Is there a list of novel plots?

April 3, 2007 12:57 PM

Is there a searchable site that details novel/fiction plots or storylines? (Important notes below.)

I'm looking for a site that contains summaries of novels—effectively full summaries that are searchable. I found this previous AskMeFi question, which links to sites that summarize novels in 25 words, but that's not what I'm looking for. Please bear in mind two things: 1) I'm not looking for a list of archetype plots (ie The 36 Dramatic Situations); 2) The blurb on most book store sites like Amazon don't list the full plots, only part of them. Wikipedia often lists summaries but it's impossible, AFAIK, to search just the entries for novels or other types of fiction in isolation.

posted by humblepigeon to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

Something like Cliffs Notes?
posted by booth at 1:17 PM on April 3, 2007

Maybe see if a local library has access to Novelist? It is a large database with plot summaries and reviews searchable by keyword.
posted by saucysault at 2:09 PM on April 3, 2007

Sparknotes?
posted by jckll at 3:21 PM on April 3, 2007

OCLC has a new website called Fiction Finder that may be what you're looking for. You can (advanced) search summaries as well as real/fictional settings, characters, and literary forms, among other things. The summaries seem to be pretty descriptive, and there are some additional tools for locating and citing these works that were clearly designed by thoughtful librarians.

& much props to them for using a tag/subject cloud as the primary interface!
posted by activitystory at 7:29 PM on April 3, 2007

Wikisummaries might be useful to you, but their selection of novels is pretty limited at the moment.
posted by imposster at 8:41 PM on April 3, 2007