If Plotto was the dictionary of dramatic material, then Plot Genie was the encyclopedia. In its seven volumes, any author in any genre will find more stories than he will ever live to write.

Wycliffe A. Hill had, in his own words, a mathematical turn of mind. He dabbled in numerology and horse racing, and he loved to analyze things and find the underlying formula.

Around 1915, Hill submitted a scenario to Cecil B. De Mille, who dismissed it as lacking in plot. This sent Hill on a quest to find this thing called plot, starting with Polti’s 36, and ending, 16 years later, with the Plot Genie.

(A preliminary booklet, The Writer’s Guide, appeared in 1927.)

The system begins with the Plot Genie: a cardboard wheel sandwiched between two cardboard sheets. Around the rim are printed the numbers 1 to 180 in a random sequence. By turning the wheel and looking through a slit, the writer obtains random numbers.

Next is the recording sheet. It provides a step by step plot skeleton consisting of incomplete sentences. An early version, called the Plot Robot, ran thus:

1. The locale of our story is ...
2. And the first character is a ...
3. He loves the daughter of a ...
4. There is a problem ...
5. And an obstacle to love ...
6. Effort to solve problem brings complication ...
7. And to remove obstacle adds predicament ...
8. Consequent struggle results in crisis ...
9. Problem is solved by climax ...

Here we have a build-up of dramatic tension leading to a climax, known today as a staircase plot. In each blank on the sheet, the writer fills in a random number from the Genie.

Now we turn to the Index Book. For each step of the plot, there is a list, or several lists, of 180 options. The writer looks up the number of each option and fills in each blank on the recording sheet.

You ask: Why use random numbers and prewritten lists? Why not fill in the blanks using your own imagination? Because your imagination will suggest the same tired old ideas that have already been done to death by countless other writers, Hill proposes. Picking elements at random lifts you out of your limited imagination, giving you directions and combinations that otherwise would never occur to you.

So our finished recording sheet might look like this:

• Locale — 5 — Farm
• Character — 153 — Publisher
• Beloved — 62 — Mystic’s Daughter
• Problem — 44/4 — Obliged to recover lost information or clue, opposed by distance.
• Love Obstacle — 62 — Beloved doubts endurance of the lover.
• Complication — 136 — An illicit love affair threatens loss of happiness to a loved one.
• Predicament — 9 — Abduction is threatened by parties desiring valuable information.
• Crisis — 77 — Learn that a loved one is a murderer.
• Climax — 29 — Wherein the slain or wounded loved one proves to be the enemy in disguise.

Next, we fill in the holes. By asking questions about each plot point, we move from what happened to how and why, gradually stringing together these random elements into a coherent plot.

The original Plot Genie (General Formula) first appeared in 1931. Hill intended it merely as an exercise book in plot construction. But it proved so popular with struggling writers, that six Supplementary Formulas quickly followed:

• Romance Without Melodrama: boy meets girl, boy loses girl...
• Action-Adventure: derring-do in exotic locales
• Detective-Mystery: whodunit puzzle plot
• Comedy: not jokes or gags, this volume covers situation comedy and farce, according to the 31 Basic Comedy Situations; Hill was especially proud of this one.
• True Confession Story: haven’t seen this one
• Short-Short Story: 1,500 to 2,000 words with a surprise twist at the end.

The General Formula and Romance Without Melodrama were slightly revised in 1936. A few years later, five more formulas appeared in booklet form. I have seen only the first:

• Character-Atmosphere: a normal person encounters an eccentric
• Detective-Action
• Western Story
• Science Fiction
• Weird Terror

There may be another Plot Genie volume, titled Light Love, published in 1949. It turned up on the Internet briefly, and I could not determine if it was a new work or simply a reprint of an older volume. It was bought before I could be sure.

In 1940, Hill summarized his methods in Plot Scientific.

“The Plot Genie is not by any means to be considered a toy,” Hill writes in the General Formula volume. “It is a scientific device which will faithfully help you build thousands of interesting story plots. However, in giving your creative mind valuable and stimulating exercise, it will provide you with a great deal of entertainment.”