Home stretch with a draft

(If any of what's below doesn't come out well, I'm sick right now and I'm on several meds that have made attention to detail strenuous.)

About writing: Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method has helped my writing. I found that a lot of the blocks I've had have been due to coming to the end of a scene and not knowing where to steer next. I wrote an outline and a plot treatment for the last three chapters of Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond, and now I can move through it steadily. I am talking about the second draft, the one I've been posting to fanfiction.net for the past three years.

It took a lot of arranging and re-arranging to get the outline to work, and then more as I began to write the treatment and realized certain scenes wouldn't work or wouldn't work in the order in which I put them. I ended up with a ten page treatment for the last three chapters that are probably going to run 75 pages.

I presented the Snowflake Method at a workshop last month. I like it because it organizes a story while it preserves the fertile interaction between character and plot that's lacking in straight plotting or outlining. It keeps your creativity organized and focused like an outline, without strangling it. However, I thought to add a few steps to develop setting, too.

I'm also eight chapters into the third draft, of GSTFB, but I'm going to retrofit it to a Snowflake as well. I've also been using a scaled-down version of  the method to write a short story. The third draft is running a lot shorter than the first two.

Why write fan fiction? Because it's where I chose to cut my teeth and find out if I had the discipline and skills to write. Turns out I did. When I sat down to do it, I swore that I would always finish every bit of writing that I started.  Maybe I should have sworn that after I quit writing the Ginger Snaps fan fiction, but it didn't work out like that.

This is like my training, my dissertation on novel writing. People pay to write dissertations. I'm writing mine for free.

But of course, I need to get this behind me so I could actually more publishable, and paid fiction.

So, why write Ginger Snaps fan fiction? Of course, because I'm a big fan of the original movie, though the sprequels were a letdown, and I think it deserved a much better sequel and back story than it has.

Why love Ginger Snaps? That's a subject of a whole different entry to analyze it.

After all I've said about the Snowflake Method, I would be amiss if I didn't tell you what it was. I've given a link to Randy Ingermanson's site above, and again here. But I'm also posting an outline of the method below (and hope that this editor doesn't make a mess of the format).

If you use it, try not to let it constrain any impulse you have to write. You can stop and write passages while you're doing the method. Also, remember I've added two steps to it for setting. Now it's a 12-step method, with three optional:

1. Write a one-sentence summary of your novel.
   1. Should take one hour
   2. Hints
      1. Under fifteen words
      2. No character names!
      3. Tie together big and personal pictures
         1. What character has the most to lose
         2. What they want to win
      4. Read New York Times Bestseller list to learn the format.
   3. If you write a book proposal, use this sentence in it, and early
   4. You may alter summary sentence as successive steps develops them more

2. Expand sentence into a full paragraph
   1. Take one more hour
   2. It should have
      1. Story setup
      2. Major plot points, chronological
      3. How's it going to end
   3. Ingermanson calls it “three disasters and an ending”
   4. Corresponds to conventional structure. Beginning, plot point, midpoint, plot point, end.

3. Write one page summary of each major character
   1. Take one hour each
   2. It should have
      1. Name
      2. one sentence summary of character's storyline
      3. Motivation, abstract desire
      4. Goal, concrete desire
      5. Character's conflict: What's obstructing him from goal
      6. Character's epiphany: How do they change, what do they learn?
      7. One paragraph character summary.
   3. Doesn't have to be perfect
   4. Expect to revise on successive steps
   5. Keep forward momentum

4. Take several hours each to expand sentences of plot description into a paragraph.
   1. Is the story worthwhile or “broken?”
   2. Can it be fixed?
   3. This can be used as a story proposal

5. (Optional from Haines) Give a one sentence description of each major setting, and a list of some minor settings.

