A classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook’s Plotto is one writer’s personal method, painstakingly diagrammed for the benefit of others. The theory itself may be simple — "Purpose opposed by Obstacle yields Conflict" — but Cook takes his "Plottoist" through hundreds of situations and scenarios, guiding the reader’s hand as a dizzying array of purposes and obstacles come to a head. Cook’s method is broken down into three stages: First, the master plot. This four-page chart distills the most basic plot points into a three-line sentence. Next, the conflict situation. Each master plot leads the reader to a list of circumstances, distributed among 20 different conflict groups (these range from “Love’s Beginning” to “Personal Limitations” to “Transgression”). There are over 2,000 unique conflict situations in the book, and each is cross-referenced with designs for how the situation might have started, or where it might go. Finally, there are character combinations — Cook offers an extensive index of protagonists, each cross-referenced with various supporting players — themselves tied to various conflict situations, for what appears to be an inexhaustible reservoir of suggestions and inspiration.
Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There are plenty of books on how to write... the craft of writing... what publishers look for... all that general nonsense that if you really are a writer you generally shouldn't need/waste your money on. This book however is a holy grail. We can generally agree that almost no plot is really unique. Plotto acknowledges that and does so in a way that is useful and practical. Cook wasn't doing this for our benefit but rather for his own... Plotto was his story writing machine... no wonder he was the king of pulp.
I have been endlessly looking for a book that can fill that gap between writing prompt and writing tool... and Plotto is brilliant and effortless. This should be required in any college media or writing class. There is something to be gained no matter what genre you are attacking...it can put bones in the story you are already building... or give you the skeleton to hang your thoughts on. The point of Plotto isn't that it's so much telling you "how to write" but rather assuming you can and working with you to achieve a mutual goal of completion.
Professors, writers, aspiring writers, and film fans... this book is old, but it's so relevant to all we do-- it should be a vital part of our libraries.
Why the one less star? The book's mechanics of navigation are a little convoluted... they aren't impossible to master... but that's just it, you have to master it to use the book fully. It's a fully coded system-- which has it's bonuses and setbacks.
Do yourself a favor and get this book... this book needs to be shared and gifted and spread!
I have been endlessly looking for a book that can fill that gap between writing prompt and writing tool... and Plotto is brilliant and effortless. This should be required in any college media or writing class. There is something to be gained no matter what genre you are attacking...it can put bones in the story you are already building... or give you the skeleton to hang your thoughts on. The point of Plotto isn't that it's so much telling you "how to write" but rather assuming you can and working with you to achieve a mutual goal of completion.
Professors, writers, aspiring writers, and film fans... this book is old, but it's so relevant to all we do-- it should be a vital part of our libraries.
Why the one less star? The book's mechanics of navigation are a little convoluted... they aren't impossible to master... but that's just it, you have to master it to use the book fully. It's a fully coded system-- which has it's bonuses and setbacks.
Do yourself a favor and get this book... this book needs to be shared and gifted and spread!
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
There has probably never been a better book on plots than Plotto written back before the crust of the earth hardened, but never done any better. A writer can find endless combinations of plot development, but this is far from easy. The manner of presentation requires full concentration and an aptitude for math is helpful. You will simply not pick up this book and come up with the plot for the next great American novel. However, if one is willing to study the method and understand the flow of development, it is a most valuable tool.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Unknown Binding
Plotto is a plot-generation aid published in 1928 by the amazingly prolific William Wallace Cook (who also wrote "The Fiction Factory" under the alias of John Milton Edwards).
Plotto is an unusual book that takes some practice to use well. Like everyone else, I dove into it with high hopes and a blank mind and hoped it would write my story for me. That's not how it works. As everyone who has ever dealt with plot knows, a bare statement of plot always sounds boring, and someone else's plot idea always has something wrong with it. Plotto is there to help spark ideas, but you still have to provide the heavy lifting yourself.
More than anything, Plotto reminds me of Roget's Thesaurus in its standard form, which takes a while to learn how to use. Most people never bother, and rely instead on the relatively useless "dictionary form" version. You have to take the time to learn the tool. This is aided if you can lay your hands on Cook's 32-page Plotto instruction booklet, which is more detailed than the instructions in the book itself.
