the snowflake project

After a much too long wait, I give you: Sky-Kicker’s Character Chart!

Let me say this: creating a made-up language is extremely hard. Naming characters is tough enough, nevermind naming everyday objects or concepts in a way that seems remotely convincing. I have new respect for Adam, naming everything in the world. But despite the pain of it, the language of the Eldest (which also happens to be the ancient tongue of the religion of The One God) is taking shape, tiny piece by tiny piece. I don’t expect to have a real working vocabulary ever, but there will be enough words to support several phrases that I’ll need to pull out.

In other news:

I’ve been struggling with time management lately – as evidenced by my long absence from this blog/site. Yesterday, I paid $10 + tax for an iPhone app that tracks all the time I spend on everything (as long as I remember to push the buttons when I start something and when I stop it).

It began with a desire to limit TV watching in order to read more and write more. But as I’m realizing the possibilities, I’m seeing that I’ll gain a much better understanding of how precious time is and really start using it better. Even now, it’s ticking away the minutes I’m spending writing this blog post.

Achi’s character chart is complete and live on the site.

Get straight to it here, or find it via Achi’s character page.

I’m getting a really good sense of Achi’s personality and what drives him. His path towards villainy is becoming clearer in my head.

The last thing I wanted was to make him into a cliche, so hopefully I can avoid that by keeping him sympathetic. The chart I’m using really helps with that by asking about your character’s fears and vulnerabilities without any prejudice. Villains have pathos too!

I’ve officially moved on to step 7 of TSM – full fledged character charts.

Kos’s chart is finished and live on the site. You can access it through his character page or go directly to it.

The chart I’m using (which I didn’t at all set up as a chart, but rather more like a questionnaire…) is fairly extensive. I stole it from this book, so you are welcome to steal it from me – but buying the book wouldn’t hurt either. I’ve met one of the authors, Tee Morris, and he’s a fantastic guy. You could do a lot worse than supporting him.

I’ve started in on Achi’s chart, and you’ll have that in a few days. Even just the first few items on the chart are very useful – it’s really important to know what your characters look like!

It was pointed out to me via email this morning that I am a neglectful cad. Not in so many words, mind you, but I took the message to heart.

I recently promised to post more frequently and then immediately proceeded to renege on that promise. I’m sorry for that. I’ll try to be better.

I’m all finished with step 5 of the Snowflake Method, and you can read Torik’s plot summary on his character page.

Step 6 has me bogged down, however – I’m still slogging through it. I have a hard time with what the level of detail should be for step 6 (the long format plot summary), and mine is turning out to be slightly more detailed than expected – either that or my story is longer than TSM typically allows for. I fear what should be a 4 page summary will end up being closer to 10 pages, but we’ll see. I’m about 3/4 of the way through, and I’ll post it the moment I’m done.

Part of the reason I haven’t been in touch is that I’m dragging my feet on step 6. I’m itching to begin writing the actual novel, but there are still two steps to go before I can. The snowflake itself is becoming a chore, and I need to get INTO it again. I hope that I can in the next step – the complete character charts.

Stay tuned – I’m aiming to have step 6 done by the end of the week.

I’ve completed my second Character Plot POV – this time for Achi, the antagonist. It’s a little shorter than the one I wrote for Kos, and subsequents will be even shorter (for Sky-Kicker, Aryenne and Torik).

You can find Achi’s over on his character page. I know these are a lot to read and they aren’t written very well, but they’re just lists of events and general thoughts/feelings the characters may have. Very rough stuff – so please forgive me.

I hope you’ll read them and suffer through the poor writing so that you can alert me to any horrible problems I might be setting up for myself when it comes to the plot.

Sorry for the long delay – but the one page summary from Kos’s point of view turned into something more along the lines of three pages, and I’ve been suffering from a particularly nasty cold.

Anyway on Kos’s Character Page, you can find the whole story from his point of view. I’ll be following that shortly with a (hopefully) shorter version from Achi’s perspective.

I’m beginning to see how much material is hidden away in this plot, waiting to be unpacked in prose. It’s exciting!

The final stage in Step 3 is done (unless I need to add more later!) – Read the third secondary character’s summary from the characters page.

No decent fantasy novel is complete without a roguish trickster in the cast of characters. Torik provides that for this one.

I’m not sure at this point whether I should move to the next step (step 4, expanding my 1-paragraph summary of the novel into 5 paragraphs) or if I should spend some time on world-building. I need to break from The Snowflake Method at some point to world-build. Likely a few times. I’ll think on it – and let me know in the comments below whether you think now is a good time!

I’ve just added the first female character profile – she’s caught in a love triangle between Kos and Achi.

Head over to the Characters page, or visit her dedicated page to read her summary.

I have one more secondary character I want to write up before moving to step 4 – and he’s male. I’ll admit that troubles me slightly. I don’t want my novel to lack a reasonable number of strong female characters – but I’ve only thought up one. I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to add female characters to the story without making them into love interests for the males.

The easiest way would be to do what Frank Herbert and Robert Jordan did and create a powerful, all-female society or organization whose power runs through the entire world. I don’t necessarily want to do that – as it seems just a little be cliché. However, if it really does fit, I will. We’ll see how it goes!

I’ve added the first secondary character to the Characters page. I chose to start with Sky-Kicker, Kos’s elvish (elven?) teacher. Elves in Kos’s world are very different from traditional elves. You’ll see how as Sky-Kicker develops. For one thing, they participate fully in nature, rather than seeming only to represent natures most savory aspects. As much as I like Tolkien, his elves are far too detached for my taste.

Sky-Kicker fills the role of “sage” in the Kos’s journey, but he’s not so one-dimensional. He has his own struggles that he’s dealing with, and ultimately must face.

More secondary characters to come soon!

Having done the basic work to create my primary characters, I now have to spend some more time thinking about the secondary characters.

The main thrust of my plot can be told with just the primaries and some incidental characters – but that would make for a novella at best. I want to tell a story on multiple levels – so I need multiple levels of characters. Does that make sense?

Here are some of the types I’m considering:

• A “sage” – My plot already calls for something of a sage – that being the elf that Kos meets in the wilderness. However, I will be looking for ways to make him less stereotypical than, say, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• A love interest – Kos is a monk, but not necessarily a monk whose vows preclude romance. Or perhaps they do and love is a further opportunity for conflict for him. My thinking here is that he’ll meet someone later on in the story – certainly after he’s left home.
• A companion – at first, this role will be filled by Achi, but that relationship will evaporate in the first half of the novel. Someone else will need to fill the role, and I’m placing my bets it will be one of the gladiators. But maybe that’s too obvious? I’ll tackle this one last I think.

So stay tuned for more character sketches before I move on to Step 4.