Do you know the Snowflake Method? It is a method, taught by author Randy Ingermanson, to help you go from a vague novel idea to a workable outline in ten steps. In "Writing Fiction for Dummies" he goes to great lengths to show how to use it to create a novel.
But what if you can't write or plan at great lengths? What if you only are ready to write short fiction right now? Or what if you just can't plan out a whole novel before you start, but your novel comes to you in scenes and short sections, so that you write it as if it were a series of short stories? It may be that you are in the middle ground between being an outliner and a seat-of-the-pants writer, and need to plan things, but only on a scene-by-scene, section-by-section basis.
Never fear, the Snowflake Method can be used in scenes and short stories, too. You just adapt it a little. I've been using the Snowflake Method for the opening scene in what I'm working on now. Because I have Asperger Syndrome, I'm not really good at planning out a whole novel in advance. So I'm writing scene by scene--- and planning this scene in advance.
The full Snowflake Method is meant to cover a full novel. For shorter work, you don't have to do all ten steps. The initial steps may be all you need to write your scene or story. Here are some hints:
Step One: Storyline
A storyline for just one scene is a lot smaller in scope than one for a full novel. Here is my scene storyline for the scene I am working on: A cat-girl is stuck in a drab grocery store job until she fights with a werewolf and meets a student mage. If I were to write a storyline for the whole novel/novella instead of just this scene, it would be different. But as yet I haven't fleshed out a lot of the rest of the story. But I do know enough about what will happen in the scene to write this.
Step Two: Three-Act Structure
Your scene is not going to have 'three acts'. It's just a scene! But you can probably divide it into three sections--- beginning, middle and end. In the Snowflake Method, this is supposed to come to about 5 sentences. Mine tend to run over, and I have in the past used what was intended as my Three-Act Structure to be my Short Synopsis (Step Four). But for a mere scene, you may not get as far as doing a Step Four. The Three-Act will be enough.
My Three-Act from today introduces the setting--- a small rural grocery story--- two major characters--- the cat-girl and the student mage--- and minor characters--- the couple that owns the grocery story, and a mother werewolf and her children. There is action--- a minor supernatural creature is banished. And the scene concludes as the cat-girl, who has shape-shifted into her cat form, tries to flee an irate werewolf and is caught by the student mage. (The next scene will show the result of this chance meeting.)
Step Three: Character Definitions
Here is where you write out some brief info on the characters--- name, ambition, scene goal, conflict, epiphany--- and write a one-sentence and one-paragraph summary of the story/scene from the point of view of the character. For scene/short story snowflaking, this gives you more than you need to know about most of the characters. I wrote this out in full for my two major characters, who are not only the focus of this scene, but are the major characters in the rest of the story. The more minor characters, I am going to do far more abbreviated versions of the character definition work.
For a lot of writers, these three steps may be plenty to write the scene or short story. For others, you may go on to do the other steps, particularly if it is a longer short story, or if you lack confidence when you sit down to write out a scene.
Question: Have you ever tried the Snowflake method to write a scene or a short story? Does it sound like something that might work for you?
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Showing posts with label snowflake method. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snowflake method. Show all posts
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Why Your Book Reviews/Promos Suck
Sometimes you go around the internet and read a book review and say to yourself, 'there is no there there.' I know, I've written those kind of reviews myself. There is a similar problem with author-written book promos.
What is the problem? It's that the reviewers have lost sight of the important things. They write down something abstract about the theme: this is a book about man against nature. This is a book about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. This is a book about a dystopian future where only computers are allowed to vote.
These statements lead to book reviews that can't hook the reader, because they have forgotten the essential rule: fiction is about folks. Folks with problems, specifically.
Even if you are the second-worst book review writer ever (the first-worst is probably me), you can improve by a simple and amusing method. It is called a storyline--- a one sentence summary of a novel that focuses on a character and his problem or goal.
In 'Writing Fiction for Dummies' by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy, it gives instruction on how to create a storyline for use in planning and writing a novel. (It is the first step in the Snowflake Method.) But storylines, and also the one-paragraph summaries that are also taught, are great tools for writing a book review or a book promo.
Here is an example storyline: 'A physicist travels back in time to kill the Apostle Paul.' That's only 11 words, but it packs a lot of punch. Why? Because it mentions a character, and a major conflict or goal of that character. Compare that to a lame book review abstract statement: this book is about the issue of whether you can use time travel to change history.... Boring, by comparison, isn't it?
