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 Magazines details 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:

1. The Child Matures
2. The Inexplicable Vice Is Revealed as a Virtue
3. The Mysterious Situation Is Explained
4. The Puzzling Identity Is Revealed
5. The Hero Is Freed from his False Belief
6. A Material Reward is Sought, and a Spiritual One Is Found
7. Biter — Bit
8. The Incompetent Hero Proves His Worth
9. The Impossible Assignment Is Accomplished
10. The Possible Assignment Is Accomplished
11. Friends or Lovers Quarrel and Are Reconciled
12. The Threatened Unity of the Family Is Re-established
13. The Evil of a Bad Man Asserts Itself
14. The Good-Bad Hero Comes to a Poignant End
15. The Virtue of the Tempted Hero Asserts Itself
16. The Aging Hero Finds Peace or Satisfaction
17. The Hero Chooses the Wiser Alternative or the Better Person
18. Girl Gets Boy
19. Boy Gets Girl
20. Boy and Girl Get Each Other
21. Boy Loses Girl
22. Girl Loses Boy
23. Boy and Girl Lose Each Other
24. The Hero Overcomes His One Failing
25. Happiness Is Relinquished Because of Duty
26. The Hero’s Doubt About Another Is Dispelled
27. A Facet of Human Nature Is Revealed
28. The Hero’s Vital Hope Wanes and Is Revived
29. The Validity of Magic Is Established
30. Problem Plots (unusual structures)

In 1999, S. John Ross took a similar approach with role-playing games. He analyzed hundreds of them into 34 categories, with all their twists and variations. It can be found on the Internet as the Big List of RPG Plots.

These have been positive approaches to plot building. For a negative approach — advice on what not to write — we turn to 101 Plots Used and Abused (1946) by James N.Young, former editor of Collier’s magazine. Here he describes the tired old story lines that every editor has seen a million times and that inexperienced writers should avoid.

Now you know how they did it. So, “Go thou and do likewise.”