Stumbling blocks are inevitable in any form of writing. Fiction writing carries some special challenges, and one of the most vicious monkeys on the screenwriter’s back is the formulation of a logical, well-structured plot. Plotting complications might arise in the prewriting/ planning phase, in the midst of cranking out the pages, or, worst of all, when you’ve completed a draft and realize your story thread has serious issues and needs some damage control. It’s a scary feeling to write a slew of scenes that are working for you, only to zoom out and realize you’ve lost your way along the narrative through line. Even the coolest beats are pointless if they’re just dangling in the ether, or drifting by on a winding, dead-end street.

These hiccups can take a variety of forms, affecting (or infecting) your script in a number of ways, and looking to one of the classic, standard, comprehensive screenwriting bibles may not always be the most straightforward or efficient troubleshooting route to take. Sometimes what you need is a specialized tool geared directly at what’s ailing your story. The best such tool I’ve encountered in a long time is The Plot Machine: Design Better Stories Faster by Dale Kutzera.

Did you catch that word “design” in the title? Well, Kutzera means exactly that. He comes right out and states, “this is a design guide, not a writing guide,” at one point analogizing story planning to architectural engineering and the final movie to a solidly constructed building.

Through his chosen method of taxonomy, or classification into ordered categories, Kutzera effectively deconstructs, simplifies, and distills the plotting process into a readily applicable workflow, or rather, one of several possible workflows depending on the type of story you’re going for. He neatly catalogs some of the most prevalent and successful types of endeavors, archetypal characters, brands of character arcs, possibilities for your death moment, and so on. This technique essentially is The Plot Machine, and it ticks like a Swiss watch.

Don’t let these cold pragmatic overtones (or the page count) fool you. The conciseness doesn’t render it light so much as dense. There’s a surprising degree of depth and thoughtfulness built into The Plot Machine. It begins by taking a step back to ponder the overall purpose of stories and storytelling and then bears this in mind as a referential guidepost throughout. This same principle is applied to each tier of the system. We’re prompted to consider the core functions of each plot element or to ask ourselves a few simple up-front questions about what we hope to accomplish in its development. This serves as an aid to our creative choices, a course-correcter to keep us on track, and a hedge against the problems that tend to come up later if we overlook these factors.

With the essential overarching intentions established, he funnels down to the nuts and bolts of the process. One of The Plot Machine‘s key features is its focus on prioritization. The objectives seem to be maximized economy and minimal need for revisions and rewrites in the end, as you will have built a solid foundation at each stage before moving onto the finer details and ornaments. So if you’re diving into a new script, The Plot Machine can offer a place to start shaping your plot (hint: it’s not on Act 1, Scene 1, Page 1), and a full unfolding of where to go from there in terms of what narrative components you have to work with, ways to structure them, and how the sequences you build can lay into the storyline. If you’re having trouble with a script that’s in the works, these same procedures can just as easily serve as a quick-reference problem-solving guide.

If all this sounds too rigid and formulaic, think again. The Plot Machine’s starting point is your own creative inspiration, as Kutzera prescribes beginning with what you have in mind for your movie idea, whether that’s a particular character, situation, genre, or whatever. He also points out the infinite avenues open to the plotting process due to the disparate demands of different types of stories, and the virtues of understanding the conventions so that we can turn them on their heads. Not every plotline needs a midpoint reversal, not every protagonist needs to refuse the call to action, and who’s to say the slayer can’t join forces with the dragon in Act 3?

The Plot Machine can be a boon to your writing regardless of where you are or how it’s going. Its only weakness, near as I can tell, is also one of its greatest strengths. As mentioned, it’s a design guide, so it doesn’t delve into the mechanics or fundamentals of screenwriting, telling you how to color within the formatting lines in your description (until it’s time not to) or how to keep the rhythm and cadence of your dialog in tandem with the tone of the piece. If you’re looking for those things, you should turn to one of the classics. You won’t find it in The Plot Machine. However, you will (quickly) come away from it with an enriched understanding of how to configure your story, why you’re writing it, and perhaps why you write at all.