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    Mastering Plotto
    Mastering Plotto
    Mastering Plotto
    Ebook109 pages1 hour

    Mastering Plotto

    By William Wallace Cook

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    About this ebook

    How to Write A Novel Each Week

    The trick is in coming up with enough plots.

    A wildly prolific, early 20th century pulp
    writer, William Wallace Cook was a writing machine. 

    While he set the bar for pulp fiction, he was also passionate about the process of writing
    itself. Keeping notes on index cards, he was able to distill the process of plotting down to a simple, but thorough manual, Plotto.

    Alfred Hitchcock was an early student, so was Earl Stanley Gardner. Robert Silverberg also gave a great review of the book. 

    When Cook published Plotto in finished from, he recieved feedback from readers who still could not work out how to use his massive book from the instructions in the front of it.

    In 1934, he came out with a seven-part lesson series that simplified the learning curve. 

    "Plotto is a new method of plot SUGGESTION for writers of CREATIVE
    fiction. Let us, here at the beginning of our course, place the emphasis
    on the word SUGGESTION, as well as on that other word, CREATIVE. In
    later lessons of the course we shall go more deeply into this matter of
    the interpretation of suggestion. 

    "For the present, however, it is merely
    necessary to note that the interpretation of suggestion results in
    creative work only when the constructive imagination builds with
    material hewn from the quarry of individual experience. In other words,
    we achieve Originality; and Originality is the ideal of the Plotto
    method of plot construction through the interpretation of plot
    suggestion."

    This point many miss is that these plotting generators are best used as methods of inspiration, not as a subsitute for a writer's perspiration. While many author's rave about Plotto, it is perhaps better to use it as a learning tool. Certainly having a copy on hand when the muse has left you, the deadline looms and your private hell of Writer's Block seems camped in your office. 

    This edition includes the Plotto Chart of Masterplots With Interchangeable Clauses for quick reference. Simply recombing these three A, B, and C Causes (Protagonist, Action/Crisis, Climax/Resolution) can themselves trigger a valuable inspiration that can get your creative juices flowing. 

    If you have Plotto, and don't use it much - or would like to learn the basics of plotting, this book is a key learning manual for any author. 

    Get Your Copy Today. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublishdrive
    Release dateOct 8, 2017
    ISBN9781387282555
    Mastering Plotto

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      Book preview

      Mastering Plotto - William Wallace Cook

      MASTERING PLOTTO

      Learn How to Use the Plotto Content Structure System in Seven Simple Lessons

      (Originally titled: Plotto Instruction Booklet)

      by William Wallace Cook

      First published in 1934 and available in the public domain. Cover and added text copyright © 2017 Midwest Journal Press. All Rights Reserved.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      1. Plotto Masterplots

      The Theme

      When a Theme Becomes a Masterplot

      Interchangeable Masterplot Clauses

      Masterplots: Simple and Compound

      Compounding the Masterplot Clauses

      Beginning With a Masterplot

      Lesson 1 Exercises

      2. Plotto Purposes and Obstacles

      Purpose Rooted in Desire

      Purpose Confronts an Obstacle

      Obstacle Apparently Overcome

      Obstacle Becomes Formidable

      The Conflict that Makes a Story

      Drama

      Suspense

      Happiness the Supreme Purpose

      Subordinate Purposes

      Plotto’s Axiom

      Plan of the Plotto Lessons

      Plotto Suggests

      Conflict 6a

      Conflict 54a

      Conflict 153

      Conflict 432a

      Interpreting Purpose and Obstacle

      Conflict 754

      Lesson 2 Exercises

      3. Originality in the Interpretation of Conflict Suggestions

      Individual Experiences Never Identical

      Originality

      Interpretation by Different Persons Not Identical

      Originality in the Interpretation of Specific Conflicts

      Originality the Soul of Creative Art

      Studies in Interpretation

      Working Originally

      No Hard and Fast Rules

      Lesson 3 Exercises

      4. The Conflict References

      The Symbols

      Manipulating Character Symbols

      Lead-ups and Carry-ons

      Another Interpretation

      Lesson 4 Exercises

      5. Original Conflict References

      Interpreting Suggestion Originally

      Be Yourself

      Human Nature

      The References

      Broken Conflicts

      Classification by Symbols

      Searching For Original References

      Your Short Story

      Lesson 5 Exercises

      6. Characterization

      Characterization Indispensable

      Theme, Plot, Characterization

      Situation Decides Characterization

      Masterplot Character Suggestion

      Conflict Suggestion

      Style

      The Beginning

      Lesson 6 Exercises

      7. Individualizing Plotto

      Indexing Story Material

      Plotto as a Personal Aid

      The Man of Vision

      Coach the Imagination Constantly

      Personal Interpretation of Conflict Suggestion

      Imagination Palliative of Evil

      Possibility of Misunderstanding

      Plotto Truth

      How the Work was Devised

      Possibilities in Originality

      Appendix

      THE PLOTTO CHART - MASTERPLOTS WITH INTERCHANGEABLE CLAUSES

      A Clauses

      B Clauses

      C Clauses

      Index of Conflicts Grouped Under the B Clauses

      Bonus

      Introduction

      A mere reading of the Plotto book has proved the difficulty of bringing home to the mind the vast possibilities embraced in the Conflicts. To combat a misunderstanding of the Method, and to inculcate practically the Method’s ideals, this course of lessons has been devised.

      For more than forty years the author of Plotto has been writing and selling fiction stories; and out of this long experience he earnestly believes that here in Plotto is Truth, and a Method of Originality as firmly founded as human nature itself. The author of Plotto has given five years to the preparation of this work. He knows it is imperfect, and that it would still be imperfect if he had spent a whole lifetime in its preparation. But he has proved that it is practical.

      The author began his work by devising the Masterplot Chart; and, because of his long experience in story writing, he found the Masterplots sufficient for his purposes of plot suggestion. But when these Masterplots were submitted to other writers, there was the objection that they were not concrete enough in their suggestions. To make the Masterplot supply his need, the Conflicts to exemplify them were devised—calling for the most intense application over a period of years. The author of Plotto has made use of the Conflict suggestions in his own work, and is using them now, always with the utmost success.

      In fact, he has been told by the publisher who has used most of his output of fiction for forty years, that, contrary to the rule, his work grows better as his years increase. And that is because Plotto, a Method that has done and is doing its best with its author’s plodding talent. Having himself demonstrated the practicability of the Method, the author passes it on to others with confidence that, if used in an original way, the ideal way, it will easily demonstrate its value.

      William Wallace Cook

      1. Plotto Masterplots

      Read and study this manual. It will teach you how to understand and get the most benefit out of Plotto.

      Remember: Plotto is the greatest single aid in plotting ever offered writers. Make up your mind NOW to give Plotto and this manual the time it deserves. The best-known writers in the world own and use Plotto.

      You are beginning the study of one of the most fascinating problems to be found in any profession. The problem deals with complications of incidents based on human reactions to the various stimuli of environment, each complication unfolding logically into a climax, or crisis, and then subsiding quickly in a denouement. To solve this problem crudely is one thing, but to accomplish it with an art in which the imagination exercises taste and discrimination is quite another thing.

      In this life, there is no pleasure and no satisfaction to be compared with the act of Creating, or drawing upon our experience for the purpose of giving to the world something

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