By John Nanovic

This work was originally published in the 1945 Writer's Yearbook. Extensive research uncovered no copyright renewal. The original printing has the following tongue-in-cheek introduction. "John Nanovic got a divorce but his friends think it's just temporary. John left Street & Smith, where he edited fiction from the time he came to work in short pants, and went to work for an advertising agency. But the call to conflict is still deep within him and he writes fiction at home on week-ends. Nanovic is known as a wizard of plot at places like the Algonquin Hotel bar where publishers' checks are cashed in trade. When you've got Air Colonel Joe up in a geisha's room about to hand over plans for the invasion of the Emperor's harem, and you're stuck, that's the time to call good old John Nanovic. He'll know a way. In case you don't know his number, here's what he gives out in the way of triple O plotting. Plot rhymes with conflict, although the dictionary disagrees. While no method of plotting is sure-fire for everyone, this one will make friends with a lot of people."

There's more than one way to skin a cat. And there's more than one way to build a plot. That's where the trouble began. If there were only one way to build a plot, and no other, then writing a story would be fairly simple. You would build a plot exactly according to the rule of plot building. But somebody found that there were variations in building a plot, and, by careful work, these variations gradually grew up into different methods and systems of plotting, and writing troubles grew accordingly. Generally, the more complicated a plotting system can be, the more perfect it is considered. If your plot structure can, by means of subheadings, Roman numerals, Arabic figures, capital letters, parenthetical divisions, look quite complicated, and cover everything you have in the story from the opening sentence to the word count at the end, then you're in business as the Plot King (two for $10).

Right now, let me stick my neck out. I will not argue about the quality of such plots. The only trouble is that editors (and I've had a dozen years being one) do not generally buy PLOTS for publication. The purpose of a plot is not to be impressive, but to be practical. A fancy plot may look like something to the writer, but the editor never gets a chance to see it, so he is not at all impressed by your great efforts in that direction. The plot is simply a reason for writing your story. If it gives you a good, strong reason, a solid base, you have a good chance for a story. If it doesn't, you're in trouble.

Perhaps we can start on that basis. The plot is merely the framework of the story, it is not the story itself. Therefore, let us make the plot be no more than a framework; let us leave the trimmings, the angles, the color, to the story writing. Let us give the plot only the essentials of the story. Plotting is simple if you can only keep it that way. Plotting can be brought down to just three little words-the Triple-O of story plotting. Here they are:

1. Object
2. Obstacles
3. Outcome

That is your story, no matter how you twist or turn it, or how you color it. Your hero sets out to get something. The obstacles that are in his path are the things that make your story. The outcome of his battle with these obstacles gives you your climax. You can compare this to almost anything you want, and you'll get the same result. In a race, it's your start, the distance between the start and the finish line, and how the runner finishes that means anything to you. If you are building a tunnel, it's the object of digging through that mountain; the obstacles in your path, and the success of holing it through.

The fact that this is so simple makes it look weak. The fundamental purpose of a plot is not to write your story for you. It is merely to give you a purpose in writing. It doesn't give you all the trimmings; it doesn't give you any of the trimmings. Purposely so. You furnish the trimmings to suit the particular story that you are writing in the story itself, not in the plot. It is surprising how effective the system is, too, when put into practice. It serves equally well for a short-short or a novel. You simply add to any of its points, to add to length or strength.

On novel-length stories, the Triple-O is just a start. When Lester Dent gets to work on a Doc Savage novel, he doesn't start his writing with just this plot germ and base forty thousand words on it. Dent has his own method (explained fully in the 1936 YEAR Book) which completes the job of putting Doc through his exciting experiences. But the Triple-O is the base. It is as simple as that. When Doc Savage was born, the only plot that Les Dent had to work on for the first novel was this:

1. OBJECT. Clark Savage, Jr., read his father's will in which a double-crossing act of a former partner was revealed so that Clark Savage, Jr., might avenge the act.
2. OBSTACLES. The only way to avenge this was to find the guilty partner and prove that guilt-proof that had to be gotten from the land of the ancient Mayans. The obstacles that beset Doc were many, both natural and those put in by design by the villain. Whether these obstacles were two or two hundred depend entirely upon how Les Dent wrote his story. He could stretch a few incidents out, or he could use his fertile imagination to advantage, as he did, and sow obstacles by the hundreds.
3. OUTCOME. Doc overcame the obstacles to his goal. He uncovered the evidence that cleared his father's name, and got the heritage that was there for him when this was accomplished.

