Watcher from the Sky.  

One thing I know for certain is that I want to go back in time and save all the people I killed.

Have you been having the dreams?” asked Dani.

Around two or three times a year, we would notice the wind blowing harder than usual, which meant a giant wave was coming.

The world was becoming a very puzzling place for me. I didn’t understand why bad people were allowed to tell good people what to do. What kind of world would allow that to happen?  

We were wasting time. She could try and arrest me and would fail.

    The weapon gave a rusty croak. ‘I don’t normally do weather reports anymore,’ the gun informed him politely.      ‘Why is that?’      ‘Ever since the demise of the old metropolis, there has been no control of the weather systems. Anyone who would have appreciated a weather forecast perished an awful long time ago. Besides, every time I started to inform my potential victims of the current cloud formations, or wind velocity, or barometric pressure, or potential precipitation, they simply ran away.

Do you know where Jean de Tournet is?” Jason asked. “He is dead, Uncle,” Charlotte said flatly. “How do you know?” “I killed him in 1943. He was doing business with the Nazis. He tried to rape me” – she stopped and shivered – “but I killed him before he could.” Jason and Sophie both looked at Charlotte with horror. This was the first time Jason had showed any genuine emotion throughout the evening. It was fear.

I am one man with a laptop. When I give the world my characters, it's because I don't want to keep them for myself. You don't like what I made them do? Fucking tell me I'm wrong! Rewrite the story. Throw in a new plot twist. Make up your own ending.

Did you, Vance?” “Did I what?” “Did you have Hines killed?” “Now what kind of a question is that?

Mom, I think I know how to stabilize wormholes.

I convinced myself I was fully justified in destroying the world by destroying the Mind Upload Community before it got started, and when that seemed impossible, I conceived the idea of infecting the world’s OIM and going to this Utopia Annette was building in 2585.

When the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists.

When something goes wrong in your life just yell 'PLOT TWIST', and move on

Shit, yes, now you mention it, I’ve just suddenly remembered everything and solved the entire case, can you believe it? What a plot twist.

Bend with me.

You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can’t get me out of the story. I’m the plot, babe, and don’t ever forget it.

She finally had to admit she missed Hank. Hank and his beautiful dog face. Faithful hank, who was always by her side without grievance or judgement.Hank, who reminded her when it was time to eat and never let her sleep in.

Because I am really successful and work on the sets throughout the day. I had sex with a variety of male models. If my spouse accepts all of this, he will be unconcerned if he discovers I cheated on him at some point in the future. That is how much he cares for me. Never in my wildest dreams did I consider defrauding him. When something becomes legal, it is common for people to lose interest in it.

But life isn't really about just geting by. Right when you've lulled yourself into a false sense of security, it likes to throw in a plot twist. Keep you on your toes.

You’re my favorite plot twist.

Fiona grabbed Rick in her arms and sobbed, “Oh Rick, this song drives me crazy. I can’t stop myself when you’re around me. I’m losing control of myself. Rick, please tell them to stop, otherwise I don’t know what I will do.” Saying this, Fiona placed her lips on Rick’s lips. Now Rick was no longer in a position to speak so that he could ask the DJ to change the song. He only needed to signal the DJ to do that. But after tasting the moisture on Fiona’s lips, which was like dewdrops on rose petals, he realized that this endeavour would have required a lot of courage, which he most certainly lacked at the time.

My philosophy in gadgets is simple: Use them until they fall apart. Ignore new models as long as you can; they're a plot to separate you from your money.

She sensed an ending, and she thought that Flint did too. But she also sensed a beginning. The post-pandemic world would continue to unfold in many directions at once—many of them troubling and disheartening, she imagined. She had to counteract even just a fraction of that negative energy.

Sometimes I feel You were a plot twist In my story You were my serendipity.

The best stories are the ones with the unexpected plot twists that no one would have guessed, even the writer.

Each of us is a story, waiting for a devoted reader who will take us off the shelf and embrace all our plot twists.

After Bajju delivered a few beaming salutations, we walked northward up the makeshift, winding path through protruding brush, not much but a few stones placed here and there for balance and leverage upon ascending or descending. Having advanced about hundred steps from the street below, a sharp left leads to Bajju’s property, which begins with his family’s miniature garden – at the time any signs of fertility were mangled by dried roots which flailed like wheat straw, but within the day Bajju’s children vehemently delivered blows with miniature hoes in preparation for transforming such a plot into a no-longer-neglected vegetable garden. A few steps through the produce, or preferably circumventing all of it by taking a few extra steps around the perimeter, leads to the sky-blue painted home. Twisting left, hundreds of miles of rolling hills and the occasional home peeps out, bound below by demarcated farming steppes. If you’re lucky on a clear day and twist to the right, the monstrous, perpetually snow-capped Chaukhamba mountain monopolizes the distance just fifteen miles toward the direction of Tibet in the north.

He read with intensity and was passionately in love with every character, every turn of plot or twist of language. He made the characters come alive for us, like he wasn't reading a work of fiction but telling stories about his own friends.

And here is the shocking plot twist: as farmers produced those extra calories, the food industry figured out how to get them into the bodies of people who didn't really want to eat 700 more calories a day.

His dark blue shirt was plastered to his chest, covered with werewolf goop and tears. "Now we both need a bath," I said. "That can be arranged." "Please, Jean-Claude, no sexual innuendo until after I'm clean." "Of course, MA PETITE. It was crude of me tonight. My apologies." I stared at him. He was being far too nice. Jean-Claude was a lot of things, but nice wasn't one of them. "If you're up to something, I don't want to know about it. I can't handle any deep, dark plots tonight, okay?" He smiled and gave a low, sweeping bow, never taking his eyes off me. The way you bow on the judo mat when you're afraid the person may pound you if you look away. I shook my head. He WAS up to something. Nice to know that not everyone had suddenly become something else. One thing I could always depend on what Jean-Claude. Pain in the ass that he was, he always seemed to be there. Dependable in his own twisted way. Jean-Claude dependable? I must have been more tired than I thought.

