PLOTTO 101

Plotto is, ultimately, an outline generator. It helps you create and shape the skeleton of your story before (or as) you're writing it. There are three ways to approach Plotto, depending on what pieces of story you already have in mind. You can start with the Masterplot (more on that to come), a combination of characters, or a conflict situation. Whichever route you go, you can continue to build and morph your outline as you write.

Starting with the Masterplot

The Masterplot formula: A Clause + B Clause + C Clause

  • The A Clause: Establishes the protagonist (in general terms)
  • The B Clause: Originates and continues the action
  • The C Clause: Continues and resolves the action

The Masterplot serves as a general theme or summary of the story at its most basic level. Cook suggests fifteen A Clauses, sixty-two B Clauses, and fifteen C Clauses. Under each of the B Clauses are numerous conflict situations that, when combined and interwoven, make up the basic plot of your story. Each conflict situation—numbered 1-1462—contains between two and fourteen suggested "lead-ups" and "carry-ons." By scrutinizing the various suggestions and winding your way through the pages—the way you might a choose-your-own-adventure novel—you combine the conflict situations until you have the bones of your story.

Starting with Character Combinations

If you have even a rough idea of your characters, but a hazier notion of where those characters might take you, it might be wise to start instead with a character combination. Plotto assigns symbols to more than fifty unique character types, which then appear throughout the various conflict situations. Once you find the appropriate character combination (beginning on page 266), you can choose from various story types and subtypes (beginning on page 271) that will lead you to appropriate conflict situations with which you can began structuring your story.

Starting with a Conflict Situation

Perhaps a less scientific means to approach Plotto is by starting with one of the 1,462+ conflict situations. As mentioned in Starting with the Masterplot, each conflict situation has between two and fourteen lead-ups and carry-ons. If a conflict situation strikes you as a good starting place, you can trace those lead-ups backward and forward to construct your plot.

A Key to Numbers and Symbols

(Conflict Situations, starting on pg. 24)

Below is an excerpt from the List of Conflict Situations.

(41) FINDING AN OBLIGATION AT VARIANCE WITH AMBITION, INCLINATION OR NECESSITY

19

a 117 24a, b, c

A falls in love with B, and renounces wealth which he was to inherit by marrying BX

223 43

b 118 1041 ch A to GF-A

A, under threat of being disinherited, is ordered to commit an act that will prove a grievous injury to a near relative of B’s, the woman he loves, A refuses

130 313

(41) refers to B Clause #41 in the Masterplot chart. If your original masterplot included B Clause #41, you would then turn to page twenty and decide if your story falls under the category of Love and Courtship, Married Life, or Obligation. Assuming you chose the former, the book would direct you to a number of potential conflict situations, including nineteen and twenty, as shown. From here, you choose the specific conflict situation that works best for your story.

19 indicates the Conflict Situation (another way to think of it is as a story segment).

(a) Under each numbered Conflict Situation, you might find several variations indicated with bold, lowercase letters in parentheses.

(117) (24a, b, c) The parenthetical numbers at the outset of a conflict situation are suggested "lead-ups" to that segment. In this case, you can build a story backward by referring to conflict situation 11 7, 24a, 24b, or 24c.

(223) The parenthetical numbers at the end of a conflict situation are the "carry-ons." They serve the same purpose as "lead-ups",except that they take you forward in the story instead of backward.

* or (43-**) Some conflict situations can be broken up into shorter clauses, so that you might use the first part, but not necessarily the second (or vice versa). Asterisks represent where those breaks exist.

Here's a basic rundown of how asterisks operate within conflict situations:

  • * End of Part 1
  • ** End of Part 2
  • *** End of Part 3

Here's a basic rundown of how asterisks operate with lead-ups and carry-ons:

  • -* The conflict situation should be used up to the *
  • -** All of the conflict situation should be used up to the **
  • *-** Only the second part of the conflict should be used

(1041 ch A to GF-A) Occasionally, using two specific conflict situations requires you to change the character makeup. Here, using Conflict Situation 1041 in combination with 19b requires you to change character A in the lead-up to character CF-A (in this case, that means the lead-up from "The protagonist, on his way to execute a new will disposing of his estate, meets death in an accident" changes to "The grandfather of the protagonist, on his way to execute a new will disposing of his estate, meets death in an accident." Sometimes, instead of "ch A to GF-A," you'll see "tr A to GF-A," in which case, you'll transpose, within the specific lead-up or carry-on, two characters that are already present.

A, X, B, represent the various characters involved in the story. Page twenty- three has an exhaustive table of possible characters. In this case, A stands for the "male protagonist," B stands for the "female protagonist," and BX stands for "a mysterious female person, or one of unusual character."

A Key to Numbers & Symbols

(Refers to the Classifciation By Character Symbols, starting on pg. 271)

A, B and A-5

LOVE’S MISADVENTURES --

A's secretary, B, is a criminal, "planted" in A's home by A-5, a crook 152b

(1) B, a criminal, confederate of A-5, a crook, falls in love with her employer, A 152b

MARRIED LIFE

A-5, A-5, tricky so-called spiritualists, pretend to materialize the spirit of deceased B in order to influence A to give them money by advice of the supposed B 474

B's husband, A, is killed by A-5 569

B's husband, A, is killed by A-5; and A-5, through the law's delay and technicalities, escapes with only a light sentence 569

(9) B invokes the Mosaic law in seeking revenge upon A-5 for the murder of her husband, A 569

(

9) B, wife of A, takes the law in her own hands and shoots A-5, who has murdered A 594e

A, B and A-5 indicate your chosen combination of characters. In this case: a male protagonist, a female protagonist, and a male criminal.

LOVE’S MISADVENTURES refers back to the conflict group/subgroup under which each conflict situation is categorized. Once you choose your character combination, browse for the appropriate conflict group for your story. Under each conflict group, you'll find any number of possible conflict situations with which you can begin.

152b The number at the end of each conflict situation takes you back to the Conflict Situation section of Plotto, where, with your characters now in place, you can start building the framework of your story.

(1) The parenthetical numbers in the left-hand column are suggestions for the C clause of your story (that is, the clause that eventually terminates the action).

William Wallace Cook.