Disasters in the Snowflake Method
- Thread starter satyesu
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What counts as a disaster for your characters? What seriously messes up their path to their goals or shakes them out of a comfort zone or forces them to confront things in a new way?
It could be anything from a planetbuster asteroid strike to spilling milk on the application to their dream job the morning of the deadline, depending on its impact on the plot.
Again, you'll learn a lot by reading. Disasters can be relatively subtle but spiral out of control or have outsized impacts/knock-on effects.
It could be anything from a planetbuster asteroid strike to spilling milk on the application to their dream job the morning of the deadline, depending on its impact on the plot.
Again, you'll learn a lot by reading. Disasters can be relatively subtle but spiral out of control or have outsized impacts/knock-on effects.
Seconding the idea about reading and looking for these points.
In my snowflake for novel 2, I have the break up of a family as the first disaster, (and it's a disaster because everything to that point was about pulling the family together), the imprisonment of the MC and her buddies as a second disaster, and the explosion of a refinery/midair collision between two rockets as the third.
But these are subject to change as the story is written and I discover more.
In Star Wars IV, Luke finding his aunt and uncle dead was his first disaster. Seeing Obi Wan die was the second (I think) and the third had to do with the death star closing on the rebel base/attacking it.
Each of those changed Luke's life in a meaningful way. He had to grow from each.
In my snowflake for novel 2, I have the break up of a family as the first disaster, (and it's a disaster because everything to that point was about pulling the family together), the imprisonment of the MC and her buddies as a second disaster, and the explosion of a refinery/midair collision between two rockets as the third.
But these are subject to change as the story is written and I discover more.
In Star Wars IV, Luke finding his aunt and uncle dead was his first disaster. Seeing Obi Wan die was the second (I think) and the third had to do with the death star closing on the rebel base/attacking it.
Each of those changed Luke's life in a meaningful way. He had to grow from each.
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My .02 on the snowflake method:
1. Each disaster should ladder up w/ each other. So, the seeds of disaster #1 comes from something in the normal world. The seeds for disaster #2 come from disaster #1, etc.
2. The disaster needs to be relative the goal of the character. Does the character want to save their car from being towed? The disaster is way less than saving the live of a loved one. It is important to tie these two together.
3. Regardless, the reader needs to care about the disaster because they have fallen for the character. This comes from writing someone from your heart that doesn't feel overly fake.
Happy writing.
1. Each disaster should ladder up w/ each other. So, the seeds of disaster #1 comes from something in the normal world. The seeds for disaster #2 come from disaster #1, etc.
2. The disaster needs to be relative the goal of the character. Does the character want to save their car from being towed? The disaster is way less than saving the live of a loved one. It is important to tie these two together.
3. Regardless, the reader needs to care about the disaster because they have fallen for the character. This comes from writing someone from your heart that doesn't feel overly fake.
Happy writing.
This should be #1. Too many stories I've read (and probably written), I don't care enough about the characters yet to be concerned with their disasters.