Preptober 2023 - Snowflake Edition

Here in the Office we're going to be doing Preptober using the Snowflake method.

What is Preptober?
During the month of October, people planning to do NaNoWriMo prepare for the month, getting their story and their lives ready to complete the challenge. The programme is actually 6 weeks long, so this room is going to be a little longer than a month.

What is NaNoWriMo?
During the month of November, writers around the world attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month - known as National Novel Writing Month.

What is the Snowflake Method?
This is a fiction writing method where you follow 10 steps to get your novel ready to write. The steps all involve gradually expanding and branching your story (sort of like a snowflake). It is the brainchild of Randy Ingermanson.

I strongly recommend buying Ingermanson's book How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method and reading along with it. Its a very engaging read. At first the unusual style in which it was written put me off a little, but after a while I realised I was actually hooked on the story he was telling too (following the journey of the book's protagonist quite closely, which I am guessing was the point). I often struggle to read 'examples' in fiction writing books and the way this book is written overcame that completely.

For this room, I will use the material Ingerman provides for free on his website. I will not add anything from the book, but I will suggest chapters to read if you are also reading.

How will this work?
Throughout the 6 weeks of Preptober, I will post prompts to complete two things:

• The steps of the Snowflake Method, spaced out according to their length.

• The steps of the Preptober course outline from the NaNoWriMo website.

We’ll use the Snowflake Method to cover the first few weeks of Preptober. Because you move around between things like plot and character, we won’t be doing these in order. Below is the the full schedule of posts.

• Week 1 (normally idea generation)

  • 18 September: Step 1 (takes about 1 hour)

  • 20 September: Step 2 (takes about 1 hour)

  • 22 September: Step 3 (takes a few hours, depending how many characters you have)

• Week 2 (normally characters)

  • 25 September: Step 4 (takes a few hours)

  • 28 September: Step 5 (takes a few days)

• Week 3 (normally plot)

  • 2 October: Step 6 (takes a week)

• Week 4 (normally worldbuilding)

  • 9 October: Step 7 (takes a week)

• Week 5 (normally grow your writing community)

  • 16 October: Step 8

• Week 6 (normally find and manage your time)

  • 23 October: Step 9

Step 10 is to write so that will start on 1 November. You can always skip over to Ingermanson's website and find the next steps if you need to arrange things on a different time scale.