Snowflake Pro came out last November, too late for me to use it to plan my NaNo 2009 novel. I had all but forgotten it until this week.

Of course, I like starting off with pen to paper for my brainstorming anyway, but once I get to the part where I need to organize my thoughts for real, it’s nice to have a program to walk me through step by step. And there are nine steps! Author and writing instructor, Randy Ingermanson, created this program to guide you through his popular Snowflake Method. You start with your tag line and build gradually from there. Adobe Fireworks Free Cracker here. Layer upon layer you add more and more detail until you have built a significant synopsis and detailed character lists. Your information is organized and easily accessible! I’m up to Step 5, writing a character synopsis for each of my main players.

I have been using snowflake for a few months now. Make sure to get the book, 'Writing Fiction for.

I’m looking forward to Step 8, making a list of scenes. This is what will give me my day-to-day working plan for November. Now, if you write your synopsis with a list of scenes in mind, the program can import your synopsis, and break it down sentence by sentence into scenes for a template. Make any adjustments and zip, it’s done! Scrivener for Windows For years I’ve been envious of Kitty’s writing methods using Scrivener for the Mac. The corkboard! The split screen! The photo display for characters!

Well guess what!?! Scrivener for Windows is out in public beta format.

Click on to read all the details for yourself and watch the 10 min video. *Squee* The “real” version is set to come out in early 2011 for $35-40. AND, if you win NaNo and verify your word count, you’ll be awarded a 50% off coupon–more incentive to get those words in! Although I do enjoy beta testing (such fun to hunt down a program bug) I don’t think I can risk my NaNo novel for it. But this weekend, and then starting on December 1st, I’m all over it.

Author Posted on Categories, Tags. Last week I told you that my first steps in revision are to print out my entire manuscript and read it through in one sitting, creating a revision list as I go. I write down everything that occurs to me including questions, ideas, answers to questions I’d written in parentheses, repetitive words and phrases, inconsistencies, everything. Then I take that list and I write the “big” things on a separate piece of paper.

Big issues are primarily about plot problems, character problems, the lack of an ending, a sagging middle, etc. In my opinion, fixing problems from page 1 to the end instead of in order of importance may well be like painting the kitchen walls, then moving the cupboards from one wall to another. After I’ve read the whole manuscript and made my notes, I create a one-sentence or one-notecard description of each scene. I recently purchased, and I’ve been playing with that to make my scene descriptions. It seems to work equally well for constructing an outline for a new book or organizing the revision of a completed draft.

I’ve also used the notecard function in. Gta 4 Xbox 360 Torrent Iso Player. I have to say, though, my favorite method is still notecards I can lay out on the living room floor. 🙂 Starting with the list of big issues, I work on them in the order of most to least important. Some things may need to be reworked slightly after revising something else, but this method works best to keep from redoing scenes over and over. The notecards help me to find holes in the plot, or see that the story works better if I move a scene or two.