Look, there’s no right or wrong way to write a book.
BUT if you’re a plotter like me who needs structure to avoid mind meltdown, The Snowflake Method, by Randy Ingermanson is for you.
Pantsers, this level of pre-planning might give you the ick. I don’t know how you do it, but I take my hat off to you!
You can follow the OG method here, but I’ve adapted it a few times over the years to make it work for me, so here’s my take…
Step 1: Get your hook
Duration: Approx. 1 hour
Do you have a general idea you know you want to write about?
Start by taking one hour to get your idea down to one, concise sentence. It’ll serve you when you’re pitching your idea as the hook to your story, too.
The New York Times Bestsellers list is a great source of inspo.
For my next writing pursuit, I’ve settled on: ‘A newly single and pregnant scriptwriter attempts to rewrite her reality.’
Just one hour. One sentence. That’s not so scary, is it?
Step 2: Expand the sentence into a paragraph
Duration: Approx. 1 hour
Randy recommends structuring your story with ‘three disasters plus an ending.’ It’s not a hard and fast rule and can be adapted to personal taste, but for the sake of ease, let’s stick to this framework.
By the end of this step, you’ll have a paragraph like this:
‘Sentence one, setting the scene, but there’s a problem here (disaster 1). The Main Character tries to solve it, but makes it worse (disaster 2). They try something different, but it gets even worse (disaster 3)! They finally learn the error of their ways, and the story ends here (resolution).’
Remember, this isn’t a blurb, you DO want to reveal the ending to yourself here!
Step 3: Profile your main characters
Duration: ~1-2 weeks (a character per day)
Now you have a high-level view of your novel, this is the juicy part. I agree wholeheartedly with Randy that characters are the most important part of any novel.
I love flawed but adorable characters. I’ve stopped reading books halfway through before because I realised I didn’t care about the main character, so much so that it didn’t matter to me if they lived or died. Sorry babes.
On the flipside, I’ve inhaled books with cheesy or unbelievable plots because I’ve loved the characters so much, I simply had to know how their journey ended.
At this stage, don’t concern yourself with character descriptions. Focus on their wants, needs and their plot, like so:
Character name
1 sentence summary of their storyline
Their motivation (their abstract wants)
Their goal (their concrete wants)
Their conflict (what prevents them from reaching their goal)
Their epiphany (how they change / what they learn)
Then, create a 1 paragraph summary for each main character.
Not sure how many characters to have? Again, there are no rules in this game, but here are characters I consider as a guide:
The Protagonist
The Antagonist (a love interest, or enemy)
Their best friend
2-3 other ‘supporters’
The opposition (a rival for the love interest? Someone who must also slay the antagonist?)
2-3 bit characters
Step 4: Scribble down your synopsis
Duration: ~half a day
We’re doing a bit of a back and forth dance here, but this step needs you to gently put down your characters from step 3, and pick up your paragraph synopsis from step two.
Now, you’re going to split the paragraph up and from each sentence, develop the plot further until you have a one-page synopsis. This can even work as the first draft of your synopsis ready for when you start pitching your book - how handy is that?
This method reminds me more of a spider going back and forth on her web, making sure everything is structurally sound, while architecturally beautiful, than of a snowflake emerging from the clouds, so perhaps it should be the spiderweb method.
Step 5: Develop character plots
Duration: ~1-2 weeks (a character per day
Told you we’re going back and forth in these middle stages didn’t I?
Now, you’re going to develop each major character's synopsis by telling the story from their point of view.
A full page for your main characters and about half a page for smaller supporting characters should do.
I hope you enjoy this part as much as I did. Maybe it’s the actress in me, but this part really felt like playtime!
Step 6: Make your story bloom
Duration: ~2 weeks (you might notice plot holes and require changes/a lot of connecting the dots here)
Now you have a strong idea of what all your characters are going to be up to, it’s time to thread all those subplots together in your synopsis.
Take time to grow each paragraph from your synopsis this time, into a whole page each. By the end, you’ll have a four-page synopsis detailing every main action that happens and how they all connect.
