#Randy Ingermanson

[davidjhiggins]

Oxygen by John B. Olson & Randy Ingermanson

Olson and Ingermanson blend crisply realistic astronautics with the untidiness of human emotions, creating a thriller about people who must—yet cannot—trust each other if they want to survive. Continue reading Oxygen by John B. Olson & Randy Ingermanson

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: 10-Step Snowflake Method

by Randy Ingermanson

1-sentence summary (1 hour)

15 words or fewer

No character names

Tie big picture to “personal picture” - what does the character have to lose and what do they want to win?

Read NYT bestseller blurbs for inspiration

Expand sentence to full paragraph summary (1 hour)

Approx. 5 sentences

Story setup

(Three) Major disasters

Ending

One page summary for each character (1 hour each)

Character’s…

Name

One-sentence storyline

Motivation (what do they want abstractly?)

Goal (what do they want concretely?)

Conflict (what prevents them from reaching goal?)

Epiphany (what they learn, how they change)

One-paragraph storyline

Expand each sentence in summary (#2) to full paragraphs (several hours)

All paragraphs end in disaster, except…

Final paragraph shows how the book ends.

1 page description of each major character (1-2 days)

Tell story from POV of each character.

Expand each paragraph from #4 into full page synopses. (1 week)

High level logic & strategic decisions

Expand character descriptions from #3 into full character charts (1 week)

Birthdate

Description

History

Motivation

Goal

Epiphany, etc.

Turn 4-page summary from #6 into a scene spreadsheet

One line per scene

Columns for: (a) POV character (b) What happens (c) Page numbers

(optional) Expand each scene from spreadsheet into multi-paragraph description

Add dialogue

General workings of conflict

Start writing first draft

Source ⚜ More: The Snowflake Method ⚜ Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding

[ambernim8]

On this blog 8 is a special number...so in celebration of reaching 8 followers (hi @vividthembo <3), I wanted to share a little something in thanks!

Here are eight pictures from this past month of my writing journey, as you can see my writing emotional support cat, Mr. Loaf, is a central figure. Indispensable. Nothing like purrs and soft pets to quiet any doubtful thoughts <3 Also indispensable: my Sun-Beam electric heating pad, so comforting! Of course not much outlining would get done without a guide, so I have my favorite craft books at the ready: SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL by Jessica Brody & How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method, by Randy Ingermanson. I am always drinking water or tea, my new favorite cup from Daiso reminds me to take breaks so I don't get too carried away...how kind :) I am still at ground zero on my novel project: Follow Me, but as I stumble my way through outlining, I find that I enjoy pen to paper the most?? Totally unexpected for me, as I only write by keyboard. What do you usual need in your writing space? Anything super indispensable for you?

Thank you to everyone who has hit follow, I really appreciate the support and your company! See you all next time!

Later, lovelies! xoxo

[pinbones]

How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson is my favourite ever book on (novel) writing. And it's not just useful for novels.

I was expecting something dry and centered on its author like so many writing books are, but it's a funny little actual story (a fairytale parody that doesn't stick in your teeth) that integrates some of the best lessons on writing I've ever read straight into its prose. And it really gets the creative spark fired -- every time I've read it I've applied it as I read along to my current largest WIP.

I can't stop thinking about its definition of a Disaster, and it's making the three-act-structure make sense. Its bits on character are cool too.

Anyway. Yeah. Two thumbs up. "How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method."

[inherhouseshewaitsdreaming]

Preptober 2023 - Snowflake Edition

Here in the Office we're going to be doing Preptober using the Snowflake method.

What is Preptober? During the month of October, people planning to do NaNoWriMo prepare for the month, getting their story and their lives ready to complete the challenge. The programme is actually 6 weeks long, so this room is going to be a little longer than a month.

What is NaNoWriMo? During the month of November, writers around the world attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month - known as National Novel Writing Month.

What is the Snowflake Method? This is a fiction writing method where you follow 10 steps to get your novel ready to write. The steps all involve gradually expanding and branching your story (sort of like a snowflake). It is the brainchild of Randy Ingermanson.

I strongly recommend buying Ingermanson's book How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method and reading along with it. Its a very engaging read. At first the unusual style in which it was written put me off a little, but after a while I realised I was actually hooked on the story he was telling too (following the journey of the book's protagonist quite closely, which I am guessing was the point). I often struggle to read 'examples' in fiction writing books and the way this book is written overcame that completely.

