I am a firm believer that a good plot makes for a fun enough read, but it's not what binds us. If we don't care about the characters, we won't care - not in a lasting way - about what's happening to them.
Interpretation
Character connection is essential for a compelling story.
V. E. Schwab emphasizes that while a good plot may attract readers, it is the emotional connection to characters that truly engages them. Without empathy for the characters' experiences, the story loses its significance and impact, leading to a fleeting interest rather than a lasting impression.
In practice
In a book club discussion, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of character development.
I still get rejections - frequently - and my goal isn't to never fail, to never be turned down, but simply to succeed more often than I don't. And in order to do that, I have to constantly put myself out there, to judgment, critique, and rejection.
For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.
In the century-long history of Chinese science fiction, apocalyptic themes were mostly absent. This was especially true in the period before the 1990s, when Chinese science fiction, isolated from the influence of the West, developed on its own.
Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility.
Nobody knows that in reading we are re-living our temptations to be a poet. All readers who have a certain passion for reading, nurture and repress, through reading, the desire to become a writer.
Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.
Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader's imagination as the characters in their books. Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them.
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