Today is Day #2 of guest blogger Cindy Martinusen Colomo, who is sharing her “Puzzle Method” with us. I’ll yield the floor to Cindy now:
BLOG 2 – MAYBE THE MOST FUN IN WRITING WEEK
Today, I’m jumping right in and tomorrow I’ll add some thoughts on trust and publishing realities.
Day 1 to 7 (at most 7 days or else you won’t ever get done!)
1. THE SPARK – a story begins with a spark of something. It might be:
* An image, situation, a character (someone you see on the street or someone who comes into your head) a climatic moment, a surprise twist, a newspaper headline. (My character of Emman in Orchid House started when I pictured a Filipino kid with a gun at his side, a cigarette butt in his mouth, as he watched Magnum P.I. through the open window of a small house)
* WRITE IT DOWN!!!
2. FIRST STORY PIECES – take that spark with you, and just see how more pieces arrive in your life.
* Many of these ideas and images come at the worst times, like in the shower, before bed or right when I wake up, or especially when I’m driving in the car. WRITE THEM DOWN!!! (Get a tape recorder for the car or pull over, take a notepad to the bathroom and have one by the bed)
* There is great power and fun to this time of free-roaming imagination. Don’t obsess over putting anything together right now. Just keep creating pieces. If two click together, then by all means, put them together! Don’t miss opportunities, let the story reveal itself with the knowledge that it’s going to change a lot. New plot twists, characters that surprise you, and research are just a few things that take your story to new places.
Note: I’m a big believer in writing every day or at least consistently. For the first week of creating this story however, I’d advise letting the pieces of your story come to life throughout, well, your life. Be open to the world around you. Give imagination some space to be free and maybe work on non-fiction if you have daily writing goals. For your fiction, meditate, go on a drive, take long baths, watch and read what inspires, eavesdrop at restaurants. And write down everything that comes to you.
Randy sez: It was interesting to read the comments that were posted today.
Gerhard asked a question for Cindy:
When you write out of sequence, do you know that you are now going to write an ending? Or do you just write a number of scenes and then later decide, or find, that a certain scene ends up being THE ending?
Second question: When you write a number of scenes there are obviously gaps between them, gaps to be filled in order to get the story from A to B so it makes sense. Do you then analyse and draw up a list of missing scenes and tick them off as you write them?
How do you know how not to overdo or underdo filling in the gaps? Too big a gap and the reader gets lost, too much filling and the reader gets bored?
Randy sez: I’ll defer this question to Cindy. Cindy, email me privately and I’ll post your response here tomorrow.
Heather wrote:
I used the Snowflake on my second novel (which is finished and resting before a final polish before going out to my critique group) and loved it. I am now trying to use it on my newest one and it’s just not gelling for me. This novel has multiple subplots and I think that’s why… for some reason I cannot seem to get the subplots integrated into the one paragraph summary, and without them the ‘main plot’ feels too thin to carry a novel.
I do think the Snowflake is right for me, but maybe not for this book? I have all the sample Snowflake materials but none seem to handle subplots like mine. Randy, any suggestions? In the meantime, I await the puzzle method’s explanation.
Randy sez: You should not try to get the subplots into the one-paragraph summary. Each character has a one-paragraph summary for their own story, so put the subplots there. It’s hard to say what method will work best for you. You may be a Snowflaker but need something different to get you unjammed. Or maybe you’re a hybrid. It doesn’t matter. When you’re stuck, just try something different till you get unstuck.
Tomorrow, I’ll be in Minneapolis for the board meeting of my favorite writing organization, but I should be able to post Cindy’s next article on the Puzzle Method without any problems. See ya then!
Well, it looks promising so far 🙂
The tip of having something to write nearby is well understood. I never leave home without my notebook.
It’s funny, because I realize I’ve doing the puzzle method all my life – except I don’t write stuff down. I know I have tried writing things down, but once I do, the ideas don’t seem as good anymore. They lost their magic somehow. What can I do to not ‘kill my angels’ so to speak?
After a tidal wave hit my life late last year, I’ve spent most of 2008 so far rebuilding my ‘creative house’. It’s just this week I’ve managed to blow the dust off the higgledy-piggledy(or maybe Puzzle Method?)beginnings of my novel.
I decided to get it out again at this time as I received news of a writing contest with a deadline of 30 April for the first chapter of a novel and decided it would be a realistic deadline for me to meet. If I win, I get $100 and some ‘fame’; if I lose, (more likely), I’ve completely written the first chapter of my novel: either way, I can’t lose!
