Plots, Plots, and More Plots!
You want plots? Here are some plots:
Turning from the pulps to the slicks, we meet Charles Simmons. Like so many others, he was inspired by Polti’s 36 to conduct his own research. But Simmons did not study isolated plot elements. Instead, he sat down with a big stack of back issue magazines. He read 350 short stories and analyzed their plots into 30 categories. After reading 50 more stories and seeing that those plots were repetitions of what he had already seen, he decided he had reached bottom.
Each chapter of Plots That Sell to Top-Pay Magazinesdetails one category: quotes, plots, variations, characters, twists — everything the writer needs to know.
Sadly, Plots That Sell is out of print and barely mentioned on the Internet. So, here are the 30 categories that Charles Simmons identified:
- The Child Matures
- The Inexplicable Vice Is Revealed as a Virtue
- The Mysterious Situation Is Explained
- The Puzzling Identity Is Revealed
- The Hero Is Freed from his False Belief
- A Material Reward is Sought, and a Spiritual One Is Found
- Biter — Bite
- The Incompetent Hero Proves His Worth
- The Impossible Assignment Is Accomplished
- The Possible Assignment Is Accomplished
- Friends or Lovers Quarrel and Are Reconciled
- The Threatened Unity of the Family Is Re-established
- The Evil of a Bad Man Asserts Itself
- The Good-Bad Hero Comes to a Poignant End
- The Virtue of the Tempted Hero Asserts Itself
- The Aging Hero Finds Peace or Satisfaction
- The Hero Chooses the Wiser Alternative or the Better Person
- Girl Gets Boy
- Boy Gets Girl
- Boy and Girl Get Each Other
- Boy Loses Girl
- Girl Loses Boy
- Boy and Girl Lose Each Other
- The Hero Overcomes His One Failing
- Happiness Is Relinquished Because of Duty
- The Hero’s Doubt About Another Is Dispelled
- A Facet of Human Nature Is Revealed
- The Hero’s Vital Hope Wanes and Is Revived
- The Validity of Magic Is Established
- Problem Plots (unusual structures)
The book may be out of print, but you can actually access the its content per each of these plots here.
HT to @Quotes4Writers for the links.