the snowflake project

Part 5 of the Long Format Synopsis is live. You can get straight to it from here, or start from the beginning if you need to.

I’m almost finished writing out Kos’s full-length character chart. I’m learning all kinds of neat things about him. For example, he’s probably afraid of storms. Also he’s a bit fidgety – which is strange for someone who is supposed to be more or less a buddhist monk.

Can’t wait to share it with you guys!

Part 4 (likely of 6) is live. Read it here, or start from the beginning.

By mid-week next week, the whole synopsis will be up for you to read. I’d love to hear what you guys think of it. If you see problems, don’t hold back – I want to hear about them!

There are all kinds of elements and minor characters that don’t even get a mention that keep cropping up in my head when I think about the story. For example – I’m looking forward to inventing some fascinating insults for the drill sergeant on the conscription ship to use.

I’ve started filling in Kos’s character chart. I have a fairly clear picture of him in my head now (visually speaking). The questions the chart I’m using forces you to answer are very interesting. Can’t wait to share it with you!

The third installment of the Long Format Synopsis is up. Read it here, or, if you need to catch up, start here.

I’m now FINISHED writing the Long Format Synopsis – but part 3 isn’t the end of it. I’ll keep releasing content every weekday for probably a few more days before the end is reached. The total size of my *ahem* four page synopsis turned out to be just shy of 5,000 words. 19 manuscript pages.

I’ll now be starting in on the complete character charts. I’m looking forward to giving some serious flesh to the inhabitants of Kos’s world.

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.

Step 4 involves heading back to Step 2 and expanding each sentence in the paragraph into its own paragraph.

I’ve completed the first 2 paragraphs in step 4, which you can read via the Story Bible, or go directly to Step 4′s own page.

As always, I welcome feedback (especially criticism). The other three paragraphs will follow shortly.

I’m just about to attend the company Christmas party, so I’ll have to cut today’s writing short – but please enjoy what’s there!

The Deep Theme

In my first post, I mentioned that the central theme of this story is going to be focused around PERCEPTION. I want the novel to acknowledge that things are rarely what they seem to be, that the forces driving behavior are often hidden deep below the surface. Many aspects of the protagonist’s journey will involve looking deeper, piercing the veil of perception, as it were.

To that end – some of the major plot points will have to revolve around people thinking one thing, but the reality being something different. Smoke and mirrors. I’ll have to keep this theme in the forefront of my thoughts as I write.

I already have some ideas on how to bring this theme to life through various aspects of the story – I’m looking forward to developing those.

Length

First time novel writers obsess about length. It’s thought of as a major factor in a book’s marketability to a publisher. That may be true, but that truth is a sad fallacy (see, already elements of my deep theme are poking through!). Books that are long cost more to print and distribute – and typically cannot be sold for more than other, shorter books, and therefore have a slimmer profit margin. That’s why you’ll often hear that first time novelists should keep to under 90,000 words. I disagree – for a few reasons.

First off, your story needs the number of words it needs. If it’s a good story, people will buy it, and so will a publisher. That’s the old argument. The new argument has two prongs. The first prong is that more and more people are buying and reading ebooks these days, so printing costs needn’t enter into the equation, or at least, not as strongly. The second prong is that it’s becoming somewhat more acceptable to self-publish – and as that’s my plan with this novel (since I’m writing it in public and offering it for free) I don’t give a fig what any publisher thinks at this point.

But thinking of length raises another issue – that is, how much of the story should I tell? I have something of an arc in mind – should I tell the whole thing in one volume, or should I split it up into a series? Because of the way The Snowflake Method works, that’s a decision I need to make now, before I start Step 1.

In the end, it was thinking about Step 1 that helped me decide to write in volumes. The story I have in mind is too big to be condensed into a 15 word sentence.

The Beginning

The fact that I’m already thinking about how to distill my story for Step 1 makes me think I’m ready to begin. Expect an announcement soon that I’ve officially begun writing a novel using The Snowflake Method – and stay tuned for the result of Step 1, which will appear somewhere in the Story Bible area of the site.