Whether you are a book blogger, enthusiastic reader, or book author, it's a very good idea to practice writing storylines. You can use them any time you want to tell your friends about a favorite book, or write a book review, or promote a book of your own.
Here are a couple other storylines:
The Lord of the Rings: A hobbit learns that destroying his magic ring is the key to saving Middle Earth from the Dark Lord.
The Lovely Bones: A young girl watches the turmoil in her family from heaven after being raped and murdered by a neighbor.
Pride and Prejudice: A young English woman from a peculiar family is pursued by an arrogant and wealthy young man.
And now, a smart aleck storyline of my own composition:
Harry Potter: A fallen Dark Lord seeks to regain his power, only to be thwarted by an annoying boy wizard.
This last is not QUITE as silly as it seems. In the Ingermanson/Economy book, in the chapters on character development, it suggests writing storylines from the point of view of various characters in the story. After all, every character in a story believes he is the hero of the tale.
Challenge: Think of a book, perhaps a popular one such as 'The Hunger Games', and write your own storyline for it and post it as a comment. There is no 'one right answer' for this. Just do the best that you can. Continue to practice the technique and put it to use whenever you write a book review. If you participate in blog tours such as the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour, you might challenge the readers of your blog tour posts to come up with their own storylines for the book in question, perhaps from the point of view of their favorite character.
What is the problem? It's that the reviewers have lost sight of the important things. They write down something abstract about the theme: this is a book about man against nature. This is a book about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. This is a book about a dystopian future where only computers are allowed to vote.
These statements lead to book reviews that can't hook the reader, because they have forgotten the essential rule: fiction is about folks. Folks with problems, specifically.
Even if you are the second-worst book review writer ever (the first-worst is probably me), you can improve by a simple and amusing method. It is called a storyline--- a one sentence summary of a novel that focuses on a character and his problem or goal.
In 'Writing Fiction for Dummies' by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy, it gives instruction on how to create a storyline for use in planning and writing a novel. (It is the first step in the Snowflake Method.) But storylines, and also the one-paragraph summaries that are also taught, are great tools for writing a book review or a book promo.
Here is an example storyline: 'A physicist travels back in time to kill the Apostle Paul.' That's only 11 words, but it packs a lot of punch. Why? Because it mentions a character, and a major conflict or goal of that character. Compare that to a lame book review abstract statement: this book is about the issue of whether you can use time travel to change history.... Boring, by comparison, isn't it?
Whether you are a book blogger, enthusiastic reader, or book author, it's a very good idea to practice writing storylines. You can use them any time you want to tell your friends about a favorite book, or write a book review, or promote a book of your own.
Here are a couple other storylines:
The Lord of the Rings: A hobbit learns that destroying his magic ring is the key to saving Middle Earth from the Dark Lord.
The Lovely Bones: A young girl watches the turmoil in her family from heaven after being raped and murdered by a neighbor.
Pride and Prejudice: A young English woman from a peculiar family is pursued by an arrogant and wealthy young man.
And now, a smart aleck storyline of my own composition:
Harry Potter: A fallen Dark Lord seeks to regain his power, only to be thwarted by an annoying boy wizard.
This last is not QUITE as silly as it seems. In the Ingermanson/Economy book, in the chapters on character development, it suggests writing storylines from the point of view of various characters in the story. After all, every character in a story believes he is the hero of the tale.
Challenge: Think of a book, perhaps a popular one such as 'The Hunger Games', and write your own storyline for it and post it as a comment. There is no 'one right answer' for this. Just do the best that you can. Continue to practice the technique and put it to use whenever you write a book review. If you participate in blog tours such as the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour, you might challenge the readers of your blog tour posts to come up with their own storylines for the book in question, perhaps from the point of view of their favorite character.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Create a One-sentence Summary of your Novel
In the Snowflake method, your first task is to write a storyline--- a one-sentence summary of your novel. Other writing teachers call the storyline something else. I forget what the something else was. No matter.
This storyline--- which you may revise from time to time--- is useful to focus your story when you are writing, and when you are done, it's useful in marketing. Here is an example storyline of a novel by Randy Ingermanson, creator of the Snowflake method: "A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul."
Isn't that great? It sums the story up and makes me, at least, want to read the book. In Writing Fiction for Dummies by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy, there are a number of example storylines.
Pride and Prejudice: "A young English woman from a peculiar family is pursued by an arrogant and wealthy young man."
The Lovely Bones: "A young girl watches the turmoil in her family from heaven after being raped and murdered by a neighbor."