6. Write a one page synopsis of each major character, half page description of each minor character.
   1. Take one or two days
   2. Different from summary: tell the story from the character's POV
   3. Should discover things, revise earlier steps and other characters as you do
   4. May use character synopsis instead of plot synopsis as book proposal

7. Expand one page plot synopsis (from Step 4) to four page synopsis
   1. Take a week
   2. Turn each paragraph of Step 4 into a page
   3. Figure out story logic and make strategic decisions
   4. Go back and revise information from previous steps as you learn more

8. (Optional from Haines) Expand major setting descriptions from one sentence to one paragraph descriptions, or more as necessary
   1. Should take one day
   2. Connect characters to setting if it applies
   3. Connect settings to plot
   4. Imagine the features the setting must have to connect to advance plot and character
   5. Give nuances that enrich the setting
   6. Revise previous steps accordingly

9. Create a character charts
   1. Spend a week
   2. Spreadsheet suggested, not required
   3. Boilerplate: birthdate, description, history, motivation, goal, etc.
   4. Most important: include character transition
   5. Use as many or as few columns for details as you deem necessary
   6. Purpose:
      1. Teaches you about your characters
      2. Helps you keep details consistent
   7. Don't constrain characters to a rigid plot
      1. Alter plot according to characters
      2. Important: put changes in writing, revise steps 1-7 as needed

10. Crucial: write a list of scenes
    1. You may take a hiatus before this step
    2. Expect to take a week or a little more
    3. Spreadsheet is very strongly recommended because
       1. You can see the whole plot at a glance
       2. It's easy to move scenes around
       3. Buy a book if necessary
       4. Expect it to take less than a day to learn what little you need
    4. Include these details
       1. Description of scene (wide column)
       2. Whose Point of View, if necessary
       3. Setting (Optional)
       4. Character(s) involved (optional)
       5. Add chapter numbers when you are finished
       6. Invaluable for analyzing a story
       7. Add other columns for info you deem necessary

11. (Optional from Ingermanson) Write a narrative description of the story
    1. Expect to take one week
    2. Use word processor
    3. Expand each line in spreadsheet (Step 10) to a multi-paragraph description of scenes
       1. Include any good dialog that comes to you
       2. Describe conflict. If there is none, add it or scrap the scene
       3. 1-2 pages per chapter
       4. 50 pages or longer, total
       5. Put into loose leaf notebook, rearrange chapters or add as necessary
       6. Put notes in margins, or put in sticky notes as ideas come

12. Write the draft
    1. Creativity still needed, expect there to be fun minor details to work out
    2. Expect to be pleased

Other notes:

• Total work hours in the pre-drafting stage will be about 100 hours by Ingermanson's estimate
• Total time to finish first draft after predraft: 50 hours
• You could expect subsequent drafts to take less time
• Method can be scaled down for short stories
• You do not have to follow it in complete order. If you inspired to write because you had a great idea for a character, then write that character description first, then start back with the one sentence plot description.

Prettiest cat in the state?

This is the Internet, and if you own a cat, it's a law in 41 states that you have to post a picture. [citation needed] So,I have this beautiful feline that has the oddest, most beautiful coat I've ever seen. Introducing Sashi:

Here kittykitty. Don't be shy.

I decided to take a photo shoot of her. My photography equipment being a string and a Cannon Elph. 

Sashi, we have company. Go wash your face.

She's a rescue. They had trouble placing her because she couldn't get along with other cats. Having seen how other cats react to her, I get the idea that she must look ugly to them. But I think she's a beautiful creature, and I think most people will agree. She has that bright, white main and dirty face.

It's not that easy being beige. So how about orange, black and pink, too?

She's as sweet as she looks. She's very friendly, loves children, but tends to be skittish, too. Very small for a five-year old cat, relatives she was kitten or a tweenie, but no, she was rescued nursing a litter and pregnant with another one. The poor thing then had to endure a year in a cage. But I think she's happy now.

Despite her solemn look

I do wonder what cross breeding led to this mix. As far as I can tell, her markings are most like a Russian. But she's too tiny for that breed. The tabby and calico markings are obvious. For the most part, her genetics look baffling.

What? Never seen one wearing half black and half pink lipstick before?

 Anyway, not that I expected any just yet, but the blog hasn't gotten much attention, so I thought I'd try cat porn. I'm lucky to have such a great subject.