Writing Process #6a: I Found This Great Book

I was in the process of writing the #7 post for this short series when I came across a book . . .

It’s How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method, by Randy “Snowflake guy” Ingermanson. (Here’s a link to the web site.) And having read it, I have to say that if the articles I’ve been writing about my own process resonate with you, then you should have a look at this book. Ingermanson’s method is very similar to my own in many respects, but formalises some steps that my own process tends to leave a bit vague. (On the other hand, my process seems to have a couple of additional aspects—for example the way I think about characters—but I should be able to merge bits of my own process as described so far without any conflicts.)

The way the book’s written comes across as a little weird at first—Goldilocks goes to a writer conference and learns about the Snowflake Method, meeting the three bears, the big bad wolf, Mother Hubbard, and other storybook characters along the way—but it makes for a more entertaining read. The last couple of chapters summarise the method and show in detail how it was used to write the book itself.

I’ll definitely be using this method for my next book (or to be more specific, I’ll be creating a Frankenstein hybrid of Snowflake and my own, using Snowflake for the framework and adding in my preferred way of thinking about characters together with the way I like to build my timelines).

Does Ingermanson’s method supersede the posts I’ve already done in this series? Maybe. Probably, even. But I’ll leave them up anyway. Does it mean #7 won’t happen? No, it doesn’t—because that’s going to be about getting a work published, which is something the Snowflake method doesn’t get into so much (beyond writing short and long synopses, but that’s still considered part of the process of developing a story as well as being something you can use when submitting for publication).

So, watch this space for #7 in the series, which should be up within the next few days. (Sorry for the delay on getting it done, by the way; life intervened and pretty much blew away last weekend, which was when I’d planned to finish it up and get it posted.)

Until then . . .