## Highlights ### L381 inspiration comes from stimulation > this. I knew that every time I quit an editorial job I went into a highly productive period of writing, but I thought that was because I couldn’t write while I held a job, and I was backlogged. That had something to do with it, but I believe now that I was responding to the stimulus of all those stories, good and bad that I was reading critically in the office. Being excited about some subject, reading a lot of books about it and going back and forth from one to another as I often do, has the same effect on me, and so does talking to other writers at a convention or workshop. Critics talk about “the well of inspiration,” and they say that the well sometimes runs dry. What this means, in my opinion, is either that the author is feeling the lack of stimulating input, - ([Location 381](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01N9JGSYU&location=381)) ### L622 prerequisites for story > Even when you begin with an abstract idea, you must follow it to a character, a setting, a situation, and an emotion before there can be a story. - ([Location 622](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01N9JGSYU&location=622)) ### L1489 how plots work > A plot, then, is a series of imaginary events designed to create anticipation at a high pitch, either in the form of anxiety (in a story of conflict or mystery), or of curiosity (in a puzzle story). If you can build such a series, you can plot. In a plotted story, the ending may take the form of a resolution, a revelation, a decision, an explanation, or a solution. - ([Location 1489](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01N9JGSYU&location=1489)) ### L1492 how to end stories > Revelation means the exposure of something previously hidden. In a decision story, the ending comes when the central character makes up her mind about something important and difficult. Explanation, obviously, provides the ending for a story about a mystery, and solution provides the ending for a puzzle. - ([Location 1492](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01N9JGSYU&location=1492))