The Snowflake Method

By Randy Ingermanson

1 sentence 5 sentences 5 paragraphs 5 pages List of scenes

- protagonist - setup 1 paragraph for each 1 page for each of the list scenes required
- issue - 3 major disasters of the 5 sentences 5 paragraphs for each of the 5
- ending pages

main characters
 1 page each
o 1 sentence summary of character’s storyline
o essentials:
 motivation (abstract)
secondary characters  goal (concrete)
 conflict (what prevents them from
 ½ page each reaching their goal?)
 traits & story from their pov  epiphany (what do they learn? how do
they change? Character should be
different at the end of the book from
the way they were at the beginning.)
o 1 paragraph summary of the character’s
storyline
 expand into a full-fledged chart detailing everything
above

content from: advancedfictionwriting.com | summary by: GWUWI.com

 The Snowflake Method
By Randy Ingermanson

INTRO Step 2: Step 5: Step 8:

PLOT CHARACTER PLOT
There are thousands of different methods to write a novel and this is just
one of them. It’s here for you to take a look through, pick out whatever DURATION: DURATION: DURATION:
helps and ignore the rest. 1 hour 1-2 days 1 week

A few of important points before we start:

ACTIVITY/ACTION: ACTIVITY/ACTION: ACTIVITY/ACTION:
Expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing: Write up a: Take the four-page synopsis and make a list of all the scenes that you’ll
Quick note from me: 1. the story setup  one-page description of each major character need to turn the story into a novel.
2. 3 major disasters (each disaster equals a quarter of the book)  half-page description of the other important characters.
Everything here is extracted from Ingermanson’s article—the idea and i. Disaster #1: external circumstances One line for each scene, with the following suggested column headings:
sometimes even entire sentences. It’s plagiarism to the extreme. So all ii. Disaster #2: protagonist’s attempts to “fix things”  POV character
credit goes to him. iii. Disaster #3: protagonist’s attempts to “fix things” (things just NOTE:  Scene description
get worse and worse) These “character synopses” should tell the story from the point of view of After you’re done listing all the scenes:
In the Snowflake Method, Ingermanson jumps repeatedly from plot to 3. the ending (last quarter of the book) each character. As always, feel free to cycle back to the earlier steps and  Chapters
character. This is because he believes interchanging elements helps the make revisions as you learn cool stuff about your characters.
creative process. That is, working on characters may provide insights into NOTE: NOTES:
Do not confuse this paragraph with the back-cover copy of your book. This Can be as large as 100 lines (i.e., scenes) long. You can save different
plot and vice versa. To help center you (and myself), I have labelled the
element in focus for each step. paragraph summarizes the whole story. Your back-cover copy should Step 6: versions of the story. Incredibly valuable for analyzing a story.
summarize only about the first quarter of the story (i.e., only the first PLOT
Notes regarding the method: disaster that gets the story going).
By now, you have a solid story and several story-threads, one for each Step 9:
character. OPTIONAL (Ingermanson no longer does this step)
As you go through this process, you may find that you need to go back Step 3:
and revise your answer to earlier steps. This is expected and in fact,
CHARACTER DURATION: DURATION:
encouraged.
1 week 1 week
DURATION:
Or in explicit terms: nothing here has to be perfect. Purpose of each step
1 hour (per character) ACTIVITY/ACTION: ACTIVITY/ACTION:
is to advance you to the next step. Keep your momentum. You can always
go back and fix things when you understand your story better.
Expand the one-page plot synopsis of the novel to a four-page synopsis  Take each line of the spreadsheet and expand it to a multi-
ACTIVITY/ACTION: (i.e., expand each paragraph from step 4 into a full page). paragraph description of the scene.
For each of your major characters, write a one-page summary sheet that  Put in any cool lines of dialogue you think of, and sketch out the
