Randy Ingermanson

A Magical Key to Unlock Your Creative Wizard Are you writing a novel, but having trouble getting your first draft written? You've heard of “outlining,” but that sounds too rigid for you. You've heard of “organic writing,” but that seems a bit squishy to you. Take a look at the wildly popular Snowflake Method—ten battle-tested steps that jump-start your creativity and help you quickly map out your story. All around the world, novelists are using the Snowflake Method right now to ignite their imaginations and get their first drafts down. In this book, you'll follow the story of a fictitious novelist as she learns to tap into the amazing power of the Snowflake Method. Almost magically, she finds her story growing from a simple idea into a deep and powerful novel. And she finds her novel changing her—into a stronger, more courageous person. Zany, Over the Top, and Just Plain Fun How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method is a “business parable”—a how-to guide written in story form. It's zany. It's over the top. It's just plain fun. It shows you how it's done, rather than tells you. You'll learn by example how to grow your story idea into a sizzling first draft. You'll discover: How to define your “target audience” the right way, so you know exactly how your ideal readers think and feel. Forget what the experts tell you about “demographics.” How to create a dynamite selling tool that will instantly tell people whether they'll love your story or hate it. And you want them to love it or hate it. How to get inside the skin of each of your characters—even your villain. Especially your villain. How to find a deep, emotively powerful theme for your story. Do you know the best point in your novel to unveil your theme? How to know when to backtrack, and why backtracking is essential to writing great fiction. How to fire-test each scene to ensure it's high-impact—before you write it. ExcerptGoldilocks had always wanted to write a novel. She learned to read before she went to kindergarten. In grade school, she always had her nose in a book. In junior high, the other kids thought she was weird, because she actually liked reading those dusty old novels in literature class. All through high school, Goldilocks dreamed of writing a book of her own someday. But when she went to college, her parents persuaded her to study something practical. Goldilocks hated practical, and secretly she kept reading novels. But she was a very obedient girl, so she did what her parents told her. She got a very practical degree in marketing. After college, she got a job that bored her to tears—but at least it was practical. Then she got married, and within a few years, she had two children, a girl and then a boy. She quit her job to devote full time to them. As the children grew, Goldilocks took great joy in introducing them to the stories she had loved as a child. When her son went off to kindergarten, Goldilocks thought about looking for a job. But her resume now had a seven-year hole in it, and her practical skills were long out of date. The only jobs Goldilocks could qualify for were minimum wage. She suddenly realized that being practical had made her horribly unhappy. On a whim, Goldilocks decided to do the one thing she had always wanted more than anything else—she was finally going to write a novel. She didn't care if it was impractical. She didn't care if nobody would ever read her novel. She was going to do it just because she wanted to. For the first time in years, she was going to do something just for herself. And nobody was going to stop her.

How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method

Peter Economy

A complete guide to writing and selling your novel So you want to write a novel? Great! That’s a worthy goal, no matter what your reason. But don’t settle for just writing a novel. Aim high. Write a novel that you intend to sell to a publisher. Writing Fiction for Dummies is a complete guide designed to coach you every step along the path from beginning writer to royalty-earning author. Here are some things you’ll learn in Writing Fiction for Dummies: Strategic Planning: Pinpoint where you are on the roadmap to publication; discover what every reader desperately wants from a story; home in on a marketable category; choose from among the four most common creative styles; and learn the self-management methods of professional writers. Writing Powerful Fiction: Construct a story world that rings true; create believable, unpredictable characters; build a strong plot with all six layers of complexity of a modern novel; and infuse it all with a strong theme. Self-Editing Your Novel: Psychoanalyze your characters to bring them fully to life; edit your story structure from the top down; fix broken scenes; and polish your action and dialogue. Finding An Agent and Getting Published: Write a query letter, a synopsis, and a proposal; pitch your work to agents and editors without fear. Writing Fiction For Dummies takes you from being a writer to being an author. It can happen—if you have the talent and persistence to do what you need to do.