But life knows when to throw in a plot twist. It is an idle but seasoned screenwriter, drinking beers alone and cultivating its archery.

The Times 2 July 1952 WAS BRITISH BARONESS WORKING FOR THE NAZIS IN PARIS? By Philip Bing-Wallace It was alleged that Baroness Freya Saumures (who claimed to be of Swedish descent but is a British subject) was one of the many women that entertained the Gestapo and SS during the occupation of Paris, a jury was told. At the baroness’s trial today, the Old Bailey heard Daniel Merrick-James QC, prosecuting council, astonish the jury by revealing that Baroness Freya Saumures allegedly worked with the Nazis throughout the Nazi occupation of Paris. There was a photograph of a woman in a headscarf and dark glasses, alongside a tall dark-haired man who had a protective arm around her, his face shielded by his hand. A description beneath the image read: Baroness Saumures with her husband, Baron Ferdinand Saumures, outside the Old Bailey after her acquittal. Alec could not see her face fully, but the picture of the baron, even partially obscured, certainly looked very like the man lying dead in the Battersea Park Road crypt. Alec read on. When Mr Merrick-James sat, a clerk of the court handed the judge, Justice Henry Folks, a note. The judge then asked the court to be cleared. Twenty minutes later, the court was reconvened. Justice Folks announced to the jury that the prosecution had dropped all charges and that Lady Saumures was acquitted. There was no explanation for the acquittal. The jury was dismissed with thanks. Neither Baron nor Baroness Saumures had any comment. Baron and Baroness Saumures live in West Sussex and are well known to a select group for their musical evenings and events. They are also well known for protecting their privacy. Alec rummaged on. It was getting close to lunchtime and his head was beginning to ache.

Your life isn't some prerecorded movie where, no matter how many times you watch it, the ending remains the same. Your life is a book in progress, and you are the author. So if you don't care for the main character or the gloomy scenery or how the twisted plot is unfolding, then do something to change it. You write your own story.

A great novel didn’t involve tossing together words that didn’t interconnect. In a great novel, each sentence mattered, each word had a meaning to the overall story arc. There was always forewarning to the plot twists and the different paths the novel would travel down, too. If a reader looked closely enough, they could always witness the warning signs. They could taste the heart of every word that bled on the page, and by the end, their palate would be satisfied.

She gathers my half of the blankets around her and curls up against the wall. She will sleep for hours more, dreaming endless landscapes and novas of colour both gorgeous and frightening. If I stayed she would wake up and describe them to me. All the mad plot twists and surrealist imagery, so vivid to her while so meaningless to me. There was a time when I treasured listening to her, when I found the commotion in her soul bitter-sweet and lovely, but I can no longer bear it.

Beneath every story, there is another story. There is a hand within the hand...... There is a blow behind the blow.

Remember: Bad timing equals great plot twists.

Plot twist: everything goes exactly as planned.

many romance authors seem to recycle their books and only change the cover, the characters’ names, and the settings. The plot, dialogue, and even some of the so-called ‘plot twists’ all seem the same.

That great moment when a plot twist appears in your story, one you never thought of, one coming from some hidden place in your mind.

Any time life threw Melanie a curveball, she merely threw her hands up and shouted, “Plot twist!

The only happy ending he’ll be getting is from me, bitch. A few minutes later, I’d been so preoccupied thinking about what those women were saying that I hadn’t noticed Graham sneak up behind me to plant a kiss on my neck. The gossipers had taken notice, though. Their eyes were practically bugging out of their heads. Their little happily-ever-after fantasy was quickly challenged by Graham’s public display of affection with someone they probably assumed was working the party. I couldn’t help myself when I turned to them and smiled. “Plot twist.

The trouble with life (the novelist will feel) is its amorphousness, its ridiculous fluidity. Look at it: thinly plotted, largely themeless, sentimental and ineluctably trite. The dialogue is poor, or at least violently uneven. The twists are either predictable or sensationalist. And it’s always the same beginning, and the same ending.

My journey, however, has followed a far less predictable story: stalled chapters, unexpected plot twists, and dozens of rewrites that have left the ending more than a little uncertain.

The woman dies. She dies to provide a plot twist. She dies to develop the narrative. She dies for cathartic effect. She dies because no one could think of what else to do with her. Dies because there weren’t any better story ideas around. Dies because her death was the very best idea that anyone could come up with. ‘I’ve got it! Let’s kill her off!’ ‘Yes! Her death will solve everything!’ ‘Okay! Let’s hit the pub!’ And so, the woman dies. The woman dies so the man can be sad about it. The woman dies so the man can suffer. She dies to give him a destiny. Dies so he can fall to the dark side. Dies so he can lament her death. As he stands there, brimming with grief, brimming with life, the woman lies there in silence. The woman dies for him. We watch it happen. We read about it happening. We come to know it well.

When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me.

There are friends, I think we can't imagine living without. People who are sisters to us, or brothers. Jimmy was one of those. I never thought I might have to go through life without him. I never thought he might be killed by a drunken driver or anything else. Who thinks about things like that when you're seventeen? If I had known ahead of time what was going to happen to him, I would have gone crazy. I guess I did go a little crazy. My Aunt Lo, who's a hospital psychiatrist, says grief travels a certain route-that if you could plot it out on a map you'd have a line that twists and weaves and eventually ends up near the point of departure. I say "near" because although you may survive the grief, you won't ever be exactly the same. It took me a long time to learn that, and sometimes the whole experience comes back on me and I have to learn it all over again.

One way to prevent high conflict is to learn to recognize the conflict entrepreneurs in your orbit. Notice who delights in each new plot twist of a feud. Who is quick to validate every lament and to articulate wrongs no one else has even thought of?