How to create a snowflake: includes: Now you are figuring out the high-level logic of the story and making essential conflict of that scene. (If there’s no conflict, you’ll know
 Name strategic decisions. You will definitely want to cycle back and fix things in it here and you should either add conflict or scrub the scene.)
 A one-sentence summary of the character’s storyline the earlier stages as you gain insight into the story and new ideas whack
That’s exactly how you design a  Motivation (what does he/she want abstractly?) you in the face. NOTES:
novel—start small and build up.  Goal (what does he/she want concretely?)  You can write 1-2 pages per chapter, starting each chapter on a
 Conflict (what prevents him/her from reaching this goal?) new page.
 Epiphany (what will he/she learn, how will he/she change?) Step 7:  Result: approx. 50-page document.
 A one-paragraph summary of the character’s storyline (i.e., the CHARACTER
 Used for editing. This is the draft before your first draft. (The draft
The 10-Step Design Process story through your character’s eyes.)
DURATION:
even before your zero draft.)
1-4 weeks
WHY DESIGN? Step 4: Step 10
PLOT ACTIVITY/ACTION:
Why outline, plot or plan? Because your memory is fallible, and your Expand your character descriptions into full-fledged character charts ACTIVITY/ACTION:
creativity has probably left a lot of holes in your story—holes you need to By this stage, you should have a good idea of the large-scale structure of detailing everything there is to know about each character: You can now sit down and start pounding out the first draft of your novel.
fill before you start writing your novel. your novel, and you may have spent as much as a week on it. If the story is  the standard stuff: birthdate, description, history, motivation,
broken, you know it now, rather than after investing 500 hours in a goal, etc. Midway through, fix the broken parts of your design documents.
rambling first draft.  most importantly: how will this character change by the end of (Remember, they’re fluid structures, they weren’t meant to be perfect on
Step 1: the novel? the first go. They are a living set of documents that changes and grows as
PLOT Now just keep growing the story. you develop your novel. If you’ve done your job right, at the end of the
NOTES: first draft you will laugh at what an amateurish piece of junk your original
DURATION: DURATION:  Expansion of your work in step 3 design documents were. And you’ll be thrilled at how deep your story has
1 hour Several hours  You can go back and revise steps 1-6 as your characters become become.)
“real” to you and begin making petulant demands on the story.
ACTIVITY/ACTION: ACTIVITY/ACTION:  Take as much time as you need to do this, because you’re saving NOTES:
Write a one-sentence summary of your novel. Expand each sentence of your summary paragraph into a full paragraph. time downstream. It may take a full month of solid effort to finish You might think that all the creativity is chewed out of the story by this
All but the last paragraph should end in a disaster. The final paragraph this step. time. Well, no, not unless you overdid your analysis when you wrote your
EXAMPLE: should tell how the book ends. Snowflake. This is supposed to be the fun part, because there are many
“A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul.” At the end of the exercise, you have a pretty decent one-page skeleton of small-scale logic problems to work out here. How does Hero get out of
(The summary of Ingermanson’s first novel, Transgression.) your novel. that tree surrounded by alligators and rescue Heroine who’s in the
burning rowboat? This is the time to figure it out! But it’s fun because you
TIPS on what makes a good sentence: NOTE: already know that the large-scale structure of the novel works. So you
 Shorter is better. Try for fewer than 15 words. It’s okay if you can’t get it all onto one single-spaced page. What matters only have to solve a limited set of problems, and so you can write
 No character names! Better to say “a handicapped trapeze artist” is that you are growing the ideas that will go into your story. You are relatively fast.
than “Jane Doe”. expanding the conflict.

