The Snowflake Method

On a rainy-day coffee date with one of my fellow word addicts, I was asked how my novel from last year’s NaNo WriMo was coming along. I confessed that it was done, but disturbingly unpolished, possibly even unreadable. Rather than just offering me his pity, this friend told me about an approach to writing called “the snowflake method.” My friend had heard of it at a writer’s workshop and had been using it to re-write his own rather lengthy, drab novel which was soon on its way to completion. I went home to look up this miraculous, wintery writing system and with Google’s guidance ended up at the website of Randy Ingermanson, the self-proclaimed “snow flake guy” and author of Writing Fiction for Dummies who apparently churned out six novels using the method.

The concept of the snowflake method is simple: start with a basic sentence outlining your entire story. Next, flesh out the sentence, adding important details, scenes, and events that bring your story to its climax and conclusion. By the time you’re finished you should have a paragraph that includes most of the major scenes and turning events in your novel, or at least a beginning, middle, and end.

At this point, Randy recommends doing quick, one-page character sheets for your main characters, including their background and primary motivation. I’m not sure how useful this step is as character sheets have never been my “thing” but maybe you will find them helpful if you’re a little fuzzy on who your characters are. If you can’t answer whether your character would jump in the way of a moving train to save a total stranger, or if they prefer rainy days or sunshine, coffee or tea, bourbon or drano, or even paper or plastic, then perhaps you ought to do a character sheet.

From here, having a good idea of your novel from the summary paragraph coupled with the information in your character sheets, it should be easy to develop each sentence of your summary into its own paragraph until you have a full page. There should be a sentence or more for every chapter. Randy suggests ending every chapter but the last in a “disaster.” Personally, I imagine this would get pretty tiresome for the reader. Shouldn’t some chapters end in other states? Happiness? Excitement? Not Randy’s, I guess. But I suppose it all depends upon what kind of novel you’re trying to write. If you’re a sadist, hell-bent on making your characters’ lives as tragic as possible, then always ending with disaster may be a good way to go.

At this point, the snowflake method sends you back to the character sheets, this time asking you to develop them into full-page character synopses. “Editors love character synopses,” Randy says, “because editors love character-based fiction.” Well, again, this will depend on whatever genre you are writing and who, if anyone, you are marketing it towards. Characters are almost always important, but to what degree is certainly varied. That said, the majority of fiction that gets published these days is character-based. Just don’t feel like you have to make it so if it isn’t.

By this point we’re halfway done with the ten-step snowflake method. Stage six involves turning the one-page summary into a four page mini-novel. Randy recommends fixing any mistakes and tying up any loose ends at this point and I’d have to agree that it’s a good idea. It’s a lot easier to go back and change parts of a story in 4 pages than it is to comb through 100.

Once more, Randy sends us back to the character sheets and asks us to change anything that needs changing as the characters become more clear to us and add more details about them. Again, I think it’s good to double-check your details at this point but I’m not sure how necessary it is to expand the character sheets themselves. I guess that’s up to you and how useful it is for you to have everything down on paper.

Now is the time to submit a proposal and sell your novel to a publisher, if you can, says Randy. But Randy doesn’t offer a lot of advice on this as his method is about writing, not about publication. I suppose if you sign up for his e-zine, or buy a copy of his book (is it Writing for Dummies or Writing for Dummies, btw?) he might slip you some pointers.

Step 8 involves us waiting around to get our novel accepted and making a scene chart using Excel or some other spreadsheet to pass the time. Columns for each situation and point of view should be included for each scene. I think scene charts are really useful but I can’t imagine creating one in excel and in such a rigid, lifeless, and business-like format. I guess that’s just the artist in me. It’s just not how I work. Rather, I create an interpretive collage or abstract finger-painting detailing the crucial bits of my novel and then hang it on the wall above my bed so I can have nightmares about it when I’m unconscious. Actually, I don’t. And because of this, I sleep quite soundly.

On to step nine, an optional step which Randy says (because he’s such a pro) he doesn’t need to do anymore. Take each scene in your spreadsheet and write it out including descriptions of setting, bits of dialogue, and the main conflict. The result should be a prototype first draft. Do it in a spiral notebook and you can rip out the pages so as to re-order scenes or just do it in a word processor and re-arrange by cutting and pasting. I actually think this is one of the more useful stages in Randy’s process because it allows you to make note of the scene essentials so you don’t get lost. It also lets you play around with issues like timing in a non-committal way. For me, this is more important than the spreadsheet and more important than the lengthy character sheets because it is, in essence, the novel –down on paper, if only in pre-crafted form. It’s sort of a contractual obligation to write, the setting down of a dramatic foundation, like a story board. It’s also important if, for whatever reason, you end up not having enough time to bang your novel out in one go and have to come back to it later. This way, you’ll have everything down on paper so you won’t forget.

The last step is to pound out your first draft. Randy seems to indicate that you should do this from scratch. Having tried the method myself, I think it’s easiest to use step 9 as a guide. Just like graphic designers use a grid, you can use your summary to “block” your writing. Delete sentences that tell and transform them into sentences that show. Instead of the quick one-liner, “she comes home to find a dead body,” that you have in your summary, start with the detail of the doorknob and work your way down to the bloody wound in John Doe’s forehead until you have a paragraph, or even a completed scene. In this way, you can also jump around if you don’t feel like writing chronologically (for example, if you’re not in the mood to write the love scene you can write the funeral scene and come back to expand the love scene when you’re in a less grim mood.)

As Randy states, the snowflake method is not for everyone. There are a lot of writers who write by doing, and aren’t much for planning. My work would certainly fall into that category, most of the time, so I would classify myself as a “flying by the seat of my pants” writer, even though I dislike the expression and tend to wear skirts. But don’t worry fellow flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants writers. I do think the snowflake method can be adapted to suit our somewhat spastic needs. For starters, ditch the character sheets completely so as to let your characters evolve organically from the story OR only write short charts (or paragraphs) including the bare essentials (hair color, eye color, etc.) This will make your editing work harder as you’ll have to go back through your novel to make sure your character is consistent, but if this is the best way for you to form your characters (as it is mine) then so be it. The extra work will be worth the genuine, fresh characters that develop.

The snowflake method is also a little trying if you haven’t decided on every aspect of your novel. That’s okay. Try starting your snow flake with the scene you already have and then building on it by adding to either side (before this scene and afterward). This makes it easier than trying to start at the beginning if you have no idea what the beginning actually is.

I don’t know if I’m going to run out and by a book with the words “writing” and “dummies” right next to each other, but I do want to thank Dr. Ingermanson (doctor of physics, note you) for his advice. It has certainly been something to mull over and possibly for a lot of very patient, scientific, or formulaic writers very useful. You can sign up for Randy’s newsletter on his website, or take his writing road-map quiz to figure out where you are along the long road to publication, if you don’t know already. Recommendations like attending writing conferences and getting critique partners abound.

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