Snowflake Outline Method Review

I am constantly having to refocusing my attention and energy back to my ultimate goal – to write a novel.  And just as constantly I get distracted and derailed by life, what passes for “reality.”  It takes vigilance to remember what it is I really want and to constantly monitor if I’m actually working on that goal or sluffing off, or if I’m letting what doesn’t matter, matter.

One thing I’ve found that helps immeasurably in this ongoing struggle is an outline.  The venerated, all-important outline.  It is honest to god my lifeline, and salvation.  It’s like a diet plan.  The enormity of designing and consistently following a regimen of exercising and eating better is daunting.  Diet books and DVD programs are not magic, nor are they even anything new.  It’s simply a matter of marketing and excellent packaging and I know if I just follow xyz program to the letter, I will reach my goal.  I just have to do what it tells me (which I really already know of course – eat right, exercise properly – duh), then I will get the results advertised.  

Follow any weight loss program properly and it will work.  It’s all packaged for you, broken down into doable little snippets, day by day.  That’s the secret, the key.  Otherwise it’s just too huge to grasp, to engage.  It’s the same with starting a novel.  How exactly do you do that?  You take workshops, classes, read books, and join groups.  But at the end of it you are still left with a ton of great ideas and feedback – but alone in front of that blank computer screen without any idea of actually how to “do” it; how to put all the ideas together, how to begin, how to piece it all together. 

That’s where the outline concept comes in, the diet program of writing.  Just find one that works for you, that has attractive packaging, that speaks to you, then pick it up and stick to it.  That’s where I am now.  I have a suitcase full of notes written in the middle of the day, while driving, in the shower, at work, full of scenes, ideas, things that actually happen that just have to be included, things that belong in my book.  But – now what?  What the hell do I actually do with them?  An outline helps you do just that, it’s a way to organize all ‘that.’ 

The outline method I found that was packaged ‘just right’ for me is “The Snowflake Method for Designing a Novel” by Randy Ingermanson.  His website and specific link to this article is:  http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method.  You should really check it out; it has a lot of resources included and it caught and held my interest.  From his website:
Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, the largest electronic magazine in the world on the craft of writing fiction, with over 32,000 readers.
I had tried a bunch of other outline formats, but this one works for me.  It is a more visual format, and it builds on itself, expanding outward.  The final piece of the outline is the first rough draft.  That’s exciting.  It’s like if I follow a diet and I know if I just keep following it, I’ll lose those twenty (or more …) pounds.  All I have to do is what it tells me, be faithful, don’t stray, pick it back up when I stumble, re-start where I left off with the assurance that if I just keep doing what it says – I will actually get something out of it.  It breaks it down so it’s not a huge overwhelming ‘thing’ you have to stare into the abyss of all alone, frozen and terrified, not knowing which way to even turn.  It is step by step, and it grows organically, feeding upon itself, each piece growing out of and into the next.  I like it.  I’m about half way through.  

It is very character driven, character focused, which Randy assures us is all the rage right now.  Even submitting a proposal from the viewpoint of a character is a very positive and popular thing to do, that agents reportedly appreciate.  So – a good sell on his method and rationale.  Each step is also defined by how long you should take to do it.  Again, this delineates and breaks it down.  You spend an hour, do this one thing, then you get that glorious holy grail of a checkmark, right through that step.  

 And – there are only TEN steps to your first draft!  I love how openly devious the method is.  You see it coming; know you’re being led to a very scary place, but it is so innocuous, so doable, that you can do it by just looking at that one piece and nothing else.  Here’s how it goes.

It starts with just one simple sentence.  Take one hour and write a one sentence summary of your novel, about 15 words.  This is not easy to do.  Randy goes so far as to say writing a one-sentence description is an art form.  He directs you to the New York Times Bestseller list for perfect examples, which really is helpful.  Doing just that first step focuses all those rampant thoughts, and ideas and it forces you to decide once and for all what your book is all about.

Step two begins to grow the snowflake outward.  Take that one sentence and expand it into a paragraph for a full summary of the book.  He suggests structuring it at this point into the quarter system; “three disasters plus an ending” though he does explain the three-act structure as well – whatever works for you.  This paragraph essentially becomes your book proposal.  No pressure.  He really breaks it down though.  Another hour, five sentences:  one for the backdrop and setup; one for each of the three ‘disasters’; and the last for the ending.

The third step begins to get into the nitty-gritty character development.  You are to write a one-page summary description of each major character.  He gives an outline for this, but I actually researched more and found even more detailed character development outlines that I used.  I really took to heart his case for a character-driven novel.  It makes sense, and it was fun getting to know these characters that intimately.  He reassures us that as the development progresses it is likely you’ll need to go back and revise your initial summary, and this is a good thing – don’t freak out.  It’s what the process is really for, to become clearer and more focused as to what the story is you really want to tell.

To further grow the story, step four is to expand each sentence of the summary paragraph (in step two) into its own full paragraph.  He says “This is a lot of fun …”  I personally hate statements like that.  Have I failed then if I don’t have ‘fun’?  Whatever.  I got through my little hissy fit and engaged this step.  The end product is supposed to be a “… pretty decent one-page skeleton of your novel.”  I did end up with this, but the process seemed to bring up more questions, point to a zillion issues that had to be dealt with.  I feel like I’m still really developing the actual plot.  This step is supposed to take “several hours.”

