“Make everybody fall out of the plane first, and then explain who they were and why they were in the plane to begin with.” –Nancy Ann Dibble

“If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.” – T.S. Eliot

“In nearly all good fiction, the basic – all but inescapable – plot form is this: A central character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.” – John Gardner

“Don’t mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion – many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.” – Stanley Schmidt

“I guarantee you that no modern story scheme, even plotlessness, will give a reader genuine satisfaction, unless one of those old-fashioned plots is smuggled in somewhere…When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell students to make their characters want something, even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaningless of modern life still have to drink water from time to time. One of my students wrote a story about a nun who got a piece of dental floss stuck between her lower left molars, and who couldn’t get it out all day long. I thought that was wonderful. The story dealt with issues a lot more important than dental floss, but what kept readers going was anxiety about when the dental floss would finally be removed. Nobody could read that story without fishing around in his mouth with a finger.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.