Writing Fiction For Dummies

What If? What if you were studying for your Ph.D. in archaeology and decided to take a break from your crummy life for the summer by working on an archaeological dig in Israel? What if you met a great guy in Jerusalem who happened to be a world-famous theoretical physicist working on a crazy idea to build a wormhole that might make time-travel possible ... someday? What if he had a nutball colleague who turned the theory into reality - and then decided to use YOU as a guinea pig to make sure it was safe? What if the nutball had a gun and went on a crazy, impossible mission to hunt down and kill the apostle Paul? It's A.D. 57 when Rivka Meyers walks out of the wormhole into a world she's only studied in books. Ancient Jerusalem is awesome! Rivka can't believe her friend Ari Kazan's theory actually worked. But when she runs into Ari's wacko colleague, Damien West, in the Temple, Rivka starts to smell a rat. When Ari discovers that Damien and Rivka have gone through a wormhole that's on the edge of collapse, he has to make a horrible choice: Follow them and risk never coming back - or lose the woman of his dreams forever. About The Book: Transgression is a time-travel suspense novel that mixes science, history, religion, romance, and suspense. It's about learning to stand up for yourself, when you just want to be let alone. It's about making hard decisions. It's about asking whether life has meaning and whether God exists - and becoming a badass fighter for justice, even if you don't have the answers. Transgression won the 2001 Christy award for best futuristic novel in Christian fiction. Transgression will take you on a wretched, miserable, dangerous vacation through the filthy, bandit-ridden streets of first-century Jerusalem. Transgression is the first novel in the City of God series: Book 1: Transgression (A.D. 57) Book 2: Premonition (A.D. 57-62) Book 3: Retribution (A.D. 62-66) Excerpt: Rivka turned and ran. "Ari!" she screamed. "Help!" She raced outside into the sunlight, sprinted madly through a dark grove of trees with gnarled branches. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her ragged breath rasped in her ears. Was he following? Faster! Tears fogged her eyes. Her leather sandals tore at her feet. Trying to look back over her shoulder, she tripped and fell. Dust flew up all around her. Coughing, she clambered to her feet and dared to look back. The man was nowhere in sight. Rivka panted until she caught her breath. Her left wrist throbbed from the fall. She massaged it while she squinted into the trees, afraid that the man might be lurking in the shadows. Nothing happened. Finally, she turned around to get her bearings. She blinked twice and then stared. Across a small valley massive stone walls rose. Herodian masonry. Jerusalem limestone. Towering white walls. It looked like... But that was impossible. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply three times, and opened them again. Absurd. Had she gone loony or something? Rivka had visited the Temple Mount twice and studied hundreds of pictures during three years of graduate school. But she had never seen it looking like this. So pure. So spotless. So new. Click the book cover in the upper left corner to read more.

A Time-Travel Suspense Novel

Transgression

How to Write a Dynamite Scene Using the Snowflake Method

A Science Fiction Suspense Novel

John B. Olson

Valkerie Jansen is tough, beautiful, and has an uncanny knack for survival. But that doesn't explain why NASA picks her to be part of a two man, two woman crew to Mars-or does it? Bob Kaganovski, the ship's mechanic, is paid to be paranoid-and he's good at it. After a teeth-rattling launch, Bob realizes that his paranoia hasn't prepared him for this trip. He can deal with a banged-up ship, but how's he going to survive the next five months with HER just a flimsy partition away? Halfway to the Red Planet, an explosion leaves the crew with only enough oxygen for one. All evidence points to sabotage-and Valkerie and Bob are the obvious suspects. Oxygen is a witty, multi-award-winning roller coaster ride, with a plot that moves at the speed of light. The authors had hoped to work in some cool controversy on science, faith, the meaning of life, the existence of God, and possibly even the Coke versus Pepsi debate, but they were having so much fun writing the story that they forgot to offend anyone.

Randy Ingermanson

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