Writing about what I’ll write

My YA novel, Emma Delaney is coming along beautifully. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be poised and ready to start writing my first draft when NaNoWriMo kicks off on November 1. I’ve been working through The Snowflake Method as my planning tool of choice and tonight I’ve embarked on Step 9: Writing about what I’ll write.

At first glance, Step 9 seems like a bit of a waste of time. The idea is to take the list of scenes I developed in Step 8 and then write a few descriptive paragraphs about each of these scenes. Writing about what I’m going to write seems superfluous, a waste of words. Last year I actually didn’t get to this step because I ran out of planning time and so jumped straight into my first draft (which is Step 10) from Step 8. This year I’ve made a conscious decision to start my planning earlier and follow all ten steps. I’m beginning to see why Step 9 is important.

The creator of The Snowflake Method is Randy Ingermanson. Randy maintains that working through the Snowflake will cut hours off the time it takes to write your first draft. The catch is, you must put more than a few hours in to plan first. If I remember correctly, he said that authors can spend up to 500 hours finding their way through the first draft. The Snowflake Method can cut that time down by 90% to a mere 150 hours and right now, I can see how.

Tonight I’ve written a narrative description about the first six scenes of Emma Delaney. I’m not only cementing the physical setting for each of these scenes and incidental details such as what my character is wearing, but I’m also fine tuning exactly what is going to happen and more importantly, why. Along with my description I’m including any snippets of dialogue that come to me as I plan which will no doubt be really useful come November. I’m also including one paragraph that I believe could possibly be the most important aspect of my planning: I’m stating explicitly where the conflict for each scene is coming from. Although I might intuitively know it’s an internal conflict because Emma’s values clash with her desires, by forcing myself to expand on that I get a better understanding of where the tension is coming from. Likewise, when there is an external conflict between two characters I’m able to state exactly what it is about the situation that each party finds so infuriating. I’m hoping that this explicit exploration of the conflict in every scene will not only ramp up the energy in my writing but also cause my story to be more authentic. Every character will react in ways that represent their true selves from the very first page.

I have been avoiding this step because writing about what I’m going to write sounded a bit lame. I’m now pleased to say I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’m getting a clearer picture of both my plot and my characters and the kernels of ideas are being crystallised into a well-thought out, logical sequence of events that is both believable and engaging. That’s my big hope anyway.

November 1, you are a mere 20 days away. I’m almost ready for you, but not quite.