William Wallace Cook (1867–1933)

This classic story structure how-to is, at the least, a fascinating insight into one prolific writer's creative process. Originality, Cook insists, is the aim of his method and so the "plot suggestions", which make up the majority of this book, are meant as prods to the imagination, rather than to be used literally. The complex notation is likely to seem too cold or calculating for many, but there can be no denying that Cook understands the importance of conflict in story and how to create it.

The first novel (original dime novel appearance 1903, reprinted 1925) to coin a term for human-like 'robots': 'muglug' (Karel Čapek coined 'robot' 17 years later in his play "R.U.R." (Rossum's Universal Robots in 1920). This is a humorous satire of the future.