Can you feel how close we’re getting to writing that goddamn first draft.
Step 7: Character fact files
Duration: ~1 week
Ok here’s where I melded the snowflake method with another writing method to create fact files of all my characters. And for this, I turned to a spreadsheet.
If spreadsheets make you recoil in corporate horror, you can write these on a document, on fact cards to stick around your writing nook, the choice is yours.
I like to have everything in an easy-to-access format for when the cabin fever kicks in and I simply have to get out of my four walls and write elsewhere.
Here are all the facts I like to include.
Let’s delve into the interesting ones…
Description
For the first description, I like to say two positive and one negative trait of the character. Even the ones who are unlikable in the story. Like when actors playing villains find something they like about them to connect to the character, it’s an important part that will inform your character to feel real and 4 dimensional.
Fears
This reveals the character’s motivation. I love this part of the process because I didn’t feel like I was dreaming these up, I felt like the characters were telling me. To use the villain in my first book, ‘Douchebag’ Darcy, she feared letting her parents down who had conflicting dreams for her. Of course she’s competitive and bossy, even mean at school, because if she has to tread on people’s toes to seek her parent’s approval, she will do it.
‘My life is…’
I don’t remember where I read this advice, or whether it’s a tactic I stole from an old acting workshop, but I find it a valuable add-on.
In the final column of the spreadsheet, complete the sentence ‘My life is…’ as if that character is saying it, based on where they are in life at the time of the book. Again, maybe it’s the actor in me, but I enjoyed hearing my character's voices in this way, to get a sense of where their head is at.
Step 8: Scope out your scenes
Duration: ~1 week
You’re so close to writing your first draft now, can you feel it? Can you feel your social life slipping through your fingers?
Just kidding. Well, not really, but from all the groundwork you’ve laid, plus this final scaffolding, you’ll have such clear direction that the first draft will fire from your fingertips quicker than you anticipated.
But again, at the risk of you hating me, it takes another spreadsheet (or, like I said before, if you have a wall you like to plot on like you're investigating a murder, go off, hun. But a spreadsheet is the portable option).
Using your 4-page synopsis, list out every scene that needs to happen to get the plot from one action to the next.
Number them, and break them into chapters where there are natural chapter breaks. The great thing about doing this step is, you don't have to write the book in order now. Which means you’re far more likely to write every day. If you get stuck on a scene that just isn’t working, you can visit another scene.
Then, if you get to the end and still don’t feel some scenes are right, maybe they aren’t? Maybe you can find another way to get from A to B.
Step 9: Psych! There isn’t one!
Duration: 0!
Ok I could have just kept this out, but a 10-step plan is far more satisfying for my brain than a 9-step plan isn’t it?*
In the original snowflake method, you’re invited to write all the scenes you’ve just written as a narrative of what happens in the book.
But if you’re anything like me I’m chomping at the bit to get writing the first draft by now. Which leads us to step 10…
*It can be helpful at this point to write down descriptions of places. I have three tabs on one spreadsheet: character fact files, scene-by-scene breakdown, and a location list. For my first novel this includes, the school, school bus, her mum’s house, her dad’s house, her best friend’s house, the park… you get the gist.
Step 10: Write the damn book!!!
Duration: 1-3 months (depending on complexity or genrel, a children's or YA book might only take one month. A highly complex fantasy might take 3-6 months)
Congrats boo! You did it! You now have a developed plot, you’ve already ironed out potential plot holes, you have rich 4-dimensional characters ready to live their lives through your words. There’s nothing left to do but start trashing out that first draft.
I’m going to leave you with one last tip, so you don't have to make the mistake I made with my first book, which took years to write because I kept losing confidence in it. It meant I had to remind myself of the plot every time I came back to it. So my advice is:
Write your book every day.
Even if you only manage a couple of hundred words some days, you’re keeping the story and the characters alive in your head, meaning you never have to waste time resuscitating them.
Happy writing, and let me know how you get on! I’ll be continuing to use this process and honing and perfecting it to make it work better every time.