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Plotto: The Classic Plot Suggestion Tool for Writers of Creative Fiction Paperback – 2 Aug. 2011

by William Wallace Cook (Author), Robert Plamondon (Foreword)
3.6 out of 5 stars 26 ratings
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Have you struggled to expand your initial idea into a complete story? Plotting can be frustrating work!

What if there were a tool for this very problem, so you could navigate these uncharted waters as quickly as possible? A tool that starts with what you have (a situation, perhaps, or a group of characters) and sets you on the road to new possibilities? Plotto does all this. Created by a master of “organized creativity,” William Wallace Cook (one of the most prolific writers in history), Plotto has been prized by professional authors and screenwriters since its publication in 1928, and is still in demand today, with copies of the original edition selling for up to $400. Its companion piece, the Plotto Instruction Booklet, is almost unobtainable.

Plotto's value lies as much in what is isn't as in what it is. Plotto isn't a random plot generator, and never gives you something you can cut out and paste down (sometimes it looks like you could, but ... don't). Instead, it deliberately serves up situations or conflicts that seem rather lifeless at first glance, because they are. They still need to be animated by the spark of your own creativity, while putting the process into a more manageable framework.

This Norton Creek Edition is an exact reproduction of Cook’s work. To keep the book down to a manageable size (300 pages of small type) while retaining its powerful features, Cook uses, alas, small type and a telegraphic format that takes some getting used to, so working through the Plotto Instruction Booklet (also available from Norton Creek Press) or at least the examples at the front of the book are essential.

Because Plotto was written in the 1920s, its situations are old-fashioned and its terminology is politically incorrect, but these problems are more apparent than real since you'll be reworking everything anyway. Cook himself wrote both westerns and early classics of science fiction, so you see how replacing “stagecoach” with “star ship” or “dance hall girl” with “male stripper” are within the reach of anyone using the Plotto system. In fact, this kind of substitution is how the book is intended to be used, and is the key to its flexibility and enduring popularity.

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  1. Print length
    308 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    2 Aug. 2011
  4. Dimensions
    15.24 x 1.96 x 22.86 cm
  5. ISBN-10
    0981928471
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0981928470
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Product description

About the Author

William Wallace Cook (1867-1933) was a prolific author and an early enthusiast of systematic writing. His most famous work is Plotto: The Classic Plot Suggestion Tool for Writers of Creative Fiction, and its essential companion volume, the Plotto Instruction Booklet and his autobiographical work, The Fiction Factory,/i> describing his ups and downs as a prolific freelance writer for pulp magazines more than a century ago, is not to be missed. (All three are available from Norton Creek Press.)

Cook had an orderly mind and an unruly imagination, and worked hard to organize what could be organized, so his rampant creativity could run at full speed, producing fiction in every genre, including screenplays and early works of science fiction. He was an early adopter of the typewriter and wore many of them out. He maintained an ever-growing library of newspaper and magazine clippings and adopted the then-new practice of indexing them through a file card system.

For more information about Cook's writing life, see his autobiographical The Fiction Factory (1912), written under the alias John Milton Edwards. He published Plotto and its instruction booklet in 1928, and died in 1933.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Norton Creek Press (2 Aug. 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 308 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0981928471
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0981928470
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 1.96 x 22.86 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    3.6 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

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3.6 out of 5 stars
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  • John V. Hedtke
    5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended in a fiction writing class we took recently
    Reviewed in the United States on 6 March 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Recommended in a fiction writing class we took recently, this is a powerful book for generating plot ideas and give you a creative bump.
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  • nohmn
    4.0 out of 5 stars Disapointed in what look like photo reduced page images with lots of white margins so the book dimensions given are misleading
    Reviewed in Canada on 24 June 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Plotto is an interesting book/ device. I found it an interesting example of a way to play with story structures somewhat as one might armatures on which one might put clay in different shapes experimenting with various different sculptures - though with plots there is even more flexibility than with an armature that would exist in only three dimensions in space. It struck me as an interesting way to warm up thinking about how stories can fit together from pieces evolve and morph and play a kind of relaxing solitaire with how quickly one might flesh out stories that fit different possible structures.

    My first exposure was with a hard cover version I had borrowed from the library. Having purchased the paperback copy as republished by Norton Creek Press from Amazon.ca I was disappointed (hence the four stars for this review) that the pages show a photo reduced copy of the book making it less easy to read due to the reduced size. The unusually large margins on all sides of the text image on each page means the dimensions of the book itself do not give a clue to the degree of shrinkage each page image suffers.

