snowflake guide

8/4/2019 Snowflake Guide

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Cameron's NaNoWriMo Outline Assistant

What is this?

In my first year of doing NaNoWriMo, I outlined my novel down to the scene, and found that if I had enough

scenes, then I was able to estimate an average scene length and then determine how long various scenesneeded to be. I successfully completed my NaNo-novel, but the plot seemed a bit boring (probably due to lack

of guidance in my outlining). In my second NaNo experience, I ditched the outline altogether. While I still met

the overall word count goal, and my plot was a little better, the lack of planning caused my writing to slow to a

molasses pace at times and even stall out for days. So, back to the drawing board. Along the lines I stumbled

upon Randy Ingermanson's site (http://www.rsingermanson.com/html/the_snowflake.html) and his "Snowflake

Method" of writing a novel. I have since adapted it to my own purposes, and created (yet another)

spreadsheet for tracking my NaNoWriMo progress, but also to help me with planning my novel so it is not an

utter piece of trash. Use as you see fit, pass it along, and feel free to email me or find me (truckpoetry) on the

forums with your suggestions. Maybe I'll add them for next year!

How does it work?

Well, to be honest, it is pretty self explanatory. You start here (with Welcome & Instructions) and work your

way through the tabs at the bottom. The deadlines for completing your tasks are calculated based on your

start date and the start of NaNoWriMo for that year, so the earlier you start, the more time you have to

complete each task (not sure if this is a good thing or a bad one). Each tab will have instructions and a

deadline. Complete them all, and then you can use your scene summary for tracking your writing progress

versus word targets.

Where to begin?

Right here. Enter today's date and time in the yellow box:

Enter the date you plan to start writing your novel:

Enter the date you wish to finish your novel:


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12/8/2010 9:00

12/8/2010 9:00

5/15/2010 9:00


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Step One: Create a Single Sentence Description of your book's plot line

Deadline: 12/8/2010 9:00

Instructions:

Write Your Sentence Here:

Write up a one-sentence description of what your book is about. Easy, right? Well, there are some

guidelines to follow. First, you want to avoid any character names. Just use descriptive words for the

character. Second, you should keep the sentence short and to the point. The structure should follow abasic noun-verb pattern like "A [insert character] [does something]." This should summarize the main point

of what you are writing this book about. My first two NaNoWriMo endeavours could be summed up like so:

"An independent businessman travels to Las Vegas to play poker like a pro." or "A law clerk unravels the

murder of a prominent local attorney." These aren't fabulous sentences, and the plots (in retrospect) seem

a bit bland. But hey, that's why I created this tool, right? Your first several attempts at one-sentence

descriptions will most likely be as lame as the examples I just gave. But check out novel blurbs in

newspapers and bookstores (or the blurbs on New York Times Best Sellers' List:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/books/bestseller/0910besthardfiction.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

) for examples on what to write.


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Step Two: Identify the major turning points in the nov

Deadline: 12/8/2010 9:00

Instructions:

List of Major Crises

Crisis Description

1 Mother dies/Leigh leaves

2 Ethical diema in Vietnamese Ward

3 opposition to relationship4

5

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7

A novel is usually not built around a single climactic point.

three act approach of conflict and resolution. While I some

character tries to resolve the initial situation (this can take tallow the character to resolve the situation. That being said

Enter the crises below that you intend to have in your novel,


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el

Caused By

battle with cancer/coming of age (external)

volunteering for extra shifts despite being already overworked

(not normally needed)



ather, there are several smaller conflicts that lead up to the main conflict and resolution.

hat agree, I think the basic need is to a) have a situation thrown upon a character, b) ha

e form of anywhere from 1 additional conflict/crisis to 4 or 5, but beyond that and you are, you can use the template below (a hybrid of our two approaches) or add or remove addi

as well as what caused them (usually an action of the protagonist except for the first crisi


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Resolution

Maddy signs up for Vietnam

Ingermanson's Snowflake Method suggests a

e that situation become more complex as that

writing War and Peace or something) and c)ional conflicts that may occur in your novel.

s) and how they get resolved.


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Step Three: List Your Characters

Deadline: 12/8/2010 9:00

Instructions:

List of Characters

First Name Last Name Motivating Force (Personality Trait, Desire, etc.)

Time for your characters! You know you have them - bubbling up there in your brain The people

(or animals, or clocks, or whatever) that make your book work. You'll get to the nitty-gritty details of

who these people are and what makes them do what they do later, but for now, you need to startgenerating your cast. List each character, as well as a brief summary of who you think they are,

what their primary objective is (both in terms of specific goals and abstract motivations), and what

could stop them from getting their objective (hint: you're setting up their various conflicts here as

well as giving yourself motivating factors that can help you with dialogue and reactions to situations -

how would main character Joe react here? Well, if he's driven to accomplish some objective, that

might taint his rationality and make him do something stupid...voila! plot twist). I've given you

enough space for 200 characters, though keeping track of more than 10 or so might prove difficult.


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Primary Goal Obstacles to Primary Goal Summary of Character


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Step Four: Design the Conflicts

Deadline: 12/8/2010 9:00

Instructions:

Conflict Outline

Item Conflict Type of Action Description

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You have already defined your conflicts, so now you need to expand them. Take each one of the

main conflicts and flesh them out into several sub-sections, describing the start of the conflict, the

rising action, the climax, and any denouement or falling action. For each step of the conflict, youcan provide a sentence or two description and/or any notes that you may have at the time.


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Notes


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Step Five: Expand the Characters

Deadline: 12/8/2010 9:00

Instructions:

Character Name Nickname/Middle Name Description Eye Color Hair Color

So now that you have a list of your characters and have decided what motivates them so that you know

how they might react to a given situation, now it is time to "flesh out" the characters so that you can

keep track of their physical and historical attributes and have a reference sheet to go back to. If youneed some help with this section, you might want to download my "Character Creator" spreadsheet to

help out with your character building.

Character Detailed Descriptions


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Skin Color Height Weight Occupation Gender Birthdate Hometown History


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How Character Changes Through Story Other Notes


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Step Six: Sketch Out the Scenes

Deadline: 12/8/10 9:00

Instructions:

Scene List:

Scene Description Point Of View Character Plot Point

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Now your goal is to sketch out your scenes. List each scene as well as select the point of view

character, flesh out timelines if you want, and make notes about each scene. You should also make

an effort to tie in the scenes to each of your climaxes and the action point that it ties into. For themost part, each scene of your novel should tie in to one of your conflicts and help progress the

storyline associated with that conflict or with your character development that helps explain a conflict.

The average novel could have anywhere from 10 to 200 scenes ranging from 3 words to 10,000.

The goal here is to just provide detailed breakdowns of what you want to occur in each individual

scene and who's there. That should help you keep them straight as you are writing and prevent

individuals from being in two places at once (unless in your sci-fi novel this is possible).


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Start Time End Time Chapter


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Step Seven: Write Your Novel

Deadline: 5/15/10 9:00

Instructions:

Word Count Goal: 100000

Words Remaining: 100000

Average Complete Scene Length: N/A

Scenes Remaining: 0

Percent of Goal Complete: 0.00%

Scene ListDescription Scene Chapter Number of Words In Scene

Well, we can't really help you here. Now you need to take the scene list you created on the past step and

by-scene, to create your novel. What we can do, though, is provide you with the following list for you to tr

and view some statistics. If you enter a word-count goal, this sheet can also help you track your progresscompletion.


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Scene Complete?

flesh it out, scene-

ack your progress

towards total


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