Neither Les Dent nor any other writer will begin to write a novel on such a skimpy outline of action. This, of course, is not an outline; it's a PLOT. Once you've built your plot, you can dress your outline as you will; either very complete, or just hitting the high spots of your story. What you do with your outline depends upon your method of writing. Only, for goodness sake, don't kid yourself into thinking that an outline is a plot. Your plot is basic, like bread. Your outline is the dinner, with all the courses in place.

Walter Gibson, in doing The Shadow novels for the past fourteen-fifteen years, starts with a no more complicated plot. As an example, The Shadow gets a message asking for protection. We have the Object-to protect whoever it is seeking such protection by removing the menace. The Obstacles? Attempts on the part of the villain to kill The Shadow; attempts to kill the victim; false clues; perhaps another crime to mislead The Shadow. The Outcome? Arrest and disposition of menace in one way or another.

Walter Gibson may start with this bare plot, but his outline is more complete. Gibson sometimes spends as much time on preparing the complete outline of his story as he will in writing it, but the essential plot, as shown here, is the guide for the outline; it is the theme, the thread, which keeps the whole story together, no matter what cross-plot or counter-plot there may be. If you keep the Triple-O in mind, you'll be certain to keep your cross purposes in the story in line with its theme.

For the quickest, most forceful example of just how effective this method of plotting is, use it for a short-short. That's all you need; nothing else. You want the purpose, or object; you want the obstacles in the path; and you want the outcome. Whether the outcome is a straight one, or whether it's got a kicker in it, is immaterial. Your method is the same. It is essential.

This plot-construction method doesn't hold the author down hard enough to the job at hand; it may let him stray. If it does, I believe that is good for the story, because it lets the author's mind stray along the channels which suit the story best while it is being written. It does not bind the writer to a predetermined style of writing; nor to a stiff and hard plan of action. There is enough room for him to bear down on a new angle that may come up, because he is certain of not losing his main theme.

The Triple-O serves as a continuing thread on which your story hangs. Because it is so simple, there is less chance of your straying from it. And because you need not put too much attention on that part of your story, you can put it on the writing, or characters, or background, or whatever you wish.

And, no matter what sort of story you wish to write, you have only that one method to follow. It is adaptable to any type of story that you like to do. You may be a faithful follower of the well-known "thirty-six" situations, or you may prefer any one of the other forms of creating plots, of picking out the circumstances from odd pages of a book, or by successive drawing of cards, each with its own situation. Or you may prefer the method of reading several papers, carefully noting any situations which might lend themselves to story ideas.

Whether you use card indexes, scrap books, personal experiences, or whatever it is, the Triple-O will give your plot idea a base to stand on. It will cement your thought firmly; it will make it so broad that you can place on it any other thoughts or ideas that may come to you. And if you've ever struggled with a plot that calls for "Event No. 1" or "Situation No. 5," or anything like that, when you felt, all the time, that the story should be one that depended on its mood, rather than on its physical structure, for success, you'll realize the advantage of using this broad base, and then writing the story as you wish to write it, without regard for the proper sequence of situations or any of the other routine things.

So long as you establish, in the opening of your story, the object of your yarn, you will be in a position to go ahead and write it in whatever mood you wish because all your writing will have to be for the sole purpose of obtaining that objective. What could be simpler? You have just one thought, one goal, to write to. How does your hero get what he's after? How does each successive victory bring him closer and closer to his goal?

To test this plot method further, try it in reverse. Take any good story that you've read, and bring it down to these bare essentials; then you'll see how extremely simple, yet how very effective, the Triple-O method can be.