For this room, I will use the material Ingerman provides for free on his website. I will not add anything from the book, but I will suggest chapters to read if you are also reading.

How will this work? Throughout the 6 weeks of Preptober, I will post prompts to complete two things:

The steps of the Snowflake Method, spaced out according to their length.

The steps of the Preptober course outline from the NaNoWriMo website.

We’ll use the Snowflake Method to cover the first few weeks of Preptober. Because you move around between things like plot and character, we won’t be doing these in order. Below is the the full schedule of posts.

Week 1 (normally idea generation)

18 September: Step 1 (takes about 1 hour)

20 September: Step 2 (takes about 1 hour)

22 September: Step 3 (takes a few hours, depending how many characters you have)

Week 2 (normally characters)

25 September: Step 4 (takes a few hours)

28 September: Step 5 (takes a few days)

Week 3 (normally plot)

2 October: Step 6 (takes a week)

Week 4 (normally worldbuilding)

9 October: Step 7 (takes a week)

Week 5 (normally grow your writing community)

16 October: Step 8

Week 6 (normally find and manage your time)

23 October: Step 9

Step 10 is to write so that will start on 1 November. You can always skip over to Ingermanson's website and find the next steps if you need to arrange things on a different time scale.

[reflections-from-the-road]

※ Snowflake ※

Randy Ingermanson, an American writer and teacher of creative writing, has developed a scheme by which you can plan a novel from the general to the specific - this is the snowflake method. ❄️

The first step is to write, a very general sentence that is a summary of the novel. This task is both trivial and difficult. The, shorter the better. The, less the better. And yet, there must be a whole enclosed in it.

In my case, this sentence sounds like this:

A young boy wants to get into an art college, but his path gets complicated when secrets of loved ones come to light.

Curious? 👀

[narratio-itineris]

※ Płatek śniegu ※

Randy Ingermanson, amerykański pisarz i nauczyciel kreatywnego pisania opracował schemat według, którego od ogółu do szczegółu można zaplanować powieść - to metoda płatka śniegu. ❄️ Pierwszy krok polega na napisaniu, bardzo ogólnego zdania, które jest streszczeniem powieści. Zadanie to jest jednocześnie banalne jak i trudne. Im, krótsze tym lepsze. Im, mniej tym lepiej. A jednak musi być w nim zamknięta całość. U mnie to zdanie brzmi tak:

Młody chłopak pragnie dostać się na uczelnie artystyczną, ale jego droga komplikuje się, gdy na jaw wychodzą tajemnice bliskich.

Zaciekawieni? 👀

[danniswrites]

My writing turned totally around in Jan 2022. I was editing my latest NaNoWriMo project, and decided to check out a resource I found on nanowrimo.org to help me. Basically, I wanted help to write a dynamite blurb, or tagline. When I create a new story, I use a LibreOffice template I created to put my title page, copyright page with a sentence describing what the story's about, TOC, and a dummy first paragraph with my first dummy paragraph heading.

I wanted to know how to write better taglines.

So I read the article above and the light bulb went on! Simple. Elegant. Plotting.

I had always been a pantser. Never planned any part of my stories, and I have about 650 of 'em, half not even to the first draft. Dedicated pantser. In my teen years, I hated English literature in 8th grade even though I knew I needed to know how to plot, but all the analysis of the books we read [and I enjoyed reading them] just made me feel like, 'I'm too stupid to learn all this.'

Now, I'm reading these 10 steps and had an epiphany!

So, I broke down Step 1 and made it into my worksheet for coming up with taglines.

Here's how I think about those 15 max words to get it done:

One Sentence Summary: Adj.+Noun+Verb+Obj [Worker] [Action] [Effect] in 15 words or less Character With Most To Lose: What They Want:

So, for Adia, Scientist, here's what I came up with:

Discouraged scientist must discover a new fuel so her colony can escape from war.

I write science fiction and I loved chemistry in college, so, hey, I like formulas. I don't want my writing to sound like it came from a formula, but if you look at a lot of genres, there is one.

If you read enough romances, like my sister did, you figure out there's a pattern you can follow as a writer. I was there when she did. She went on to become famous and actually got an award presented to her in New York from her idol, Barbara Cartland at a writer's conference.