    It is readable but I feel it much less pleasant to use than the hard cover older edition I had borrowed from the library. If you are thinking of purchasing this soft cover edition and are at all intolerant of rather reduced type size I would suggest trying to look at an actual soft cover copy before purchasing. it.
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  • Teliendil
    4.0 out of 5 stars Un ouvrage de référence pour spécialiste.
    Reviewed in France on 29 March 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Voilà la somme d'un travail exceptionnel autour de la création de fictions narratives de William Wallace Cook!
    Un ouvrage de référence qui est tant une curiosité qu'un outil très utile. Consultable par tout chercheur dans le domaine de la création littéraire, il aura sa place auprès de tout auteur ou bien dans le cadre d'un atelier d'écriture où il pourra alimenter de nombreux exercices, surtout si on associe aux trames proposées des contraintes d'écriture. Ce volume est à réserver à des spécialistes, quoi qu'il en soit.
    Il est bien évidemment regrettable qu'une traduction française de cet ouvrage n'existe.
    Mais il reste accessible même en anglais.
    Une fois la démarche d'utilisation assimilée (un peu comme un "Livre dont vous êtes le héros ") on peut se lancer dans des exercices d'écriture variés ou bien alimenter de rebondissements divers une création plus vaste.
    Cette édition, si elle reprend formellement celle de 1928 et malgré un format raisonnable (22.5x15 cm), propose une police de caractère vraiment petite, ce qui n'en facilite pas la lecture vue la complexité de la forme élaborée par Cook (nombreux numéros de paragraphes et autres particularités typographiques).
    🧭 En résumé :
    - pour passionné/spécialiste de littérature ;
    - une aide à la création littéraire ;
    - une curiosité littéraire ;
    - une police vraiment très petite.
    À conseiller à tout spécialiste de la littérature.
    (Si vous trouvez ce commentaire utile, n'hésitez pas à l'indiquer! Merci 👍)
    Customer image
    Teliendil
    4.0 out of 5 stars
    Un ouvrage de référence pour spécialiste.

    Reviewed in France on 29 March 2021
    Voilà la somme d'un travail exceptionnel autour de la création de fictions narratives de William Wallace Cook!
    Un ouvrage de référence qui est tant une curiosité qu'un outil très utile. Consultable par tout chercheur dans le domaine de la création littéraire, il aura sa place auprès de tout auteur ou bien dans le cadre d'un atelier d'écriture où il pourra alimenter de nombreux exercices, surtout si on associe aux trames proposées des contraintes d'écriture. Ce volume est à réserver à des spécialistes, quoi qu'il en soit.
    Il est bien évidemment regrettable qu'une traduction française de cet ouvrage n'existe.
    Mais il reste accessible même en anglais.
    Une fois la démarche d'utilisation assimilée (un peu comme un "Livre dont vous êtes le héros ") on peut se lancer dans des exercices d'écriture variés ou bien alimenter de rebondissements divers une création plus vaste.
    Cette édition, si elle reprend formellement celle de 1928 et malgré un format raisonnable (22.5x15 cm), propose une police de caractère vraiment petite, ce qui n'en facilite pas la lecture vue la complexité de la forme élaborée par Cook (nombreux numéros de paragraphes et autres particularités typographiques).
    🧭 En résumé :
    - pour passionné/spécialiste de littérature ;
    - une aide à la création littéraire ;
    - une curiosité littéraire ;
    - une police vraiment très petite.
    À conseiller à tout spécialiste de la littérature.
    (Si vous trouvez ce commentaire utile, n'hésitez pas à l'indiquer! Merci 👍)
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  • Daniel C. Mccarthy
    3.0 out of 5 stars It could be helpful for someone having " writer's block"
    Reviewed in the United States on 19 December 2013
    Verified Purchase
    I couldn't really get into it. To me it was too formulaic. I don't have a mathematical-type mind and just scanning it gives me the same feeling as I prepare to do my income tax return. However, my views shouldn't turn off another who is mathematically inclined and enjoys solving math problems. I feel that such an individual who was stuck could use one of the formulas to get rid of his or her writer's block.
    Report
  • Kate S.
    1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid the Norton Creek Press edition
    Reviewed in the United States on 17 November 2018
    Verified Purchase
    This a review of the Norton Creek Press edition (the one with the colorful cogs on the cover), which is an atrociously lazy reprint of the book. It was clearly printed using the plates of an older, mass-market-size edition of the book with no care given to its presentation or readability. The actual printed text is far too small for the physical pages of this edition, leaving vast margins above, below, and to the sides of the tiny text. Only two-thirds of the physical page is actually being used. Plotto is already a difficult, dense reference book, so do yourself a favor and buy a better edition that doesn't make it unnecessarily painful to read.
    Report