The principle I always go on in writing a novel is to think of the characters in terms of actors in a play. I say to myself, if a big name were playing this part, and if he found that after a strong first act he had practically nothing to do in the second act, he would walk out. Now, then, can I twist the story so as to give him plenty to do all the way through? I believe the only way a writer can keep himself up to the mark is by examining each story quite coldly before he starts writing it and asking himself it is all right as a story. I mean, once you go saying to yourself, "This is a pretty weak plot as it stands, but if I'm such a hell of a writer that my magic touch will make it okay," you're sunk. If they aren't in interesting situations, characters can't be major characters, not even if you have the rest of the troop talk their heads off about them." (Interview, The Paris Review, Issue 64, Winter 1975)

Did something happen? Well turn plot-twist mode on and move on

I couldn’t help but wonder if the plot twist to the story of American conservative Christianity was that what we thought was the Shire was Mordor all along.

I once lived for the perfect plot twist. I just never expected to actually live it.

Since God authored this day and He knows the end from the beginning, you might as well relax and enjoy the plot twists.

Which is an interactive sport for our family, since Gil likes to groan over the writing and point out the plot twists ahead of time, and Jeremy tears his hair out over the historical inaccuracies, and Dad makes corny jokes, till Mom reminds us, loudly, that some people are trying to watch the movie. Then we'll all quiet down for about five minutes, until Olivia remarks that the costume designer should have dressed the star in kitten heels instead, because it's a lot harder to run in stilettos.

Life, the dramatist of speed. Life, that couldn't stop with its foreshadows and ironies and symbols and clues, its wretched jokes and false endings and twists. Life with its hopeless addiction to plot.

A garden path,' write the landscape architects Charles W. Moore, William J. Mitchell, and William Turnbull, 'can become the thread of a plot, connecting moments and incidents into a narrative. The narrative structure might be a simple chain of events with a beginning, middle, and end. It might be embellished with diversions, digressions, and picaresque twists, be accompanied by parallel ways (subplots), or deceptively fork into blind alleys like the alternative scenerios explored in a detective novel.

Our narrating self would much prefer to continue suffering in the future, just so it won't have to admit that our past suffering was devoid of all meaning. Eventually, if we want to come clean about past mistakes, our narrating self must invent some twist in the plot that will infuse these mistakes with meaning.

When the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists. But if we spend the present trying to fix the past or control the future, we remain stuck in place, in perpetual regret. By Google-stalking Boyfriend, I’ve been watching his future unfold while I stay frozen in the past. But if I live in the present, I’ll have to accept the loss of my future.

Either peace or happiness, let it enfold you. When I was a young man I felt these things were dumb, unsophisticated. I had bad blood, a twisted mind, a precarious upbringing. I was hard as granite, I leered at the sun. I trusted no man and especially no woman... I challenged everything, was continually being evicted, jailed, in and out of fights, in and out of my mind... Peace and happiness to me were signs of inferiority, tenants of the weak, an addled mind. But as I went on...it gradually began to occur to me that I wasn't different from the others, I was the same... Everybody was nudging, inching, cheating for some insignificant advantage, the lie was the weapon and the plot was empty... Cautiously, I allowed myself to feel good at times. I found moments of peace in cheap rooms just staring at the knobs of some dresser or listening to the rain in the dark. The less I needed the better I felt... I re-formulated. I don't know when, date, time, all that but the change occured. Something in me relaxed, smoothed out. I no longer had to prove that I was a man, I didn’t have to prove anything. I began to see things: coffee cups lined up behind a counter in a cafe. Or a dog walking along a sidewalk. Or the way the mouse on my dresser top stopped there with its body, its ears, its nose, it was fixed, a bit of life caught within itself and its eyes looked at me and they were beautiful. Then...it was gone. I began to feel good, I began to feel good in the worst situations and there were plenty of those... I welcomed shots of peace, tattered shards of happiness... And finally I discovered real feelings of others, unheralded, like lately, like this morning, as I was leaving for the track, I saw my wife in bed, just the shape of her head there...so still, I ached for her life, just being there under the covers. I kissed her in the forehead, got down the stairway, got outside, got into my marvelous car, fixed the seatbelt, backed out the drive. Feeling warm to the fingertips, down to my foot on the gas pedal, I entered the world once more, drove down the hill past the houses full and empty of people, I saw the mailman, honked, he waved back at me.

I closed what little distance was left between us, one hand sliding through his soft hair, the other gathering the back of his shirt into my fist. When my lips finally pressed against his, I felt something coil deep inside of me. There was nothing outside of him, not even the grating of cicadas, not even the gray-bodied trees. My heart thundered in my chest. More, more, more—a steady beat. His body relaxed under my hands, shuddering at my touch. Breathing him in wasn’t enough, I wanted to inhale him. The leather, the smoke, the sweetness. I felt his fingers counting up my bare ribs. Liam shifted his legs around mine to draw me closer. I was off-balance on my toes; the world swaying dangerously under me as his lips traveled to my cheek, to my jaw, to where my pulse throbbed in my neck. He seemed so sure of himself, like he had already plotted out this course. I didn’t feel it happen, the slip. Even if I had, I was so wrapped up in him that I couldn’t imagine pulling back or letting go of his warm skin or that moment. His touch was feather-light, stroking my skin with a kind of reverence, but the instant his lips found mine again, a single thought was enough to rocket me out of the honey-sweet haze. The memory of Clancy’s face as he had leaned in to do exactly what Liam was doing now suddenly flooded my mind, twisting its way through me until I couldn’t ignore it. Until I was seeing it play out glossy and burning like it was someone else’s memory and not mine. And then I realized—I wasn’t the only one seeing it. Liam was seeing it, too. How, how, how? That wasn’t possible, was it? Memories flowed to me, not from me. But I felt him grow still, then pull back. And I knew, I knew by the look on his face, that he had seen it. Air filled my chest. “Oh my God, I’m sorry, I didn’t want—he—” Liam caught one of my wrists and pulled me back to him, his hands cupping my cheeks. I wondered which one of us was breathing harder as he brushed my hair from my face. I tried to squirm away, ashamed of what he’d seen, and afraid of what he’d think of me. When Liam spoke, it was in a measured, would-be-calm voice. “What did he do?” “Nothing—” “Don’t lie,” he begged. “Please don’t lie to me. I felt it…my whole body. God, it was like being turned to stone. You were scared—I felt it, you were scared!” His fingers came up and wove through my hair, bringing my face close to his again. “He…” I started. “He asked to see a memory, and I let him, but when I tried to move away…I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t move, and then I blacked out. I don’t know what he did, but it hurt—it hurt so much.” Liam pulled back and pressed his lips to my forehead. I felt the muscles in his arms strain, shake. “Go to the cabin.” He didn’t let me protest. “Start packing.” “Lee—” “I’m going to find Chubs,” he said. “And the three of us are getting the hell out of here. Tonight.” “We can’t,” I said. “You know we can’t.” But he was already crashing back through the dark path. “Lee!