I--uh, I'm the non-famous sister who self-publishes on Amazon. But I enjoy my writing life, and though I do love to put romance in my books, romance writing is not my thing.

However, if you're like me and you want to improve your writing, Snowflake Method does work for a lot of us. And, if you buy one of Randy Ingermanson's very entertaining books, you get a free copy of his Snowflake Pro software, which walks you through each step and lets you see what you wrote in the previous step.

I don't do all 10 steps. Let's face it, I'm a plantser now. I'm not that meticuolous and organized. But, I do most of them, because Steps 1-5 give me a nice head start. And, Steps 3, 5 and 7 concentrate on your characters. Characters make your story. If you don't have a character that grabs your reader from the first chapter, why will they want to read your story? You have to have someone to care about and they have to have something happening that attracts the reader.

Now that I had a loose framework for my stories, I needed to [finally] learn something about plot structure more than the beginning, 3 disasters, and an ending. Randy does an excellent job of simplifying 3 act structure [though there are other methods such as PlotDot or Save The Cat that also work with Snowflake Method].

Another resource I found while exploring resources in the Now What? Revision pages on nanowrimo.org was K. M. Weiland's wonderful site:

This lady puts 3 act structure into terms that I can understand, and she has a vast database of books and movies that she's analyzed for us. If you think 3 act structure is complicated and boring, try reading a little of your favorite on this list:

I love the Marvel movies, so here's how she summarized The Avengers.

And she even mentions how what works in this movie would not, in a book. This is something I read time and time again about science fiction writing. Science fiction movies are not 'true' science fiction, for the most part. Star Wars is fantasy set on other planets. Star Trek has science in it, but again, is science fantasy.

In science fiction, science drives the story more than characters or plot. Though, to make my science fiction more accessible to a wider audience, I choose to concentrate on psychology, particularly interpersonal relationships. I do make sure that my science is feasible and believable, and explain it simply. And, I do my research.

So, when writing a book, it's good to see analyses like this of movies, but remember, it's different for books.

A friend who was also a producer told me, for a two-hour movie, you have to choose about two chapters for your script. The director has to insert some points to connect the dots. That's why many movies 'aren't like the book' they're based upon. It's an art to take a book and condense it like that so it still makes sense and absorbs the viewer.

But, we writers can learn much from movies about character development and how to get our readers involved with them, and with our stories.

[somegirlnamedalicia]

I keep mentioning my MadCom OCs/fic, so I might as well give an update on the fic itself:

Tentative title is Cogs in the Machine. The first chapter has been written and lightly edited based on some friends' feedback. I want to finish at least the first draft of chapter 2 before I finally start posting to AO3. I've already made two completely unplanned minor characters and started fleshing out one only briefly mentioned in the outline. I still have no idea what to put for the summary.

I am a slow-ass writer, but I'm trying to schedule at least an hour of writing time per day so I can actually put words on paper.

Also once again plugging Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method because holy crap, planning this out has actually been fun thanks to it. It's definitely intended for novels you plan to publish, but it's worked fantastically for this fic. I've finally been able to link together all these characters arcs and plot points into something I'm genuinely excited (albeit nervous) to write. And who knows, maybe I'll actually start on the novel I've been wanting to write for ages once I'm done here!

[amethystheart2421]

Anyone use this method? What's your experience with it? I'm considering it for my next fic.

[andrewmfriday]

The Snowflake Method Using Tabs

Use Google.Docs New Feature to Write and Navigate Your Novel

Photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA

People have sprinkled various ways to use Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method of developing a novel: Excel Spreadsheets, a three-ring binder, Plottr software, and so on. Really, paper and a pen would be enough. However, a writer who wants to experiment with the Snowflake Method with different mediums has many options. All of them are great.

I have one more way: Google.Docs with tabs. Someone may have already developed this, but I couldn't find it. I went ahead and created my own template. Maybe someone will find this way of using the Snowflake Method to create a novel helpful. Let me know.

Download the template: Snowflake Method in Google.Docs with tabs.

Message me if you think this document would be helpful or not.

My Linktree

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: The Snowflake Method

As a snowflake grows from its center core, it expands in all directions, breaking off into additional branches that give it greater volume and spatial scope.

