How to Use the Plot Generator
Choose a genre and press Generate a plot. Above the parts sits a logline, the same plot pressed into one sentence.
A result may hand you parts that don't fit the book in your head. That's what the locks are for. Tick Lock next to any part you want to keep, then generate again, and only the unlocked parts change. Changing the genre keeps your locked parts too, which is a quick way to see what a romance lead would do inside a thriller.
The Show as menu lays the same plot out as a three-act outline or as Save the Cat beats. Copy plot puts the whole result on your clipboard as plain text, ready for a notes app or the first page of an outline. Click the logline to copy just that sentence.
How the Random Plot Generator Works
Every part comes from a list written for its genre: twelve protagonists, and ten options for each of the other seven parts, which makes 120 million plots per genre. Nothing is sent to a server, and no language model writes the result.
- The parts are drawn independently. Some combinations clash, such as a small-town protagonist with a goal that only makes sense in a big city. Reroll the part that doesn't fit, or lock the ones that do and keep going.
- Each part is one plain sentence. The result is a skeleton. The scenes that turn it into a book are yours to add.
Each part also works through its whole list before an entry comes back, so no twist repeats until you've seen all ten.
What Each Part of the Story Plot Means
Four rows make the logline: the inciting incident, the protagonist, the goal and the opposition. The other four fill in the outline around them.
Protagonist and goal
A plot starts with someone who wants something. The goal hands the reader a question to carry through the book: will she get it? A specific goal gives you more to write than a vague one, because it tells you what the character does on page one. Give the goal resistance: an antagonist who wants the opposite, and a character flaw that gets in the way.
Setting
A setting earns its place when it creates pressure, like an island with one ferry a day. Ask what the place makes harder for your protagonist.
Inciting incident
This is the event that breaks the protagonist's normal life and starts the story, and it should be something the character can't ignore. The generator writes it as a single event so it can open the logline ("When a stranger arrives...").
Opposition
The opposition is whatever stands between the protagonist and the goal. It can be a villain, an institution, a deadline, the natural world or the character's own fear, and the lists mix all of these. Run an outside enemy and an inner fear at once, so each kind of conflict feeds the other.
Midpoint twist
Halfway through, a revelation changes what the story is about. The protagonist stops reacting and starts acting, or learns that the goal was the wrong one. It's close kin to the turning point of a story.
Stakes
The stakes are what happens if the protagonist fails. The generator phrases them as "If she fails..." because stakes only work when failure is possible and specific. Tie a personal stake, like a brother's life, to the larger one.
Ending
Each ending names a direction, such as bittersweet, tragic, triumphant or open, followed by one way it could play out. The romance list keeps to the genre's promise of a happy or hopeful ending, while horror and literary fiction allow darker ones.
From Plot Idea to Outline: Three Acts and Save the Cat
The eight parts map onto two outlining frames, so the generator can lay your plot out in either one.
Three-act outline. Act 1 introduces the protagonist, the setting and the goal, delivers the inciting incident and ends with a decision to act. Act 2 is the rising conflict, with the twist at the midpoint and a low point where everything seems lost. Act 3 holds the climax and the resolution. If three acts feel loose, try one of the other story structures, such as the Hero's Journey or the Story Spine.
Save the Cat beats. Blake Snyder's beat sheet, from his screenwriting book Save the Cat!, splits a story into named beats. The generator fills in the beats your plot already answers: the Catalyst is the inciting incident, the Midpoint is the twist, Bad Guys Close In is the opposition, All Is Lost puts the stakes on the table and the Final Image is the ending. The beats it can't know about, such as the theme or the B Story, appear as prompts for you to answer. For what each beat asks of you, see the Save the Cat beat sheet.
To go from a one-page premise to a chapter plan, follow the steps for how to outline a book.
Story Plot Ideas by Genre
One premise for each of the nine book genres on the menu, put together from the generator's own lists:
- Fantasy: Every spell in the kingdom fails at the same moment. A blacksmith's apprentice who can hear metal lie has a promise to keep to a dying king, and the guild of mages won't let an untrained outsider succeed.
- Science fiction: The colony's oxygen numbers stop adding up, and only a deep-space mechanic on the night shift has noticed. He has to get everyone aboard home alive, though the law says he's property, and the courts agree.
- Romance: A widowed vineyard owner, one bad harvest from selling, wants to save the family business without asking anyone for help. Then an old flame moves back to town and opens a business next door.
- Mystery: Renovations of the village hall turn up a skeleton. A parish priest who hears more than he can repeat takes on the twenty-year-old cold case, until a second victim proves the killer isn't finished.
- Thriller: An interpreter at a major peace summit has to keep a key witness alive until the trial. Her colleague was killed hours after asking to meet alone, and a security firm with friends in government wants the witness dead.
- Horror: A voicemail arrives in the voice of a relative who died last year, sent to a new mother who no longer recognizes her baby. She can't afford to leave the house. The town knows what's happening and has agreed to let it continue.
- Literary fiction: Two sisters stopped speaking over a single sentence, and now the younger one must decide whether to sell the family land. She's her own obstacle, too proud to ask for help.
- Historical fiction: A coded letter reaches a nurse who lied about her age to serve, though it was meant for another address. She has to survive the winter without giving up the people hiding in the cellar, while disease spreads faster than the doctors can work.
- Young adult: A girl who can hear what people are about to say wants into the academy that rejected her mother. Then an anonymous account starts posting everyone's secrets, and the adults have known the truth all along.
Can You Use a Generated Plot in Your Book?
Yes. The plots are yours to use, change and publish. In the United States, ideas aren't protected by copyright: the US Copyright Office lists ideas, methods and systems among the things copyright doesn't cover in Circular 33. Copyright protects your expression, the sentences you actually write.
How to Turn a Generated Plot Into a Book
- Rewrite the logline in your own words. If it still interests you as one sentence, the premise has a spine. Then check that the events connect by cause and effect with the story spine exercise.
- Ask why this protagonist. A plot gets stronger when the inciting incident hits the one person least prepared for it. Match your lead to a character archetype to see what role they play.
- Connect the twist to the opposition. Random parts arrive unconnected, and the writing starts when you decide how the midpoint twist changes what the protagonist knows about the opposition.
- Draft the ending first. Write one paragraph of the ending direction. Knowing where the book lands makes the middle easier to plan.
- Name things. Fill in the cast with the character name generator and get a working title from the book title generator.
Once you're drafting, check how long the manuscript will run in print with the words to pages calculator.
Plot Generator FAQ
Can I use the plot generator for a short story?
Yes. Keep the protagonist, the inciting incident and the ending, and treat the twist as optional, since a short story has room for fewer moving parts.
Does the plot generator save my plots?
No. Nothing is saved, so a plot is gone once you generate the next one or close the tab. Press Copy plot before you reroll anything you'd want back.