I found the final plot twist unsatisfying, as plot twists often are: nothing like life, which - it seems to me - turns less on shocks or theatrics than on the small quiet moments, misunderstandings, or disappointments, the things that it's easy to overlook.

Writing episodically meant that when I finished one episode I had no idea about what the next one would contain. When, in the twists and turns of the plot, some event suddenly seemed to illuminate things that had gone before, I was as surprised as anyone else.

With Sofiya’s warm body pressed against mine in bed, guilt gnawed atme. Could I really fail this innocent girl? She was like a damsel in distress, a lamb among wolves. Shit. I was supposed to be the wolf she feared.

Time softened on Sundays; it stretched itself out in vast rubbery lengths, and by two o'clock, there was more of it than would ever be needed for anything. There was no point in reading a book, writing a letter, or playing a game, because time was too flaccid ever to proceed to the moment in which the plot would twist, the letter would be sent, or the game would be won.

Fantasy writing must be grounded in both truth and life experience if it is to work. It can be as inventive and creative as the writer can make it, a whirlwind of images and plot twists, but it cannot be built on a foundation of air. The world must be identifiable with our own, must offer us a frame of reference we can recognize.” “Fantasy stories work because the writer has interwoven bits and pieces of reality with imagination to form a personal vision.

By undermining you they make sure that if you complain about the narcissistic parent nobody will believe you, because they already have a certain negative image of you. Again, this abusive behaviour is just how narcissists live day to day. The plotting and manipulation is necessary to twist others around their false image.

Don't bother looking for the meaning of it all. There isn't one. Maybe not, but life compulsively dangled the possibility. Life, the dramatist on speed. Life, that couldn't stop with its foreshadows and ironies and symbols and clues, its wretched jokes and false endings and twists. Life with its hopeless addiction to plot.

Part of what makes roads, trails and paths so unique as built structures is that they cannot be perceived as a whole all at once by a sedentary onlooker. They unfold in time as one travels along them, just as a story does as one listens or reads, and a hairpin turn is like a plot twist, a steep ascent a building of suspense to the view at the summit, a fork in the road an introduction of a new storyline, arrival the end of the story. Just as writing allows one to read the words of someone who is absent, so roads make it possible to trace the route of the absent. Roads are a record of those who have gone before and to follow them is to follow people who are no longer there…

You want to ask them?" Jessica said sarcastically. "Let's call them and leave a message. 'Please call us back with your murderous plot at your earliest convenience!

When you're reading a good noir, the shocks and twists have a way of feeling deja vu-like, as if you saw them coming, but hoped the characters would take a left turn... not answer the phone, not sleep with that woman, not sell drugs to those cops... but knew they would. It would have been wrong if they didn't, and the real surprise can be that you care about someone you know is in for hell. You relate to them, even when their hell is so much bigger than your own. But we're all going to die, and we all make mistakes. The best noir stories make you forget plot entirely by giving you characters that feel so well-realised you can't look away as they fall.

The goddess of sex that most men had fantasized about since their teenage years wasn’t to be found in some red-light district of town or in an illicit magazine but was actually standing right next to them at work, at the library, at the coffee shop. And they were too blind to see it!

key thing to understand about Ganga was that he loved a story. He believed that human beings were inside a story that had no ending because its teller had started it without conceiving of one, and that after ten thousand tales was no nearer to finding the resolution of the last page. Story was the stuff of life, and to realise you were inside one allowed you to sometimes surrender to the plot, to bear a little easier the griefs and sufferings and to enjoy more fully the twists that came along the way.

I’ll talk to him any way I want to. Sure, you could try roughing me up, but you might want to stop and think about that, because you won’t always be in that uniform, and you won’t always have your buddies around, and this island—well, it’s an island. If you don’t know it as well as we do, and you don’t know the places to avoid, such as the beaches the pleurodons like, let’s just say a man with enemies could find life a little tricky here.” He stared the man down. “Are you threatening me, Grover?” “Not a threat. Just a warning. This planet is a wild, untamed place. It can be harsh and cruel when you least expect it.

IN THE GREAT DICTATOR’S CLOSING SCENES, CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S timid Jewish barber is, through a complicated plot twist, mistaken for the film’s Hitler-like character, also played by Chaplin. Clad in a German military uniform, he finds himself standing before a microphone, expected to address a mammoth party rally. Instead of the rapid-fire invective the crowd anticipates, Chaplin delivers a homily about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of evil. He asks soldiers not to give themselves to “men who despise you, enslave you . . . treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder . . . unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. “Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world,” the humble barber tells the crowd, “millions of despairing men, women, and little children—victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say—do not despair. . . . The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. . . . Liberty will never perish.” Chaplin’s words are sentimental, maudlin, and naïve. I cannot listen to them without wanting to cheer.