content from: advancedfictionwriting.com | summary by: GWUWI.com

 The Snowflake Method
By Randy Ingermanson

STORY
STEP DURATION ACTIVITY NOTES
ELEMENT
EXAMPLE:
“A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul.”
(The summary of Ingermanson’s first novel, Transgression.)
1 1 hr PLOT Write a one-sentence summary of your novel.
TIPS on what makes a good sentence:
 Shorter is better. Try for fewer than 15 words.
 No character names! Better to say “a handicapped trapeze artist” than “Jane Doe”.
Expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing:
1. the story setup
2. 3 major disasters (each disaster equals a quarter of the book) Do not confuse this paragraph with the back-cover copy of your book. This paragraph summarizes the whole story. Your back-cover copy
2 1 hr PLOT i. Disaster #1: external circumstances should summarize only about the first quarter of the story (i.e., only the first disaster that gets the story going).
ii. Disaster #2: protagonist’s attempts to “fix things”
iii. Disaster #3: protagonist’s attempts to “fix things” (things just get worse and worse)
3. the ending (last quarter of the book)
For each of your major characters, write a one-page summary sheet that includes:
 Name
 A one-sentence summary of the character’s storyline
 Motivation (what does he/she want abstractly?)
3 1 hr CHARACTER
 Goal (what does he/she want concretely?)
 Conflict (what prevents him/her from reaching this goal?)
 Epiphany (what will he/she learn, how will he/she change?)
 A one-paragraph summary of the character’s storyline (i.e., the story through your character’s eyes.)
RECAP:
By this stage, you should have a good idea of the large-scale structure of your novel, and you may have spent as much as a week on it. If
the story is broken, you know it now, rather than after investing 500 hours in a rambling first draft.
Expand each sentence of your summary paragraph into a full paragraph.
Now just keep growing the story.
All but the last paragraph should end in a disaster. The final paragraph should tell how the book ends.
4 Several hrs PLOT
At the end of the exercise, you have a pretty decent one-page skeleton of your novel.
NOTE:
It’s okay if you can’t get it all onto one single-spaced page. What matters is that you are growing the ideas that will go into your story. You
are expanding the conflict.

Write up a:
These “character synopses” should tell the story from the point of view of each character. As always, feel free to cycle back to the earlier
5 1-2 days CHARACTER  one-page description of each major character
steps and make revisions as you learn cool stuff about your characters.
 half-page description of the other important characters.
RECAP:
By now, you have a solid story and several story-threads, one for each character.

6 1 week PLOT Expand the one-page plot synopsis of the novel to a four-page synopsis (i.e., expand each paragraph from step 4 into a full page).
NOTE:
Now you are figuring out the high-level logic of the story and making strategic decisions. You will definitely want to cycle back and fix
things in the earlier stages as you gain insight into the story and new ideas whack you in the face.
 Expansion of your work in step 3
Expand your character descriptions into full-fledged character charts detailing everything there is to know about each character:
 You can go back and revise steps 1-6 as your characters become “real” to you and begin making petulant demands on the story.
7 1-4 weeks CHARACTER  the standard stuff: birthdate, description, history, motivation, goal, etc.
 Take as much time as you need to do this, because you’re saving time downstream. It may take a full month of solid effort to finish
 most importantly: how will this character change by the end of the novel?
this step.
Take the four-page synopsis and make a list of all the scenes that you’ll need to turn the story into a novel.

One line for each scene, with the following suggested column headings:
8 1 week PLOT  POV character Can be as large as 100 lines (i.e., scenes) long. You can save different versions of the story. Incredibly valuable for analyzing a story.
 Scene description
After you’re done listing all the scenes:
 Chapters
 This stage is optional
 Take each line of the spreadsheet and expand it to a multi-paragraph description of the scene.
 You can write 1-2 pages per chapter, starting each chapter on a new page.
9 1 week  Put in any cool lines of dialogue you think of, and sketch out the essential conflict of that scene. (If there’s no conflict, you’ll know it here
 Result: approx. 50-page document.
and you should either add conflict or scrub the scene.)
 Used for editing. This is the draft before your first draft. (The draft even before your zero draft.)
You can now sit down and start pounding out the first draft of your novel.
You might think that all the creativity is chewed out of the story by this time. Well, no, not unless you overdid your analysis when you
wrote your Snowflake. This is supposed to be the fun part, because there are many small-scale logic problems to work out here. How does
Midway through, fix the broken parts of your design documents.
10 Hero get out of that tree surrounded by alligators and rescue Heroine who’s in the burning rowboat? This is the time to figure it out! But
(Remember, they’re fluid structures, they weren’t meant to be perfect on the first go. They are a living set of documents that changes and
it’s fun because you already know that the large-scale structure of the novel works. So you only have to solve a limited set of problems,
grows as you develop your novel. If you’ve done your job right, at the end of the first draft you will laugh at what an amateurish piece of junk
and so you can write relatively fast.
your original design documents were. And you’ll be thrilled at how deep your story has become.)

content from: advancedfictionwriting.com | summary by: GWUWI.com