William Wallace Cook’s Plotto Featured on BBC

plotto_cover250Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots, and its author, William Wallace Cook, were recently featured on BBC Radio, in a program called “Miles Jupp and the Plot Device.” Listen to it here.

Jupp goes into Cook’s tremendously prolific writing life, the difficulty of getting a copy of the original printing of Plotto, and the fact that Plotto does not drop a finished plot into your lap, but takes some effort to master. (Cook later wrote a Plotto instruction manual to clarify how to use the book, which I’ve posted to this site.)

Jupp also discusses Plotto’s influence on at least one other writer, Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of Perry Mason. Every story introduced a new crime and new characters, which required a new plot.

How prolific was William Wallace Cook? At one point he worked with one, two, or even three stenographers at the same time, dictating one story to each in rotation, and filling in any gaps by sitting down at his typewriter and working on a different story.

Is Plotto a magic plotting device? I think it is, sort of. It’s not going to write your novel for you, but when I took Linda Hamner’s excellent scriptwriting course, it was clear that any movie has enough twists and turns to cause serious brain-freeze, and a TV series or a novel is even more daunting.… Read more ...

Through Dungeons Deep

A Fantasy Gamers’ Handbook by Robert Plamondon

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Reissued by Norton Creek Press. 340 pages. ISBN 9780972177078

  • Learn how to play D&D and other fantasy role-playing games
  • Learn how to be a Dungeon Master
  • Learn how to design your own fantasy campaigns
  • Tips and tricks for every occasion
  • Great companion for anyone interested in role-playing’s old-school revival

From the Author: I spent a good fraction of my college days playing Dungeons & Dragons when I should have been studying. In the process, I discovered a wealth of ideas and techniques in how to play well and be a good Dungeon Master. I wrote these up in Dragon Magazine and others. One day I discovered that my list of topics looked more like a table of contents than a list of future magazine articles, so I began writing Through Dungeons Deep.

The book went out of print when Reston Publishing went out of business. But demand for the book has never died. The original edition is being reissued by Norton Creek Press for far less than the going rate for the original Reston edition, which often sells for over $50.

The Book That Would Not Die. I still get fan mail like this:

Robert,
Just a note to wish you and yours a happy holiday, and to tell you how much I enjoy “Through Dungeons Deep” (the reprinted edition).

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