A plot that had filled her with glee when she began, was now revealed as flimsy and transparent. Eliza scratched out what she'd written. It would not do. And yet, whichever way she twisted the plot, she couldn't make it work. For which fairy tale princess ever chose her maid over her prince?

The most important lesson I’ve learned as a writer is that practice of the art is something I must exercise every day. The reason for this constant training is that any idea worth discovering is bigger than my head. The twists and turns, story and plot, characters and character development of a novel cannot be held in a single thought or even in a train of thought. This novel takes up a lot of space and needs room to breathe and evolve.

James Heron dreamed he was once more in the abandoned tunnels on Mars. As he walked, the barren rocky landscape transformed into hills of tangled vegetation. Lightning played in tall cumulus clouds in a darkening sky, and the sky was definitely an Earth sky, not a Martian one. He seemed to have companions, but their clothing was strange—very old fashioned, in fact, as if they belonged in the nineteenth century. He didn’t recognise the landscape, but it seemed to be on Earth, and the group, several youths and a few older men, appeared to be suffering from the heat, plucking their shirts which displayed damp patches of perspiration. A short distance ahead of him walked a heavily built man who evidently was not enjoying the walk in the heat, his face flushed crimson and perspiring profusely. The sky darkened and large drops of rain pelted the group, and they increased their pace. His view changed slightly as someone behind him called something he could not quite hear. The lightning seemed to be getting closer, and he and a companion—a youth, he noted ran for cover. He could smell the rain on the wet earth, and the fragrance of the vegetation intensified. He could feel the tension of the group—their fear perhaps? Suddenly there was a blinding flash that seemed to engulf him—and then he jolted awake bathed in perspiration.

Letter Thirteen In Case I Never See You Again I know we didn’t say goodbye but I know this is the end. I’ve seen this movie before. I know when it’s time to roll the credits. I know it all too well. So, in case you never come back, I want to you know that I truly cared. I want you to know that the first time I met you, I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to talk to you all night. I want you to know that I liked your smile, I liked your eyes, I liked your depth and all I wanted was to hear your story. I wanted to know your soul. I want you to know that the second time I met you, I knew I wanted to see you again, I wanted to be around you more, I wanted to hold your hand. I felt safe with you. You made me happy. You took me out of my darkness. I saw someone special. I saw someone delicate. I thought we made sense. I didn’t anticipate any plot twists. But that was my movie and I wanted a happy ending. But I guess your movie wins, your ending is climactic, your ending is more realistic. And that’s the thing about movies; they don’t always end up the way you want them to. And that’s the thing about endings; they can sometimes be sad. They sometimes end in tears. They end and they don’t always have a sequel.

And this is the result. Millions of small sins, billions of tiny evils--twisting, twining, groping, consuming...Till they become a great serpent...a blight on humanity...that rises from the collective unconscious towering over the world...Blocking out the light. It is so convenient to blame it all on some sneering, arrogant Satan--sitting on a fiery throne, plotting to corrupt our souls. But if there is a devil--he's just another projection of our own sins.

The Idiot. I have read it once, and find that I don't remember the events of the book very well--or even all the principal characters. But mostly the 'portrait of a truly beautiful person' that dostoevsky supposedly set out to write in that book. And I remember how Myshkin seemed so simple when I began the book, but by the end, I realized how I didn't understand him at all. the things he did. Maybe when I read it again it will be different. But the plot of these dostoevsky books can hold such twists and turns for the first-time reader-- I guess that's b/c he was writing most of these books as serials that had to have cliffhangers and such. But I make marks in my books, mostly at parts where I see the author's philosophical points standing in the most stark relief. My copy of Moby Dick is positively full of these marks. The Idiot, I find has a few... Part 3, Section 5. The sickly Ippolit is reading from his 'Explanation' or whatever its called. He says his convictions are not tied to him being condemned to death. It's important for him to describe, of happiness: "you may be sure that Columbus was happy not when he had discovered America, but when he was discovering it." That it's the process of life--not the end or accomplished goals in it--that matter. Well. Easier said than lived! Part 3, Section 6. more of Ippolit talking--about a christian mindset. He references Jesus's parable of The Word as seeds that grow in men, couched in a description of how people are interrelated over time; its a picture of a multiplicity. Later in this section, he relates looking at a painting of Christ being taken down from the cross, at Rogozhin's house. The painting produced in him an intricate metaphor of despair over death "in the form of a huge machine of the most modern construction which, dull and insensible, has aimlessly clutched, crushed, and swallowed up a great priceless Being, a Being worth all nature and its laws, worth the whole earth, which was created perhaps solely for the sake of the advent of this Being." The way Ippolit's ideas are configured, here, reminds me of the writings of Gilles Deleuze. And the phrasing just sort of remidns me of the way everyone feels--many people feel crushed by the incomprehensible machine, in life. Many people feel martyred in their very minor ways. And it makes me think of the concept that a narrative religion like Christianity uniquely allows for a kind of socialized or externalized, shared experience of subjectivity. Like, we all know the story of this man--and it feels like our own stories at the same time. Part 4, Section 7. Myshkin's excitement (leading to a seizure) among the Epanchin's dignitary guests when he talks about what the nobility needs to become ("servants in order to be leaders"). I'm drawn to things like this because it's affirming, I guess, for me: "it really is true that we're absurd, that we're shallow, have bad habits, that we're bored, that we don't know how to look at things, that we can't understand; we're all like that." And of course he finds a way to make that into a good thing. which, it's pointed out by scholars, is very important to Dostoevsky philosophy--don't deny the earthly passions and problems in yourself, but accept them and incorporate them into your whole person. Me, I'm still working on that one.

