11 books found
A classic how-to manual, William Wallace Cook's Plotto is one writer's personal theory--"Purpose, opposed by Obstacle, yields Conflict"--painstakingly diagrammed through hundreds of situations and scenarios 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 through a dizzying array of “purposes” and “obstacles.” The method is broken down into three stages: 1. The Master Plot 2. The Conflict Situation 3. Character Combinations In the first stage, Cook demonstrates that “a character with particular traits . . . finds himself in a situation . . . and this is how it turns out.” Following this, each Master Plot leads the reader to a list of circumstances, distributed among twenty different Conflict Groups (these range from “Love’s Beginning,” to “Personal Limitations,” to “Transgression”). Finally, in Character Combinations, Cook offers an extensive index of protagonists for what serves as an inexhaustible reservoir of suggestions and inspiration.
by William Frederick Eliott
1923
by William Herzog Collins, Cicero F. Perry
1905
There could be no more fitting introduction to this most amazing narrative from the pen of James Peter Munn than that article in the Morning Mercury. Munn, it is no breach of confidence to inform the reader, was a reformed burglar; although the author of two books which achieved large sales and were most favorably received by the reviewers - "Forty Ways of Cracking Safes" and "The Sandbagger's Manual" - Mr. Munn developed small skill with the pen, so that the breathless interest aroused by his revelations hangs more upon the matter than the style. The Mercury article should do its mite toward preparing the reader for what is to come. In the first place, the story was what newspaper men call a "scoop."