Snowflake method
Methods & processRandy Ingermanson's method: building a novel through successive expansions, from a one-sentence summary to the full manuscript.
Example
Step 1: "A postman discovers the letters he delivers rewrite lives." Step 2: the paragraph. Step 10: the novel.
The snowflake method, designed by novelist and physicist Randy Ingermanson, builds the novel by iteration: a one-sentence story summary expanded into a paragraph, expanded into a page; character sheets following the same movement; up to a complete scene list, then the manuscript. Like the fractal snowflake it's named after, each step unfolds the previous one without contradicting it.
It's the architect's method par excellence: by the time you attack the first draft, all structural decisions are made. Its supporters gain clean first drafts; its detractors lose discovery along the way. As always, the tool is only worth the temperament that recognizes itself in it.
Go further
The snowflake method: the 10 stepsPut this term to work
The writing studio novelists were missing
Outline, characters, places and objects, the links between them, mind map, scene board, export: everything lives in one place. Plus an AI that knows your story, whenever you want one.
Free to write and to export. No credit card asked.