Same NaNo Time, Same NaNo Place
Oct. 9th, 2005 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
willow_redIt's that time of year again, and it seems that I still have enough self-hatred to sign up for NaNoWriMo again. After one "success" that I'm afraid to look at again, and two failures, I don't really expect to finish this year either, but I do hope that I can get a decent enough plot together that I can salvage a short story. In the occasional fit of insanity, I think a good goal would be to come up with a short story I could attempt to publish.
Anyway, yesterday was the Boulder group's first meetup/novel planning/general socialization party. Niki, our fearless leader (municipal liaison in NaNoWriMo terms) handed out a nifty sheet about a method of novel planning. I'm not sure if I'll do this or not (probably use some pieces of it), but I thought it was worth sharing. Of course, I might just like the fractal analogy....
Novel Planning: The Snowflake Method
(bears a vague resemblance to this link, but I find this version easier to follow)
1. Write a one-sentence summary of your novel.
2. Expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the book.
3. For each of your major characters, write a one-page summary sheet that tells in one sentence each, a summary of the character's storyline, the character's motivation (what does he/she want abstractly?), the character's goal (what does he/she want concretely?), the character's conflict (what prevents him/her from reaching this goal?), and the character's epiphany (what will he/she learn, how will he/she change?). Finally, write a one-paragraph s ummary of the character's storyline.
4. Expand each sentence of your story summary paragraph (from step 2) into a full paragraph. All but the last paragraph should end in a disaster. The final paragraph should tell how the book ends.
5. Write a one-page description of each major character and a half-page description of the other important characters. These "character synopses" should tell the story from the point of view of each character.
6. Expand the one-page plot synopsis of the story to a four-page synopsis. Basically, you will again be expanding each paragraph from step 4 into a full page.
7. Expand your character descriptions from step 3 into full-fledged character charts detailing everything there is to know about each character: birthdate, description, history, motivation, goal, etc. How will this character change by the end of the story?
8. Take that four-page synopsis from step 6 and make a list of all the scenes that you'll need to turn the story into a novel. For each scene, list the POV character and tell what happens. If you want to get fancy, add more columns that tell you how many pages you expect to write for the scene.
9. Take each scene from step 8 and expand it to a multi-paragraph description of the scene. Put in any cool lines of dialogue you think of, and sketch out the essential conflict of that scene. If there's no conflict, add it or remove that scene.
10. Write the novel!
And if you don't care about novel-writing, but want to hear more about fractals, I found a link from that article to this one about the fractal design in the book Jurassic Park. It even has instructions on how to make this fractal yourself with a strip of paper. How nifty is that?
Anyway, yesterday was the Boulder group's first meetup/novel planning/general socialization party. Niki, our fearless leader (municipal liaison in NaNoWriMo terms) handed out a nifty sheet about a method of novel planning. I'm not sure if I'll do this or not (probably use some pieces of it), but I thought it was worth sharing. Of course, I might just like the fractal analogy....
Novel Planning: The Snowflake Method
(bears a vague resemblance to this link, but I find this version easier to follow)
1. Write a one-sentence summary of your novel.
2. Expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the book.
3. For each of your major characters, write a one-page summary sheet that tells in one sentence each, a summary of the character's storyline, the character's motivation (what does he/she want abstractly?), the character's goal (what does he/she want concretely?), the character's conflict (what prevents him/her from reaching this goal?), and the character's epiphany (what will he/she learn, how will he/she change?). Finally, write a one-paragraph s ummary of the character's storyline.
4. Expand each sentence of your story summary paragraph (from step 2) into a full paragraph. All but the last paragraph should end in a disaster. The final paragraph should tell how the book ends.
5. Write a one-page description of each major character and a half-page description of the other important characters. These "character synopses" should tell the story from the point of view of each character.
6. Expand the one-page plot synopsis of the story to a four-page synopsis. Basically, you will again be expanding each paragraph from step 4 into a full page.
7. Expand your character descriptions from step 3 into full-fledged character charts detailing everything there is to know about each character: birthdate, description, history, motivation, goal, etc. How will this character change by the end of the story?
8. Take that four-page synopsis from step 6 and make a list of all the scenes that you'll need to turn the story into a novel. For each scene, list the POV character and tell what happens. If you want to get fancy, add more columns that tell you how many pages you expect to write for the scene.
9. Take each scene from step 8 and expand it to a multi-paragraph description of the scene. Put in any cool lines of dialogue you think of, and sketch out the essential conflict of that scene. If there's no conflict, add it or remove that scene.
10. Write the novel!
And if you don't care about novel-writing, but want to hear more about fractals, I found a link from that article to this one about the fractal design in the book Jurassic Park. It even has instructions on how to make this fractal yourself with a strip of paper. How nifty is that?