That said, it's a pretty spiffy tool! The book consists largely of numbered paragraphs giving "conflict situations" that describe a predicament and what the viewpoint character does about it, and what the result is. Each of these situations has references to other situations that might work out to elaborate or complete the plot. One group of references points forward in time, the other backwards (giving you backstory).
There are two major entry points into the conflict situations. One is indexed by a general description of the nature of the viewpoint character, the conflict, and the type of resolution, and the other is by the relationship between the major characters. For example, if you need a situation involving about a main character, his best friend, and a Man of Mystery, there's a table dealing listing the conflict situations involving that triad.
Since I have never succeeding in having any fiction published, I can't say that Plotto has helped my career, but I do not regret the time and money I spent acquiring it in the pre-Internet days, when it was much harder to even learn about the existence of out-of-print titles, let alone acquire them.
Plotto is an unusual book that takes some practice to use well. Like everyone else, I dove into it with high hopes and a blank mind and hoped it would write my story for me. That's not how it works. As everyone who has ever dealt with plot knows, a bare statement of plot always sounds boring, and someone else's plot idea always has something wrong with it. Plotto is there to help spark ideas, but you still have to provide the heavy lifting yourself.
More than anything, Plotto reminds me of Roget's Thesaurus in its standard form, which takes a while to learn how to use. Most people never bother, and rely instead on the relatively useless "dictionary form" version. You have to take the time to learn the tool. This is aided if you can lay your hands on Cook's 32-page Plotto instruction booklet, which is more detailed than the instructions in the book itself.
That said, it's a pretty spiffy tool! The book consists largely of numbered paragraphs giving "conflict situations" that describe a predicament and what the viewpoint character does about it, and what the result is. Each of these situations has references to other situations that might work out to elaborate or complete the plot. One group of references points forward in time, the other backwards (giving you backstory).
There are two major entry points into the conflict situations. One is indexed by a general description of the nature of the viewpoint character, the conflict, and the type of resolution, and the other is by the relationship between the major characters. For example, if you need a situation involving about a main character, his best friend, and a Man of Mystery, there's a table dealing listing the conflict situations involving that triad.
Since I have never succeeding in having any fiction published, I can't say that Plotto has helped my career, but I do not regret the time and money I spent acquiring it in the pre-Internet days, when it was much harder to even learn about the existence of out-of-print titles, let alone acquire them.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
You have to give it a chance, it has alot of great ideas and helps you...
To just read this book is not enough you have to use it and study it to get the most out of it. This book will not write your stories for you. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Dustin the Man
4.0 out of 5 stars
Frenzied tour de force
"Tour de force" I think is the term for an undertaking such as this. I frequently browse through Plotto though I haven't felt the need yet to copy one of its schemes for a... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Marcus Speh
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unexpected feel, expected content. Satisfied
The book has an exceptional design. I wish more books looked like this, and were constructed this way. That said, it does feel a bit lighter than it looks. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Dylan Clark
4.0 out of 5 stars
What a wonderful find
This book was recommended by my critique partner. I've only skimmed it since I'm up to my nose with my current work in progress but will be using it for my next story.
Published 4 months ago by Ruth M. Seitelman
5.0 out of 5 stars
I find this remarkably entertaining
If you are expecting writing advice, rehashes of Shakespearean plots, kernels for writing, this is not your book. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Joshua J. Noble
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting method, good focus on conflict.
This classic story structure how-to (first published in 1928) is, at the least, a fascinating insight into one prolific writer's creative process. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Danielle
5.0 out of 5 stars
Use it as a starting point
I've had 13 books published, and am just starting thinking about a new series. Rather than follow the convoluted way of creating plots, I just browse through the ideas and use them... Read more
Published 12 months ago by April Henry
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good luck getting this book to do anything but drive you crazy
Conceptually, this book is brilliant, but the execution is painful. It's difficult to figure out how the system even works, and the archaic, overly formal and complicated 1928... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Baron Von Cool
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Curio
I thought this book would hold a valuable nugget or two, so I bought it, scanned it, then spent a little time going through the organization of plots.
Meh. Read more
Meh. Read more
Published 13 months ago by M L Rudolph
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worthwhile Investment
Plotto packs a staggering amount of information between its pages. It's more than worth the purchase price. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Ginny Dix
