Outline Review: The Snowflake Method
August 28th 2009 17:06
The The Snowflake Method is an outlining method which goes deeply into detail. There are 10 steps to this outlining method. Essentially, you write a sentence about your story, then turn it into a paragraph, then turn that into multiple paragraphs, et cetera.
Personally, I've never tried to use this outlining method before, because it's way too in-depth for me. He says that it doesn't stifle creativity, but I can't go into that much detail for the plot outline or I'll just lose my patience, especially because I'm going to completely go off the rails of the outline, that being what I always do. There's no way I could keep that outline correct.
The danger with this outline is that if you wanted to, you could just keep going, revising your outline, writing page after page of outlining material and never getting into the story.
I've heard a lot of people say they like this method, and that they've used it to great effect, but personally I couldn't do it. I would feel like my creativity was being squashed. I'd get bored of it. It's a great method for some, and not so much for others-like any method of outlining-just bear in mind that you need to be careful with this one or you'll end up outlining for the rest of your days, instead of actually writing.
Does anyone reading have personal experience with this method?
Personally, I've never tried to use this outlining method before, because it's way too in-depth for me. He says that it doesn't stifle creativity, but I can't go into that much detail for the plot outline or I'll just lose my patience, especially because I'm going to completely go off the rails of the outline, that being what I always do. There's no way I could keep that outline correct.
The danger with this outline is that if you wanted to, you could just keep going, revising your outline, writing page after page of outlining material and never getting into the story.
I've heard a lot of people say they like this method, and that they've used it to great effect, but personally I couldn't do it. I would feel like my creativity was being squashed. I'd get bored of it. It's a great method for some, and not so much for others-like any method of outlining-just bear in mind that you need to be careful with this one or you'll end up outlining for the rest of your days, instead of actually writing.
Does anyone reading have personal experience with this method?
| 26 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Ruth Madison
Now, when I do the snowflake, I don't necessarily do every step exactly as described. I mostly use up until the character part starts. I love coming up with a tagline and spreading that into three sentences and developing those sentences into paragraphs. A lot of times that's where I stop.