“There are thirty-two ways to write a story, and I’ve used every one, but there is only one plot – things are not as they seem.”

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Jim Thompson5

American writer 1906–1977

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“You will have only one story,” she had said. “You’ll write your one story many ways. Don’t ever worry about story. You have only one.”

Elizabeth Strout (1956) American writer

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“This is how, without the consent of the two lovers, of its two main characters, of the only ones who were originally worth anything in this short story, the narrator decided to incorporate two more words into the plot: “doubt” and “uncertainty.””

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

“There’s no way to please everyone, because that mythical book with the ending that every single person wants can’t exist—you want different things, each one of you. The only thing I can do, in light of that fact, is write an honest story as best I can.”

Veronica Roth (1988) American author

About the End of Allegiant (SPOILERS), Roth, Veronica, Veronica Roth, October 28, 2013, November 3, 2013 http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/2013/10/about-end-of-allegiant-spoilers.html, <br class="br">Quoted at: <br class="br"> Veronica Roth offers huge explanation for 'Allegiant's' big twist – will it appease you?, Sims, Andrew, Hypable, October 28, 2013, November 6, 2013 http://www.hypable.com/2013/10/28/allegiant-review-tris-dies-veronica-roth-response/,

“Well, I think that when I’m writing about Haiti, I’m just writing one long, ongoing story. But I really did feel, like a lot of people did, that after the earthquake, there were suddenly two Haitis: the Haiti of before the earthquake and the Haiti of after the earthquake. So I feel that I’ve been writing about the first one much longer. And writing about the earthquake… it’s been such a short period of time and it’s still such a raw experience that the few things that I’ve written about it, I feel like I’ve written them to process it myself.”

Edwidge Danticat (1969) Novelist, short story writer, memoirist

On how she views Haiti since a major earthquake in in “An Interview | Edwidge Danticat” http://www.bkreview.org/fall-2018/an-interview-with-edwidge-danticat/ in The Brooklyn Review (Fall 2018) <br class="br">Interviews

“There are two stories for every life; the one you live & the one others tell”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

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“…my life has been a remarkable one. Maybe one day someone will write a book about me…”

"I’ve never much cared for horror stories.”

Anthony Horowitz Alex Rider

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“There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing… I am a recording instrument… I do not presume to impose "story "plot" "continuity"… Insofar as I succeed in Direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function… I am not an entertainer.”

William S. Burroughs book Naked Lunch

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“The one thing which seems to me quite impossible is to take into consideration the kind of book one is expected to write; surely one can only write the book that is there to be written.

(, 8 September 1935)”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1, 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist

“I'm the king's thirty-second son
There's thirty-one others just like me
There's thirty-one others on the way
There's thirty-one others after that…”

Regina Spektor (1980) American singer-songwriter and pianist

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“Along with plot, I am always thinking about structure. Sometimes the story guides you to the best structure for its telling. Using letters seemed like the best way to tell this story. When writing these letters, the characters are selecting what they want to tell. In this case, the woman is writing in a way that would not endanger her or her family if her letters were found by the military authorities who took over the country, and the man is writing with the urgency of someone who could die at any minute while at sea.”

Edwidge Danticat (1969) Novelist, short story writer, memoirist

On using an epistolary form for her short story “Children of the Sea” in “An Interview | Edwidge Danticat” http://www.bkreview.org/fall-2018/an-interview-with-edwidge-danticat/ in The Brooklyn Review (Fall 2018) <br class="br">Interviews

“There are thirty-two ways to write a story, and I’ve used every one, but there is only one plot – things are not as they seem.”

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Jim Thompson5

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