Contact, by Carl Sagan: "A young female astronomer discovers radio signals from alien beings in a nearby star system."
Perhaps because I have Asperger Syndrome and have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees, I have a hard time writing storylines. And when snowflaking you not only have to write one for your novel, but one for each major character. Like this:
Harry Potter/Lord Voldemort: "A fallen Dark Lord's efforts to regain power are thwarted again and again by a boy wizard and his friends."
For one of my WIPs, which has the exciting title Kirinia Book One at present, I actually came up with three storylines, from the point of view of various characters:
1. A Waypeople cultist girl must choose between her faith and saving her family's life.
2. A noble Kirinian girl loves blood-sports until she falls for a girl condemned to the arena.
3. A Kirinian emperor discovers the demographic threat to his nation posed by the rapidly-growing Waypeople cult.
I picked 1. when I decided who the main protagonist of the story was. Although if I were to pitch the story to a secular publisher, I might go with one of the others.
I'm also working on a second WIP at the moment--- both are in the snowflaking stage. This one actually has a title: Esperanza: Zombie Dawn (or Zek Dawn, I'm not wholly sure I won't switch.) The storyline for this was easier to come up with even though I didn't have that much of a plot planned out, I just knew it was about a militia group fighting Mexican zombies at the border.
Here is the storyline: "A priest and a band of militia men fight against a zombie virus capable of infecting humans and certain drug plants."
If you are a writer or would-be writer, have you ever reduced your novel or short story idea to a storyline? If you haven't, try creating a storyline now. Post it in a comment here, if you like.
If you aren't a writer, one thing that the storyline concept is good for is when you are writing a book review, or perhaps just recommending a book to a friend. Think of the last good book you read. Can you write a storyline for it? Share in a comment, please.
This storyline--- which you may revise from time to time--- is useful to focus your story when you are writing, and when you are done, it's useful in marketing. Here is an example storyline of a novel by Randy Ingermanson, creator of the Snowflake method: "A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul."
Isn't that great? It sums the story up and makes me, at least, want to read the book. In Writing Fiction for Dummies by Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy, there are a number of example storylines.
Pride and Prejudice: "A young English woman from a peculiar family is pursued by an arrogant and wealthy young man."
The Lovely Bones: "A young girl watches the turmoil in her family from heaven after being raped and murdered by a neighbor."
Contact, by Carl Sagan: "A young female astronomer discovers radio signals from alien beings in a nearby star system."
Perhaps because I have Asperger Syndrome and have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees, I have a hard time writing storylines. And when snowflaking you not only have to write one for your novel, but one for each major character. Like this:
Harry Potter/Lord Voldemort: "A fallen Dark Lord's efforts to regain power are thwarted again and again by a boy wizard and his friends."
For one of my WIPs, which has the exciting title Kirinia Book One at present, I actually came up with three storylines, from the point of view of various characters:
1. A Waypeople cultist girl must choose between her faith and saving her family's life.
2. A noble Kirinian girl loves blood-sports until she falls for a girl condemned to the arena.
3. A Kirinian emperor discovers the demographic threat to his nation posed by the rapidly-growing Waypeople cult.
I picked 1. when I decided who the main protagonist of the story was. Although if I were to pitch the story to a secular publisher, I might go with one of the others.
I'm also working on a second WIP at the moment--- both are in the snowflaking stage. This one actually has a title: Esperanza: Zombie Dawn (or Zek Dawn, I'm not wholly sure I won't switch.) The storyline for this was easier to come up with even though I didn't have that much of a plot planned out, I just knew it was about a militia group fighting Mexican zombies at the border.
Here is the storyline: "A priest and a band of militia men fight against a zombie virus capable of infecting humans and certain drug plants."
If you are a writer or would-be writer, have you ever reduced your novel or short story idea to a storyline? If you haven't, try creating a storyline now. Post it in a comment here, if you like.
If you aren't a writer, one thing that the storyline concept is good for is when you are writing a book review, or perhaps just recommending a book to a friend. Think of the last good book you read. Can you write a storyline for it? Share in a comment, please.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Outlining Collective Characters/Fantasy-SF Races
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| Chantho, alien chick, Doctor Who |
In fantasy or science fiction, however, you may have to deal with creating collective characters--- groups with common characteristics. Like elves, Vulcans, Timelords, hobbits, Buggers/Formics, hertasi and other fantasy/SF races.
You might also have a collective character that is a faction within a race/species/culture. Like the Death Eaters in Harry Potter.
