How To Write A Novel With The Snowflake Method With Randy Ingermanson
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- čas přidán 31. 08. 2014
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Randy Ingermanson is a physicist and award-winning geek suspense novelist, known as the Snowflake guy, America's mad professor of fiction writing. His site, AdvancedFictionWriting.com is packed with loads of information and inspiration on organizing, creating and marketing your work.
We discuss:
How Randy established his brand when he wanted to talk about the process of writing, as well as the aspects of his novels. He brings the scientific approach and step by step process to writing a novel.
How the Snowflake method works - from something simple and small, to growing it out bit by bit to something complicated and beautiful. The book is told as a parable, which 'shows' the method through a woman at a writing conference who wants to learn how to write and is frustrated when she can't use the pantsing or plotting approach.
The importance of only using writing methods that work for you as an individual.
Tips on writing the one line that sums up your book.
The scene list and what a scene actually is. [This really changed my writing life when I understood the concept of scene.] Scene vs chapter. How to write a perfect scene. A chapter is a fundamental unit of reader decision.
"Most fiction writers have a major bottleneck in their process. That bottleneck is that they don’t produce enough first-draft copy."
On writing 500 words a day as a matter of habit.
[25 mins] Randy talks about his panic disorder which affected his public speaking opportunities. We talk about our flaws and how we deal with them in a really honest way.
You can find Randy at www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com where he has a brilliant free ezine, as well as loads more information on writing fiction.
5:05 The snowflake method
To quote the comedian Drew Carey, "Thank you, citizen!"
Thank you!
I can't seem to make outlines. Because if I sit down with the sole purpose of coming up with ideas for a novel... I just feel like a bland slate. Nothing happens. It's ridiculously inspiration-killing for me. I discovered a little more than a year ago that if I just sit down and have a vague idea about a story, maybe the beginning and an end... then the rest will come along by itself if I just start writing. :)
Thank you for the interview, Randy and Joanna! 😊
It's inspiring to hear published authors tell us about how they go about writing, their challenges and their successes. 📚
Bought this book today after several months of it sitting on my wishlist. I wish I bought it sooner 😂. I love how it’s laid out in narrative.
I write a novel with multiple POVs and multiple characters. The snowflake method becomes the book itself, so I still don't quite know which PATH my characters will take to reach their ends. But i do know what are their ends, because of the snowflake method! The stage where you put every character in a spreadsheet and write their past, motivation, conflict and end was very helpful, if not essential, for me to understand where I need to go with each of them.
This was a real treat. I remember reading about this guy almost decade a ago and recall thinking this method is so logical for science guys like me....
Glad you enjoyed it!
When I first clicked on this video I totally didn’t realize that Randy wrote the book that my friend just got me, so when the image of the book popped up I actually jumped. 😂
Lmao he's fucking talented :D
Nice to see the author in the flesh. Thanks for sharing this method!
Hi Joanna- thanks for doing this. I think you're doing a great job by interviewing authors about their writing methods. Wish you all the best- and hope you continue. Cheers.
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This is fabulous! Both of you are a gift to us struggling authors. Carry on!
Still great advice in 2022!
Craft is timeless!
Hemingway preferred to write only in the mornings and had a word count of only 500 words a day.
Loved this interview, picked up the book immediately. Randy is a great communicator.
I appreciate both of you and your crafts.🔍📑📕📚📒📔📓📖😀😄
I was so excited to see this episode, I love his craft books ☺️
So I tried using something that was being called the "snowflake method" on at least 3 or 4 different writing blogs--I don't know how official/unofficial any of them are, but I ran into a serious problem during Step 3: the "epiphany". Basically what I felt like I was being told is that for each character, they have to have some sort of "epiphany" - the question is never "Does your character have an epiphany?" but it's like, almost being set up as a requirement or something in the things I read. This tripped me up for quite a while when applying snowflake to my current work in progress, because my main character doesn't HAVE an epiphany during the story. But that doesn't mean my story is bad. I considered trying to force one in somehow, but an epiphany is just not necessary for the character. So I just wanted to say that anyone looking into snowflake, don't take every little step as completely 100% strict--if your story doesn't fit perfectly with the Snowflake Method, don't feel like you necessarily have to beat it into submission until it does. Your story can still be good WITHOUT being a perfect product of snowflake method.
What a helpful and fantastic guest. Thank you to you both!
Thank you for all your advice and for your honesty. Very helpful
Great inteview Joanna,
Great information.