When a plot resolves, readers are satisfied, but what they remember of a novel is what they felt while reading it. Hooks may hook, twists may intrigue, tension may turn pages, and prose may dazzle, but all of those effects fade as quickly as fireworks in a night sky. Ask readers what they best remember about novels and most will say the characters, but is that accurate? It’s true that characters become real to us but that is because of what they cause us to feel. Characters aren’t actually real; only our own feelings are. Emotional

Those clothes are Susie's,' my father said calmly when he reached him. Buckley looked down at my blackwatch dress that he held in his hand. My father stepped closer, took the dress from my brother, and then, without speaking, he gathered the rest of my clothes, which Buckley had piled on the lawn. As he turned in silence toward the house, hardly breathing, clutching my clothes to him, it sparked. I was the only one to see the colors. Just near Buckley's ears and on the tips of his cheeks and chin he was a little orange somehow, a little red. Why can't I use them?' he asked. It landed in my father's back like a fist. Why can't I use those clothes to stake my tomatoes?' My father turned around. He saw his son standing there, behind him the perfect plot of muddy, churned-up earth spotted with tiny seedlings. 'How can you ask me that question?' You have to choose. It's not fair,' my brother said. Buck?' My father held my clothes against his chest. I watched Buckley flare and light. Behind him was the sun of the goldenrod hedge, twice as tall as it had been at my death. I'm tired of it!' Buckley blared. 'Keesha's dad died and she's okay?' Is Keesha a girl at school?' Yes!' My father was frozen. He could feel the dew that had gathered on his bare ankles and feet, could feel the ground underneath him, cold and moist and stirring with possibility. I'm sorry. When did this happen?' That's not the point, Dad! You don't get it.' Buckley turned around on his heel and started stomping the tender tomato shoots with his foot. Buck, stop!' my father cried. My brother turned. You don't get it, Dad,' he said. I'm sorry,' my father said. These are Susie's clothes and I just... It may not make sense, but they're hers-something she wore.' ... You act like she was yours only!' Tell me what you want to say. What's this about your friend Keesha's dad?' Put the clothes down.' My father laid them gently on the ground. It isn't about Keesha's dad.' Tell me what it is about.' My father was now all immediacy. He went back to the place he had been after his knee surgery, coming up out of the druggie sleep of painkillers to see his then-five-year-old son sitting near him, waiting for his eyes to flicker open so he could say, 'Peek-a-boo, Daddy.' She's dead.' It never ceased to hurt. 'I know that.' But you don't act that way.' Keesha's dad died when she was six. Keesha said she barely even thinks of him.' She will,' my father said. But what about us?' Who?' Us, Dad. Me and Lindsey. Mom left becasue she couldn't take it.' Calm down, Buck,' my father said. He was being as generous as he could as the air from his lungs evaporated out into his chest. Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go. 'What?' my father said. I didn't say anything.' Let go. Let go. Let go. I'm sorry,' my father said. 'I'm not feeling very well.' His feet had grown unbelievably cold in the damp grass. His chest felt hollow, bugs flying around an excavated cavity. There was an echo in there, and it drummed up into his ears. Let go. My father dropped down to his knees. His arm began to tingle on and off as if it had fallen asleep. Pins and needles up and down. My brother rushed to him. Dad?' Son.' There was a quaver in his voice and a grasping outward toward my brother. I'll get Grandma.' And Buckley ran. My father whispered faintly as he lay on his side with his face twisted in the direction of my old clothes: 'You can never choose. I've loved all three of you.

I’m done being polite about this bullshit. My list of professional insecurities entirely stems from being a young woman. Big plot twist there! As much as I like to execute equality instead of discussing the blaring inequality, the latter is still necessary. Everything, everywhere, is still necessary. The more women who take on leadership positions, the more representation of women in power will affect and shift the deep-rooted misogyny of our culture—perhaps erasing a lot of these inherent and inward concerns. But whether a woman is a boss or not isn’t even what I’m talking about—I’m talking about when she is, because even when she manages to climb up to the top, there’s much more to do, much more to change. When a woman is in charge, there are still unspoken ideas, presumptions, and judgments being thrown up into the invisible, terribly lit air in any office or workplace. And I’m a white woman in a leadership position—I can only speak from my point of view. The challenges that women of color face in the workforce are even greater, the hurdles even higher, the pay gap even wider. The ingrained, unconscious bias is even stronger against them. It’s overwhelming to think about the amount of restructuring and realigning we have to do, mentally and physically, to create equality, but it starts with acknowledging the difference, the problem, over and over.

The longer you continue the journey, the more exciting it becomes, because of the chance you have to learn about who you really are and what you can do. Not only do you get to live and learn, you get to learn and live. As the journey continues, you will find increased personal freedom because you will know how to beat back more of your fears. You will find a greater sense of peace because you will no longer be as paralyzed by life's darker moments. And you will be able to relish whatever it is you are experiencing right now because you will no longer be worrying so deeply about what will happen tomorrow. Think of your life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to come together and make sense. There is meaning in the incidents that you experience. With each new chapter, each new twist of the plot, your character becomes more fully developed. And in the end, there is a satisfying sense of completeness to the character and the story.

The known world was not so circumscribed then, nor knowledge equated with facts. Story was a kind of human bonding. I can’t explain it any better than that. There was telling everywhere. Because there were fewer sources of where to find out anything, there was more listening. A few did still speak of the rain, stood at gates in a drizzle, looked into the sky, made predictions inexact and individual, as if they were still versed in bird, berry or water language, and for the most part people indulged them, listened as if to a story, nodded, said “Is that so?” went away believing not a word, but to pass the story like a human currency to someone else. The key thing to understand about Ganga was that he loved a story. He believed that human beings were inside a story that had no ending because its teller had started it without conceiving of one, and that after ten thousand tales was no nearer to finding the resolution of the last page. Story was the stuff of life, and to realise you were inside one allowed you to sometimes surrender to the plot, to bear a little easier the griefs and sufferings and to enjoy more fully the twists that came along the way.

