Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots

Some have argued there are only 3 real plots in literature, or 7, or 36, but Cook, a pulp writer so prolific he was known as "the man who deforested Canada," outlined 1,462 separate scenarios (for example, #776: "A, seriously injured by a motor car, ever afterward has a weird delusion while he is in the streets that motor cars are trying to run him down," or #1131: "A's obstacle to enterprise is laziness; and he submits to it cheerfully") in this 1928 guidebook, just handsomely reprinted by Tin House. Plotto's earnest obsessiveness manages to be both goofy and compelling, and perhaps even useful (Hitchcock and Erle Stanley Gardner were both fans). Those attempting National Novel Writing Month might be desperate for its assistance by this point.