Step five entails a “day or two” of writing the story summary from each characters’ own point of view (POV), a full page for each major character and a half page for each minor character.  Now this step really is fun.  It was enlightening actually.  It is completely realistic and critically important.  Take any flat sitcom or romantic comedy – or any movie or show really that you’ve suffered through.  The whole of the world revolves around the main character – it is all about them and everybody else in the world exists to support them, as backdrop for their story, their conflict.  This is irritatingly done to death by the best girl friend two-dimensional character, who is of course a little overweight and happily exists just as a back drop for the main character who is dealing with some insipid little issue.  The ‘friend’ never has her own life and only exists in that world to support and sacrifice herself for her friend’s oh-so-important conflict with getting the boy, or whatever else it is we’re supposed to covet.  It drives me crazy.  

I sure as hell have never had a friend like that.  Shockingly, all my friends have actually had their own lives and no matter what conflict or tragedy I was going through, and no matter how supportive they could be – spoiler alert – they actually maintained their own lives too.  They in fact had their own issues to deal with, and actually existed outside my life.  Drives me crazy I swear.  So this step was gloriously ‘fun’ and exceedingly satisfying.  It gave all those characters depth.  The story, from their POV, becomes their story.  The protagonist and everybody else became the backdrop to their own personal lives and story.  This is reality.  Seeing how each of my characters responded to the events of the story, what my squirrely protagonist was getting up to, was a wonderful exercise.  It gave them real life and depth and will shape their actions and reactions as the story unfolds – the actual story, not just the tale of this one chick.  That subtle understanding can only help bring more depth to the portrayal of those characters.  When you swing the camera to them, it becomes their story in that moment.  I couldn’t keep the minor characters to one page – they had a lot to say about what was going on around them.  It was sometimes hilarious – such a perfect reflection of the natural (and necessary) narcissism humans actually embody.  Yeah – I liked this step.  I actually didn’t want it to end.  It was ‘easy’ and non-threatening.  It’s where I’ve left off at this point.  I think I’m scared to push onward to the “real” book.  But I am.  Onward.

The outline directions state that I now should have a “… solid story” and “… several story threads” for the characters.  And I actually do.  The next stage is to take the one page summary from step four and expand that.  Each paragraph now becomes a full page, again “… a lot of fun.”  We’ll see about that.  This is where a lot of revision to prior premises comes in.  I can see that.  It starts to bring it all together.  Daunting, but still doable I think.  This is supposed to take a week.

Another full week is to be devoted to step seven, back into character development.  Take the character descriptions from step three and make “… full-fledged character charts detailing everything there is to know about each character.”  It must end with / include how the character changes by the end of the book.  He again asserts that “… great fiction is character-driven” and I’m not arguing with him about that – I just don’t know how much more I can write about my characters.  Maybe I got a little carried away and by using other character development outlines, I’ve maybe already done this step?  I mean I wrote 17 pages about my main protagonist, and at least two pages for every other character.  I really got into my main character – I looked up her astrological sign, her name meaning – just everything about her I could think to dig up.  I guess I’ll end up doing a bit more of the same for the other main characters.  He says this step actually may take a month, not a week to do.  But he asserts that after this step you’ll have “most” everything you need to write a proposal and sell the novel.  Just like that.  I think I’ll stick to the character development here.

Step eight, which you may choose to wait to start until your book sells (!), is the one I’m really eager to delve into.  It seems to me this is where the real skeleton lies, where the “real” book really does start to come together.  

 You are to take the four-page synopsis from step six and make a list of all the scenes that are needed.  Now this does sound like “fun” to me, but he lets us know that this part, making a spreadsheet anyway, is “scary”.  I don’t get that, but then my idea of a real good time is to make lists solely for the joy of putting checkmarks through each item.  I will literally make a list of things I have already done, just for the sheer joy and accomplishment of putting that magnificent checkmark through it.  So Randy and I may not be coming from the same realm here.  But that’s ok, this step does seem fun.  It’s a LIST for god’s sake!  How incredibly non-threatening can you get?  I don’t have to “write” – I just have to make a list.  Bring it on!  That is SO doable.   I bought a gigantic 6’ x 4’ magnetic white board just for this purpose.  I had a contractor hang it in my little office sanctuary and I am just drooling to get those diagrams and scenes marked up there.  Yum.  

 I’ve printed out everything I’ve done so far and have the pages tacked up there with magnets and labeled.  It is very reinforcing for me, to see things visually.  It’s why this method is so compelling to me in the first place.  It is very organic, very visual.  So back to this step - make one line for each scene, then fill out columns next to that line – the character’s POV; a brief summary of what happens; and it can also include things like an estimate of how many pages for that scene.  Cut and paste manna here, moving around the scenes as needed to actually put your book together.  Yeah, that’s exciting.  It reminds me of playing Risk when I was young.  I just loved the little wood blocks, loved seeing those all laid out on the board, showing just how rich I was.  Visual.  This step can take a week.  I think it’s going to take me longer, and will be ongoing.

The next step he lists as optional and says he doesn’t need to do it anymore.  It is writing a narrative description of the story.  What?  This to me really is what I’ll always think of as “writing”, the actual writing.  Sitting down and pounding out that story.  This is the real book, and the thing that writer’s block is made of.  But again, he quickly has you breaking down and expanding just component pieces.  You don’t have to worry about just sitting down and writing a whole book, start to finish.  You just take each line of the spreadsheet and write several paragraphs describing that scene.  Dialogue can start to come in here as well as conflict descriptions.  Ok – a little daunting but I still see it as doable.

The last step?  Well, “… just sit down and start pounding out the real first draft of the novel.”  Ok then.  Not sure that qualifies as an actual “step”, but again we’re reminded, “This is supposed to be the fun part …” in fact, it is “…incredibly fun and exciting.”  I’m willing to see!