What you do is you work up the collective character as if it were a single character. In the place where you'd put physical appearance, you put down the distinctive characteristics--- an insectoid race with a hive mind, a humanoid race with pointed ears..... For things like values, ambitions, story goal, you answer for the collective character as a group--- any individually important members of the group you will outline as an individual character, anyway.
If you are using the Snowflake Method, the steps that deal with characters are Step 3: Define Your Characters, Step 5: Write Character Sketches, and Step 7: Create Your Character Bible.
What I did--- since I have Asperger Syndrome and my brain is weird--- I wrote a free-form sort of Step 5 (for both collective and individual characters) and then went back to do Step 3, which has 7 sub-steps and is so more formal/organized. In time I will do Step 7 to expand on the important characters/races.
On organizing the result: I have a big binder which has sections for the worldbuilding--- one tab for 'Erileth' (name of my planet) and one for each of the five regions--- and sections for the 8 initial snowflake steps for the individual novel. For the collective characters/races, I will have to make 2 copies of my print-outs, one for the worldbuilding section and one for the individual novel's section.
Today I worked on the race known as the Gray Seekers. They all have gray skin, black hair and silver eyes.They all wear nearly identical white coveralls, are engaged in scientific research, and have the highest level of technology--- or magic--- of any race on Erileth.
Tomorrow I'm probably going to move on to the Sahchiro, who have dark brown skin, green hair in various shades, and golden eyes. They wear very short, colorful tunics and no underpants. They are warriors who live in high mountains. Their name for themselves means Eaters-of-Men, and their name for other people can be translated 'meat-that-walks'.
So--- what do YOU do to create and outline your fantasy or sci-fi races/cultures?
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The One-Page Method: Before You Snowflake
Lately I've been doing the Snowflake Method to plan my new novel Kirinia. I've even bought 'Writing Fiction for Dummies' which was authored by the Snowflake guy, which helped me understand I shouldn't have been so rigid the first time I Snowflaked--- the steps do NOT have to be done in that order. Which is good.
The first step in the Snowflake is to sum up your book in one sentence--- a storyline. Like, for the Harry Potter series: "A fallen Dark Lord seeks to regain his power but is thwarted by a bratty kid wizard." (There is a more normal example on this post at Fortnight of Mustard.)
My current storyline/elevator pitch sentence for Kirinia goes something like this: "A Kristan cultist girl, condemned to fight in the arena, must choose between her faith and saving her family's lives."
This was actually the third one I wrote. I wrote the first from the viewpoint of a different character, and a second from the viewpoint of the villain. I thought it was weird to write storylines for three different characters until I got to Step 3 and found I was going to have to write storylines for all of the characters.
The hard part for me was getting to the point where I knew enough about the story to write storylines. Because I not only had to create characters and bits of story for them, I also had to do worldbuilding.
The problem with doing these preliminaries is that I tend to get bogged down, ramble and such, and then never get things done. But I am good at writing short things--- poems, blog posts, and so on. So I invented the One-Page Method.
This is how you do it: you take something you know about the story--- a character, a bit of the storyworld's history, an event from the story--- and write about one page about it.
By 'one page' I mean the maximum is the amount of text you can get on one computer page. You can write part of the page as well.
What I do is I write the topic of the proposed page in boldface on the left top, and on the right top write the title (or working title) of the novel. If it is more of a worldbuilding topic, I write the name of the world and the name of the kingdom/empire within that world that the page is concerned with.
This is a very unstructured way to get started. You only write pages for the stuff in your story you already have worked out. My early One-Pages were about the settlement of the empire in the story, called Kirinia, about the Twelve Cities of Kirinia, about the enemies of Kirinia, the Eaters-of-Men, notes about some of the main characters--- Mija, the Kristan cultist girl, Kamilla, the girl from a patrician family who loves Mija, Tiberio, the emperor, who finds out that the Kristan cult is growing at an alarming rate, which he believes threatens the ability of his empire to defeat the Eaters-of-Men....
Once I had a bunch of One-Pages (which I keep in a binder) I was ready to start doing the early Snowflake steps. (The early Snowflake steps have the advantage of being compatible with One-Page, some of the later steps, such as the Long Summary, I intend to break down into One-Page portions.)
