You may have heard of this podcast novel I wrote called Archangel? It’s got a list of supporters long enough to please me, but I’ve gotten some feedback on it and as any first novel does it’s not without it’s problems. I basically “pantsed” the whole thing and now that I’ve got some experience I know that it shows in the work’s structure. I’ve gotten some very good feedback and have decided to take a whack at rewriting it. I’ll be using the snowflake method as I did with Ginnie Dare, but with this as with Liquid Diet I will be doing a more full blown version of it.
I want to finish both rough drafts by the end of the summer and have finished novels by years end. Will snowflaking let me write like a meth cranked ninja? Is that a good thing? Well I guess we’ll find out.
Anyway, here are steps one and two of the snowflake for Archangel’s reboot:
1) Former soldier defends his city from supernatural evil at the cost of all he holds dear.
2) A former army sniper, discharged after a particularly odd final mission, tries to enjoy his retirement in peace. All of that changes when he meets a local business man whose activities have a dark and supernatural edge to them. When going to the police doesn’t help, he decides to use his skills to track the man and ultimately take him down whatever the consequences. Unfortunately the consequences involve an escalation that threatens the lives of everyone he loves and the very fabric of reality. His friends and family join him in the fight, but will it be enough to quench the fires of Hell?
Sounds like a great plan Scott. I’m in the same boat, but using Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel course. The last lesson had me reoutline my book in scenes and I realized I will be rewriting almost everything. I’m excited about it though because I’ve more or less pantsed my way through both books I’ve written. We’ll see how I write having an outline. I wish you the best on this!
How did using Snowflake on your NaNoWriMo book this year go? Did you keep it up or give up and pants it like I did?
It went pretty well I think. I didn’t get to do all of the steps since I would have had to start in September, but the steps I did do kept me from having to pants it and I kept pretty dang close to my outline.
I plan on doing all of the steps for these since I’ll be on a less “artificial” deadline.
Did you finish your story?