Don’t you routinely push yourself into absurd plot twists? Aren’t you often lured into someone else’s drama? It’s hard to resist getting hooked. You believe the premise of their story, whatever it is, and sign on to the madness. It happens. Kids use their amazing imaginations for fun. For them, it’s great to be in an imagined world and to believe in it completely. In the company of other excited kids, they can take a thrilling ride. But staying too long in a fantasy is exhausting, even for a child. After an afternoon of pretending, children are relieved to be called home for supper and to collapse into a warm bed. We adults, too, need to be called home to ourselves. Young or old, no one wants to be locked in a tower forever, however magical it might have seemed at first. I’m asking you to notice where you put your faith, and make changes when you need to. Common sense says to put your faith in you. Don’t lie to yourself for the sake of an idyllic notion. It’s not enough to admit to the fantasy, you need to wake yourself up. See where a bad story is taking you, and alter your course. Say no to the drama. Win the war over fear. Protect yourself from your own abuses, no one can do it for you.

We would gladly have listened to her (they said) if only she had spoken like a lady. But they are liars and the truth is not in them. Shrill… vituperative… no concern for the future of society… maunderings of antiquated feminism… selfish femlib… needs a good lay… this shapeless book… of course a calm and objective discussion is beyond… twisted, neurotic… some truth buried in a largely hysterical… of very limited interest, I should… another tract for the trash-can… burned her bra and thought that… no characterization, no plot… really important issues are neglected while… hermetically sealed… women's limited experience… another of the screaming sisterhood… a not very appealing aggressiveness… could have been done with wit if the author had… deflowering the pretentious male… a man would have given his right arm to… hardly girlish… a woman's book… another shrill polemic which the… a mere male like myself can hardly… a brilliant but basically confused study of feminine hysteria which… feminine lack of objectivity… this pretense at a novel… trying to shock… the tired tricks of the anti-novelists… how often must a poor critic have to… the usual boring obligatory references to Lesbianism… denial of the profound sexual polarity which… an all too womanly refusal to face facts… pseudo-masculine brusqueness… the ladies'-magazine level… trivial topics like housework and the predictable screams of… those who cuddled up to ball-breaker Kate will… unfortunately sexless in its outlook… drivel… a warped clinical protest against… violently waspish attack… formidable self-pity which erodes any chance of… formless… the inability to accept the female role which… the predictable fury at anatomy displaced to… without the grace and compassion which we have the right to expect… anatomy is destiny… destiny is anatomy… sharp and funny but without real weight or anything beyond a topical… just plain bad… we "dear ladies," whom Russ would do away with, unfortunately just don't feel… ephemeral trash, missiles of the sex war… a female lack of experience which… Q. E. D. Quod erat demonstrandum. It has been proved.

Don’t be out of temper, my dear,’ urged Fagin, submissively. ‘I have never forgot you, Bill; never once.’ ‘No! I’ll pound it that you han’t,’ replied Sikes, with a bitter grin. ‘You’ve been scheming and plotting away, every hour that I have laid shivering and burning here; and Bill was to do this; and Bill was to do that; and Bill was to do it all, dirt cheap, as soon as he got well: and was quite poor enough for your work. If it hadn’t been for the girl, I might have died.’ ‘There now, Bill,’ remonstrated Fagin, eagerly catching at the word. ‘If it hadn’t been for the girl! Who but poor ould Fagin was the means of your having such a handy girl about you?’ ‘He says true enough there!’ said Nancy, coming hastily forward. ‘Let him be; let him be.

A laconic and highly entertaining" novel. "The characters are strong, each showing major evidence of being a product of their respective cultures. Overall, the story is a strong one, with a couple of well-executed twists that succeed in surprising the reader." - Publishers Weekly judge for the 2014 ABNA Contest, Two Brides for Ewan de Buchan "I love historical romance novels and this one right off the bat based on the plot/hook made me want to read more. I devoured this...and re-read it twice. It seems like the author has a very good handle on the time period in which this novel is set." - 2014 ABNA Contest judge, Two Brides for Ewan de Buchan "I think this is really well crafted and interesting. The plot/hook caught me from the first paragraph. The characters are well done and I really loved the novelist's attention to historical detail...It's a really great romance novel, and is of publication quality. This novelist has a real future in writing romance (or even general fiction) books." - 2014 ABNA Contest judge, Two Brides for Ewan de Buchan

For all their shared boundaries, the experiences of fiction and nonfiction are fundamentally different. In the traditional short story or novel, a fictive space is opened up that allows you the reader to disappear into the action, even to the point of forgetting you are reading. In the best nonfiction, it seems to me, you’re always made aware that you are being engaged with a supple mind at work. The story line or plot in nonfiction consists of the twists and turns of a thought process working itself out. This is certainly true for the essay, but it is also true, I think, for classic nonfiction in general, be it Thucydides or Pascal or Carlyle, which follows an organizing principle that can be summarized as “tracking the consciousness of the author.” What makes me want to keep reading a nonfiction text is the encounter with a surprising, well-stocked mind as it takes on the challenge of the next sentence, paragraph, and thematic problem it has set for itself. The other element that keeps me reading nonfiction happily is an evolved, entertaining, elegant, or at least highly intentional literary style. The pressure of style should be brought to bear on every passage. “Consciousness plus style equals good nonfiction” is one way of stating the formula.