As the problem is that I don’t have any idea where the plot will go after a certain point, I have to do a proper plan of the novel before I can write the first chapter, so I am very pleased to have the Snowflake Method at hand so I can complete the plan and in developing the characters.
I’m particularly happy to have Randy/Carolyn’s Analysis of Gone with the Wind using the Snowflake Method. For instance, I thought I couldn’t do Step One (write a one sentence summary) because I didn’t know how the story would end. Seeing R/C’s ‘Gone With the Wind’ one sentence summary, I realised that of course I know how my story will end: in the resolution of the problem! Also, because my story has a theme, I was confused between theme and plot in writing the one sentence summary.
As I’ve started planning my novel with The Snowflake Method, I won’t be jumping horses mid-stream, though I’m looking forward to reading more of Cindy’s Puzzle Method.
I hope she’ll have a tip on how to manage to wake myself up sufficiently during the night, having had a dream that brilliantly progresses my novel so that I can write it in the notebook next to my bed instead of waking up in the morning having forgotten the crucial details of the dream!
If anybody else is interested in going for the First Chapter writing contest, I’ll post the url, but only with Randy’s okay on that.
Ann,
I’m interested.
Same here 🙂
This is how I write! I do the puzzle method! Whew. I’m not crazy! 🙂 But, I think I’m a hybrid because Randy’s methods help me put the nuts and bolts together. Randy is a logical, sequential thinker (I mean, c’mon, the guy’s a physicist!). I’m an abstract thinker — math and logic aren’t my strong suits. I am a musician and studied theater in undergrad school. I don’t think in lists and graphs. I think in pictures not words. So I keep a file of tidbits just as Cindy suggested. Sometimes they apply to my current novel and sometimes they don’t. I love finding new names, new situations, etc. I keep a file of newspaper articles, pictures, etc. that spur creativity. I love this puzzle method. But I love the snowflake method, too, because it gets me, the abstract, hodge podge person that is me, organized.
I think the snowflake method is also good for beginning writers (high school) because it gives them a road map instead of just a blank piece of paper. A lot of kids, especially boys, need that to get started.
Randy, thanks SO MUCH for sharing this with us! I’m excited to be learning so much here.
I’d say I have to know more before I say I’m a Puzzler. But I’ve been doing something like this for the last few weeks (way more than 7 days), allowing myself the freedom to let the story and characters come to me, jotting notes down along the way, until I felt a true urge to write. I started writing yesterday.
I’ll be a poster child for a combo of both methods.
If Karla is a hybrid, so am I. (I’m still trying to figure out how to integrate the creative, musical/writing side with the logical, analyzing part of my brain. It’s a civil war in there. If you listen closely, you can hear screaming.)
I’m interested in hearing more, Cindy. Thank you.
Randy, you rock.
Hi, I’m new to reading this blog. As I read about the Puzzle method, I realized Cindy had put a term to the way I write. I definitely do not write in a linear fashion (I had chapter 10 written 2 years ago and finally wrote my first chapter a few months ago). I also have a few chapters written of book 2 and 3 before I’m even done with my first! What’s hard for me is now wrapping up my first book and having to write linear like (4 more chapters to go and its very slow going right now).
I guess what I love about this method is that when inspiration hits me, I quick write it down. I have found that I need to see the chapter or scene visually in my head (like playing a movie) before I can even write it. So when I’m doing dishes and suddenly I have a scene, dialog, whatever, I get out my laptop and quick write it as I see it.
Randy, thanks for the response. After I posted, I started writing a “and then this happens, and then this happens” couple of paragraphs and discovered… the main plot seemed too thin because it WAS too thin. It could have been resolved in a few chapters. No wonder “the Snowflake wasn’t working”… the story wasn’t there to support it. 🙂
I do like the spark part of the puzzle method, and I too look forward to seeing more about it in the next little while.
I’m a computer nerd as well as a musician, so I might well be a hybrid too… time will tell.
Thanks for all of this, Randy. Echoing earlier comments, it’s not everyone who can publicly say, “Here’s another method. Try ‘er out.” and I applaud you!
Heather
I can totally relate to receiving “sparks” at the most inopportune times. I look forward to reading more about this method.
I am beginning to wonder if I go through life with my eyes closed. Although it will take a lot to blast me out of the Snowflake method, I can see where I’d benefit a lot from getting out of my office and seeing more of the world so those interesting images can come to me. We are all certainly different!
I’ll go for the chapter contest too.