The Get Real Method (or why I don’t snowflake)
Y ou no doubt have heard of the Snowflake Method that Randy Ingermanson recommends . For those of you who have heard of it, but haven’t taken the time to understand it, here it is in a nutshell: Write a one-sentence summary of your novel. Expand the sentence to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters and ending of the novel. Write a summary sheet for each major character. Expand each sentence of your summary paragraph into a full paragraph. Write a one page description of each major character and a half page description of each minor character. Expand one-page synopsis into a four-page synopsis. Create full-fledged character charts. Take a hiatus and wait for the book to sell. In the meantime, make a spreadsheet showing the scenes. (optional) Take each line of the spreadsheet and expand into a multi-paragraph description of the scene. Write the first draft. The basic idea behind this method is to...