Out beyond and way back and further past that still. And such was it since. But after all appearances and some afternoons misspent it came to pass not all was done and over with. No, no. None shally shally on that here hill. Ah, but that was idle then and change was not an old hand. No, no. None shilly shilly on that here first rung. So, much girded and with new multitudes, a sun came purple and the hail turned in a year or two. And that was not all. No, no. None ganny ganny on that here moon loose. Turns were taken and time put in, so much heft and grimace, there, with callouses, all along the diagonal. Like no other time and the time taken back, that too like none other that can be compared to a bovine heap raising steam, or the eye-cast of a flailing comet. Back and forth, examining the egg spill and the cord fray and the clowning barnacle. And all day with no break to unwrap or unscrew or squint and flex or soak the brush. No, no. None flim flim on that here cavorting mainstay. From tree to tree and the pond there deepening and some small holes appearing and any number of cornstalks twisting into a thing far from corn. That being the case there was some wretched plotting, turned to stone, holding nothing. No, no. None rubby rubby on that here yardstick. Came then from the region of silt and aster, all along the horse trammel and fire velvet, first these sounds and then their makers. When passed betwixt and entered fully, pails were swung and notches considered. There was no light. No, none. None wzm wzm on that here piss crater. And it being the day, still considered. Oh, all things considered and not one mentioned, since all names had turned in and handed back. Knowing this the hounds disbanded and knowing that the ground muddled headstones and milestones and gallows and the almond-shaped buds of freshest honeysuckle. And among this chafing tumult fates were scrambled and mortality made untidy and pithy vows took themselves a breather. This being the way and irreversible homewards now was a lifted skeletal thing of the past, without due application or undue meaning. No, no. None shap shap on that here domicile shank. From right foot to left, first by the firs, then by the river, hung and loitered, and the blaze there slow to come. All night waking with no benefit of sleeping and the breath cranking and the heart-place levering and the kerosene pervading but failing to jerk a flame from out any one thing. No, none. None whoosh whoosh on that here burnished cunt. Oh, the earth, the earth and the women there, inside the simpering huts, stamped and spiritless, blowing on the coals. Not far away, but beyond the way of return.

Did you bring money with you, or shall we play for markers?" She flipped the stack of cards to the table with a professional twist of her wrist. "I don't play for less than a guinea a hand." His lips twitched. "The question is not if I have money. The question is, do you?" "I don't need funds, as I don't plan on losing," she said, her gaze mocking. For a moment, he thought he'd heard her incorrectly. Slowly, he said, "I beg your pardon, but are you saying you could beat me at a game of chance?" A dismissive smile rested on her lips. "Please, Dougal, let's speak frankly," she drawled softly. "Naturally, I expect to win; I was taught by a master." Dougal was entranced. He'd been challenged to many things before, but no one had so blatantly dismissed his chances of winning. "A giunea a hand?" "At least." "I didn't realize I'd need a note from my banker, or I'd have brought one with me." Her eyes sparkled with pure mischief, which inflamed him more. "If you've no money with you, then perhaps there are other things we can play for." The words hung in the room, as thick as the smoke that seeped from the fireplace. Like a blinding bolt of light from a storm-black sky, everything fell into place. This was why she and her minions had worked so hard to convince him that the house was worthless. If he thought it of low value, he'd be eager to wager the deed. Of all the devious plots! Yet Dougal found himself fighting a grin. He'd been feted and petted, fawned upon and sought out, but until now, no one had gone to such lengths to fleece him. Dugal couldn't look away from Sophia. He knew his own worth; women had paid attention to him for so long that he took it for granted. He'd dallied and toyed, taken and enjoyed. But never, in all of his years, had he so desired any woman as he did this one. The irony of it was that she desired him,too-but only for the contents of his pocket. Dougal didn't know whether to laugh or fume. He should be insulted, but instead he found himself watching her with new appreciation.

I read Dickens and Shakespear without shame or stint; but their pregnant observations and demonstrations of life are not co-ordinated into any philosophy or religion: on the contrary, Dickens's sentimental assumptions are violently contradicted by his observations; and Shakespear's pessimism is only his wounded humanity. Both have the specific genius of the fictionist and the common sympathies of human feeling and thought in pre-eminent degree. They are often saner and shrewder than the philosophers just as Sancho-Panza was often saner and shrewder than Don Quixote. They clear away vast masses of oppressive gravity by their sense of the ridiculous, which is at bottom a combination of sound moral judgment with lighthearted good humor. But they are concerned with the diversities of the world instead of with its unities: they are so irreligious that they exploit popular religion for professional purposes without delicacy or scruple (for example, Sydney Carton and the ghost in Hamlet!): they are anarchical, and cannot balance their exposures of Angelo and Dogberry, Sir Leicester Dedlock and Mr Tite Barnacle, with any portrait of a prophet or a worthy leader: they have no constructive ideas: they regard those who have them as dangerous fanatics: in all their fictions there is no leading thought or inspiration for which any man could conceivably risk the spoiling of his hat in a shower, much less his life. Both are alike forced to borrow motives for the more strenuous actions of their personages from the common stockpot of melodramatic plots; so that Hamlet has to be stimulated by the prejudices of a policeman and Macbeth by the cupidities of a bushranger. Dickens, without the excuse of having to manufacture motives for Hamlets and Macbeths, superfluously punt his crew down the stream of his monthly parts by mechanical devices which I leave you to describe, my own memory being quite baffled by the simplest question as to Monks in Oliver Twist, or the long lost parentage of Smike, or the relations between the Dorrit and Clennam families so inopportunely discovered by Monsieur Rigaud Blandois. The truth is, the world was to Shakespear a great "stage of fools" on which he was utterly bewildered. He could see no sort of sense in living at all; and Dickens saved himself from the despair of the dream in The Chimes by taking the world for granted and busying himself with its details. Neither of them could do anything with a serious positive character: they could place a human figure before you with perfect verisimilitude; but when the moment came for making it live and move, they found, unless it made them laugh, that they had a puppet on their hands, and had to invent some artificial external stimulus to make it work.