As I'm starting to do the Snowflake steps, I'm continuing to turn out One-Pages as well. I'm also updating One-Pages and Snowflake steps as I discover more about the story. For example, I had to change certain character names when I decided that characters who were slaves would have the affix -el- in their names (Markelo, Lukelo). I decided that names which naturally had an -el- in it would modify it--- so Aurelio, the family name of the current emperor, becomes Aurilio.
I hope some other writers, particularly those who have problems being organized, will try the One-Page method and see if it helps. In my own case I've been able to sustain my interest in and belief in my current writing project for a much longer time than I usually do. I hope it works for other people as well.
The first step in the Snowflake is to sum up your book in one sentence--- a storyline. Like, for the Harry Potter series: "A fallen Dark Lord seeks to regain his power but is thwarted by a bratty kid wizard." (There is a more normal example on this post at Fortnight of Mustard.)
My current storyline/elevator pitch sentence for Kirinia goes something like this: "A Kristan cultist girl, condemned to fight in the arena, must choose between her faith and saving her family's lives."
This was actually the third one I wrote. I wrote the first from the viewpoint of a different character, and a second from the viewpoint of the villain. I thought it was weird to write storylines for three different characters until I got to Step 3 and found I was going to have to write storylines for all of the characters.
The hard part for me was getting to the point where I knew enough about the story to write storylines. Because I not only had to create characters and bits of story for them, I also had to do worldbuilding.
The problem with doing these preliminaries is that I tend to get bogged down, ramble and such, and then never get things done. But I am good at writing short things--- poems, blog posts, and so on. So I invented the One-Page Method.
This is how you do it: you take something you know about the story--- a character, a bit of the storyworld's history, an event from the story--- and write about one page about it.
By 'one page' I mean the maximum is the amount of text you can get on one computer page. You can write part of the page as well.
What I do is I write the topic of the proposed page in boldface on the left top, and on the right top write the title (or working title) of the novel. If it is more of a worldbuilding topic, I write the name of the world and the name of the kingdom/empire within that world that the page is concerned with.
This is a very unstructured way to get started. You only write pages for the stuff in your story you already have worked out. My early One-Pages were about the settlement of the empire in the story, called Kirinia, about the Twelve Cities of Kirinia, about the enemies of Kirinia, the Eaters-of-Men, notes about some of the main characters--- Mija, the Kristan cultist girl, Kamilla, the girl from a patrician family who loves Mija, Tiberio, the emperor, who finds out that the Kristan cult is growing at an alarming rate, which he believes threatens the ability of his empire to defeat the Eaters-of-Men....
Once I had a bunch of One-Pages (which I keep in a binder) I was ready to start doing the early Snowflake steps. (The early Snowflake steps have the advantage of being compatible with One-Page, some of the later steps, such as the Long Summary, I intend to break down into One-Page portions.)
As I'm starting to do the Snowflake steps, I'm continuing to turn out One-Pages as well. I'm also updating One-Pages and Snowflake steps as I discover more about the story. For example, I had to change certain character names when I decided that characters who were slaves would have the affix -el- in their names (Markelo, Lukelo). I decided that names which naturally had an -el- in it would modify it--- so Aurelio, the family name of the current emperor, becomes Aurilio.
I hope some other writers, particularly those who have problems being organized, will try the One-Page method and see if it helps. In my own case I've been able to sustain my interest in and belief in my current writing project for a much longer time than I usually do. I hope it works for other people as well.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Creating a Novel using the Snowflake Method
Some time ago I first learned about the Snowflake Method on author Randy Ingermanson's web site. This seems like a good method to organize your ideas for your novel and get it to the point where you are ready to write.
In my own case I particularly need organizational help since I have Asperger's Syndrome (a form of autism) and have a hard time with the 'big picture' aspect of the novel. (It's not impossible for someone with Asperger's to write, though--- just look at Herman Melville or Arthur Conan Doyle, who are now believed to have had Asperger's.)
The Snowflake method now has a forum at SnowFlakers.net. There is a section on the forum for each step of the ten step Snowflake method. I've joined the forum, I feel it may help me put together my current writing project 'Colors' which I've been having trouble with.
In my own case I particularly need organizational help since I have Asperger's Syndrome (a form of autism) and have a hard time with the 'big picture' aspect of the novel. (It's not impossible for someone with Asperger's to write, though--- just look at Herman Melville or Arthur Conan Doyle, who are now believed to have had Asperger's.)
The Snowflake method now has a forum at SnowFlakers.net. There is a section on the forum for each step of the ten step Snowflake method. I've joined the forum, I feel it may help me put together my current writing project 'Colors' which I've been having trouble with.
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