Awesome thank you both!
Lovely interview
beautiful interview. very touching. 🤍
Loved this
Another great interview
He's wrong about believing that meds are the solution to one's mental problems (27:10). Psychotropic meds only treat the symptoms and not the causes. Otherwise, it was an interesting and useful interview.
What I've found that is if you use a NEW technique it's not likely to work right off the bat. You have to learn to use it first. No idea how many words per page so 500 words doesn't mean much.
I read a ton of fictions on the web. I was aware they are amateur but at the same time, isn't. Most of the time their story look like a draft and I recommend them to let it rest to strengthen its content. All I care about it's how logical the plot goes. I learn it by studying the minimalist style. With or without the superficial details, we have the same story.
Minimalist style helps me to spot the element-type and treat words in their brute form. It isn't about beautiful words, it's about how well you describe the scenes and how logical are each scene.
I tried to replicate this style and I have to wait for adding more content.
I am a slow-thinker due to accessibility of information needed for the story and an over-analytic person, so, even if I put a lot of work in it, I let the reader interpret.
The waiting-and-adding-on recommendation is like the snowflake method! We probably did that at one point.
I think like you.
Funny thing that, chapters. I used to always stop reading at the end of a chapter. But nowadays I can stop wherever in the book. It doesn't matter. XD Is that weird? Or do I just read too many books with very long chapters? :P
Just read Dwight Swaine's "techniques of the selling writer" and I got struck
Writers totally self medicate with words; we 'fix' it - we rewrite that awful experience - we make it *better*.
There is also a snowflake template for Scrivener. I tried it and it didn't work for me, but did teach me a few good habits like writing everyday!
Where can you get that? I just got scrivener so I don't know much about it.
just google scrivener template snowflake and a few options will come up. Pick the one you like. The first thing I would do with Scrivener is read the whole pdf instruction book. Start with the basics before you try installing new things. Watch a few free youtube videos. It helps to see what people are doing. There are a lot of paid courses as well. I think Joanna offers a link to a course.
It's easy to plug in templates, but you need a handle on the program first. The longer I have Scrivener the more complex it becomes; stuff was already in there... I just didn't know it.
He said, "Join the 500 club. There's no place to sign up."
Oh yeah... I can't write outlines... If I try, it won't work. I will try to write to the outline and then I realize how many plot holes I have. Somehow, writing with no outline makes less plot holes for me (the opposite of a lot of other authors).
Writing for only 20 MINUTES a day, will produce a Novel in less than a year EFFORTLESSLY !
Simple !!! But how many people have the disciple to spend 20mins a day writing ??? Hardly nobody !!!! All the most prolific writers like Stephen King, only spend 1-2 hours per day !!!!!
Now everybody can find 20mins a day! But who does??? It's really that simple. So simple it's people can't see the woods for the trees.
Imagine you can spend 95% procrastinating doing fuck all and still knock out a Novel year. That is the secret, but it's so simple a secret most people find it impossible understand and do. Writing is simply the ACT OF WRITING, no matter how bad, just write. As you go along as long as you keep writing things will automatically fall in place.
1 in a 1000 people? Hardly. Believe it or not, about 50% of Americans are interested in writing a book one day.
I've looked at the Snowflake method, and for me it seems like a great method to grow your plot and keep track of the personalities! But I think Randy will agree that the Snowflake is for the basics, and the more advanced plot points! But after that, you need to be able to capture the hearts for your story, and that is where Snowflake looks good for me! It lets you plan and plot in great detail. so you don't mess up the basics. But after that, there's this yucky talent-of-expressing-yourself properly... I love Randy's advice on his Snowflake site btw, and I always use those as good input, but not the final say! And he will probably agree with that!
500 words per day. How informative.
Great interview but I found the constant head nodding very distracting.
I agree. I just scrolled the screen where I couldn't see it.
I'm watching her videos nearly 2 years later and I have to agree. I find her constant head bobbing irritating to watch. These are available as podcasts. Problem solved.
Fuck off, everybody has to gesticulate and signal, even you do it, you just don't know it fuckface.
Same information and value in audio only. Fantastic stuff.
I am a seat of a pants woman author yet opposite stephen king horror story of
Mysterious gospel writer... story twisty endings and fictionalized i love also explaining definition within word teaches readers better use of words...
Author fame is a hero flip twist of properous and prosperity and success
At first I thought it was a liberal joke
I think he wrote it before the 'snowflake' thing in the media ")
Consenting cat in front of skype.