The snowflake method of fiction writing applies this concept to the craft of storytelling.

The Snowflake Method

Created by author and writing instructor Randy Ingermanson.

A technique for crafting a novel from scratch by starting with a basic story summary and adding elements from there.

How to Use the Snowflake Method

To begin using the snowflake method, think of a story idea and describe it with a one-sentence summary.

Example: “Two teenagers discover a secret cave that contains treasures that a group of criminals has been hunting for.”

The snowflake method then requires you to build that sentence into a paragraph, using that paragraph to create various character descriptions.

From there, you use those descriptions to create a series of storylines that involve those characters. This process of outlining a novel spans outward until you have a fully outlined novel, just as a snowflake expands from a single drop of water.

The 5 Steps of the Snowflake Method

Choose a premise and write it up in a one-sentence summary.

This single sentence will be the foundation for your entire novel’s outline.

Expand that one-sentence summary into a full paragraph.

Use that sentence to write a one-paragraph summary to explain the main story of the novel. It should also identify core characters, and break their narrative into a structure with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

If you wish to conceive of your story with a three-act structure, think about the primary exposition, the inciting action and development, and the climax.

Note that a story can have more than three plot points.

No matter how many you choose, each of these plot points will be a spoke stemming off from the central hub that is your premise.

Create character summaries.

Rooting yourself in the narrative you’ve just written out in a single paragraph, begin to explore the major characters who will populate your story.

What are their core characteristics?

What is each character’s point of view?

What roles will they serve in relation to the main premise?

Build your character summaries into full profiles.

Now it’s time to add a few more extensions to your snowflake by creating full characterizations from those summaries.

Consider the characters you’ve just roughly sketched and ask:

What is each character’s name?

Which of these will be the main character?

What are their biographies and backstories?

How will each character’s goal, each character’s conflicts, and each character’s epiphanies help them overcome those conflicts?

What do they look like?

What are their affectations?

Expand to a multi-page synopsis.

By this point, the snowflake method has generated a core story, a multi-part plot structure, character names, & multiple character profiles (or character synopses).

You are now ready to expand these elements into a brief 4-page synopsis.

As you encapsulate the whole story in full pages, focus on a list of scenes, who is in them, and what events will occur in them.

Are there any major disasters?

Remember that every event is building toward the end: the story’s climax.

A great story with a weak ending will quickly be forgotten.

Once you have these elements drafted, your literary snowflake is complete, and you’re ready to dive into the first draft of your novel and start writing fiction!

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References Writing References: Worldbuilding ⚜ Plot ⚜ Character

[nahkalaka]

my current favorite method of plotting: the (adapted) snowflake method

Originally created by Randy Ingermanson, the snowflake method is one of the ones that I have jived with most when it comes to plotting my stories. It's simple and straightforward and allows you to work into your story on progressively deeper levels, building it from the ground up.

Feel free to check out the link for more explanation, but here I'm mostly going to be talking about how I use it. I do take some things more directly from the method.

Step One: one sentence summary. Your most basic logline. You may already have a concept or a lot of ideas, but this is where you identify what the core of the story is.

Step Two: one paragraph summary. Your opportunity to actually talk a little bit more about your plan for the plot. Broad strokes--leave out details.

Step Three: major characters part 1. Identify your major characters and give each of them five bullet points.

One sentence summary of that character's storyline. I generally include not only plot in this summary, but also some information about reasons/emotions. For example: X runs away from home because of this fear, then eventually does this and this.

The character's motivation (what they want abstractly, in an overall sense and as it relates to the story).

The character's goal (what they want concretely).

The character's conflict (what stops them from reaching their goal? If you don't have a conflict, you should probably come up with at least a little one.)

The character's epiphany (what do they learn, how do they change by the end of the story?)

The method also includes a one paragraph summary of the character's specific storyline, but I moved that to a different step.

Step Four: one page summary. Each sentence from step two becomes a paragraph. This is your chance to begin filling in more information about how things happen. If there were any gaps that need to be filled from step two or things that need to be fixed, you can do that here as well.

Step Five: major characters part 2. For each major character, I give:

a basic physical description, plus whether any of their physical features are plot or story-relevant

basic description of important personality traits

The aforementioned 1 paragraph summary of each character's story. This follows their specific perspective through the plot. If you don't know what they're doing during the major events that they're not involved in, now is the time to figure it out. give your characters a life outside the main story, because it enriches everything you write and gives you opportunity for more depth.

Step Six: two page synopsis. Feel free to take a lot of time working on this one. You're continuing from step four, fleshing out more and more details, threading things together. At this point I develop chapter breaks--one paragraph is one chapter.

Thus far I have tended to plan/write shorter books--my longest is 50k words. In the original method this step is a four page synopsis, and you may need that for a much longer or more complex stories. In my second draft of my main WIP, I added 8 chapters of content that I hadn't originally planned because i had missed important moments and needed to further flesh out some that were already there. For me, the snowflake method is what i use to get me writing quickly, effectively, and sustainably, so i don't go crazy on the planning up front. there are always drafts.

Anyways, back to the process.

Step Seven: major character charts. All important/relevant information about your main characters. Age, sex, birthdate if such things are important, etc etc. The categories I use might vary a bit for different stories, but here's one example:

Family, Self-Opinion, Education/Intelligence, Preferences, Most likely to impress them, flaws, hobbies/interests, reactions to stress, secrets, physical gestures/habits, sound of voice, most common facial expression(s), introvert/extrovert.

From here forward is where I deviate most from the original method.

Step Eight: minor character sketches. outline each of your minor characters. include important details about them, like appearance, likes, purpose in the story, relationships, unique traits, etc etc. This step is very unstructured for me.

Step Nine: notes. If there are things that you find important that you haven't included in any of the other sections, this is the place. Things you don't want to forget, dialogue ideas, inspirations. This is also a good place for lore and the most basic of worldbuilding. The snowflake method isn't really designed with any setting/worldbuiliding in mind, so it might be good to do a separate process to develop that further if it's something you care about. I've been developing my world further through my subsequent drafts.

Step Ten: first draft!

So this is the snowflake method! Make it work for you, and happy writing <3

[carriejonesbooks]

Let's Talk The Sexy One-Sentence Summary

THE ONE SENTENCE SUMMARY Let’s be honest, here. Sometimes I throw the word “sexy” into a podcast title just to get Shaun to pay attention. But the one-sentence summary is kind of sexy. Over on the Advanced Fiction Writing Blog, Randy Ingermanson writes: In that summary, you want: To show us the setting via information about where or when the story is happening. What Ingersoll calls ��a…

[inherhouseshewaitsdreaming]

Snowflake Method Step 6

Snowflake Method Step 6: Your novel in 5 pages

Recommended time: A week

Expand each paragraph from step 4 into a full page.

Tip: Randy Ingermanson describes his preferred plot structure as three disasters and an ending. You can find more details about plot structures in the NaNo Prep Week 3 materials if you want some more ideas about story beats and structures.

[kelyon]

I've found the Snowflake Method to be very useful for turning a bunch of half-formed ideas into a three-act structure for a long work.

Do you have any tips on how to come up with plot? I get general ideas for stories but nothing more than a line

It's going to depend on what your goal is when you're writing as well as what your writing style is.

If you sit down to write with the goal of a 100K longfic, then you're going to need multiple plots. A main plotline (that first sentence you come up with) and at least one sideplot, if not more. The main plot generally follows the main characters and the sideplot tends to fall to secondary or tertiary characters.

Then it's kind of a matter of going through your question words:

What's your one sentence idea? What's happening at the same time as that? Who else is involved? Where do they need to go? Why do they need to do this thing? Why in that place? What stops them from doing it? How do they get past that issue?

When I start writing a fic, I have a one-sentence plot that cracks me up and I write the first chapter setting up that situation. Then I post it. Then I think about what logically needs to happen next, what could happen next, what would be funny if it happened next, etc.

I try to have some end goal in mind. For example, the ship gets together or the trip they're on ends or they capture the bad guy etc. Keeping that end goal in mind allows me to write my way to it chapter by chapter as ideas occur to me, and before you know it I've got 12 chapters and the fic is done.

Either that or I think "what would an argument about pickles look like between these characters?" or "what would this bad guy's planner have in its schedule?" and I just write a oneshot.

What about the rest of you? How do you go about taking a small idea and turning it into a story?

This question is also available on Dreamwidth