Most of my loyal blog readers receive my Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, so they will have already received an e-mail earlier today about this. But in case you missed it:
Snowflake Pro is available at last! I’m incredibly excited. “Snowflake Pro” is software I’ve created that makes it easy, fast and fun to work through the first nine steps of the Snowflake method for designing your novel. (Step 10 is to write your first draft, but you already have the word processor of your choice as an incredibly powerful tool to help you with that task.)
Snowflake Pro has a killer feature that I added as a bonus — it automatically creates the skeleton of a book proposal, using any information available from the first six steps of the Snowflake method. Bear in mind that Snowflake Pro is not about creating a proposal. It’s about creating a design for your novel. But a handy side effect is that a good design contains most of the elements of a proposal. So your proposal will still contain some gaps, but Snowflake Pro will insert some helpful comments in those gaps to tell you how to write things like your market analysis and marketing plan.
To find out all about Snowflake Pro, click here.
Following my usual practice, I’m giving a substantial discount during the first several days of the release. In this case, the discount is 80% and the special runs for four days.
Yes, an eighty percent discount. This sale will last roughly 96 hours and will end on Friday night at midnight, California time. (That’s November 20, 2009, for those who need a calendar date.)
Happy Snowflaking!
One more note: I’ve been talking with my publisher for WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES, and we now have an official Launch Day: December 7, 2009. I’m working with my co-author and some other writers to put together something special for my loyal fans. Stay tuned!
Cool news about the launch date for Writing Fiction for Dummies! I’ll pass that around at our writers’ group. And for anyone who’s wondering, Snowflake Pro is very neat! I got my copy last night.
Already have my copy of Writing Fiction for Dummies preordered at Amazon. Looking forward to reading it.
Tim
Hi Randy. I ordered your pro software, and I’m loving it. I’m writing my first novel, and this is a great tool!
I also posted a blog post about it on my website. Feel free to check it out. 🙂
April
Yay Randy for having a special that coincides with the Aussie dollar doing OK! Snowflake Pro is already downloaded… 🙂
I’m already plugging away at Step 3. Which is good because I had specific behaviors figured out for the characters, but I hadn’t stopped to ask what their basic motivations were and how they were trying to get them.
Working on my Snowflake Pro – into the characters.
Is there a way that I can print the steps as I fill them out? I frequently find myself working in the car or at odd times and places where I don’t have the computer handy. So I could really use having hard copy to note on when I’m computer-less.
Was frustrated all to pieces yesterday. Received the announcement email on my computer at my day job and had to wait til evening to download. Patience is NOT my strong suit.
Thank you so much for this valuable software assistant in our writing endeavors.
Randy sez: I’ve been getting requests for a print option in Snowflake Pro. Sounds good to me! It’s just not something I thought of when I was writing version 1.0. I’m pretty confident that a print option will be in version 1.1. As many of you know, I’m Director of Software Engineering at a biotech company in San Diego, and the company’s flagship software product is my baby. We do frequent upgrades, each time adding the most desired new features that our customers want. So I’ll be using that same development model with Snowflake Pro — whenever I see a feature that’s wanted by a lot of people or that I want, I’ll just add it. Upgrades are always free to all past customer, and virtually instantaneous over the internet.
Got my copy, too. Yay! I’m with Judith on the printing option. I would kill for the ability to print out the scene list and notes. But for now I can tile my word processor and SnowflakePro windows side-by-side when it comes time to do the actual writing. Might end up saving trees that way, too. 🙂
Looking forward to WFFD!
I cannot believe I’m enjoying the fact that I’m a pawn in Randy’s game to dominate the world. The frustrated wanna-be General is a happy-go-lucky pawn. Bought Snowflake Pro and really enjoy using it. It’s helping me a ton. Also pre-ordered WFFD.
Thanks Randy!
I agree with the others, already plugging away at Snowflake Pro. I’ve found it easy to use, easy to understand, and very helpful in building a road map for my second novel.
Thanks Randy!
Thanks for this amazing deal on such a great tool, Randy. And it comes at the perfect time for planning my next novel. I’ve followed the basic Snowflake information from your website, but this looks easier.
I appreciate the things you teach, and the humour with which you teach them.
Blessings!
The King of Mounting Randy really is!
Snowflake Pro shortly:
• Downloads – OK
• Installation – OK
• Everything looks & works as was prescripted – for now, at least 🙂
One note for future upgrading:
IMHO the size of general font should be little more.
—
Wish You The Best.
George B.
Randy,
An amazing bargain! Thanks
BTW, I’ve been working my way through John Truby’s book, “The Anatomy of Story”. Very helpful, too.
Randy, I could hardly believe the price when I checked it out last night. Thanks for offering us such a great deal. It’s like an early Christmas present. I’m looking forward to using this tool in my writing.
A small tweak suggestion for Snowflake Pro: when the lecture notes are open, it’s not possible to bring the main SP screen in front of the notes. That behavioru should be changed.
The workaround is to re-size the respective windows and put them side by side, but for those working on smaller monitors, that’s not ideal.
Another suggestion: In Step 3, the character detail list, the tab key moves the cursor within the sub-edit box (eg, the Story Goal box). My expectation was that the tab would move me to the next box. (And shift tab in the opposite direction.)
Same for the boxes in Steps 2 and 4.
Hey Randy (since you answered the printing issue here – good news btw), now that I’ve downloaded, installed and it’s all running, can I delete the original downloaded file? I’m pretty sure the answer is yes, but haven’t had the guts to do it just in case I’m wrong!
Other techos feel free to save Randy the time of answering by telling me!
🙂 Karen
Sorry, I couldn’t wait to get it at full price, so I’ve taken advantage of your offer! 🙂
It looks great, especially the scenes spreadsheet. I probably won’t use it for the novel in progress, (but I might) as it would mean keying in 120 scenes which are already on an Excel doc, but I have the germ of a plot for book 2 of the series which came to me less than 2 weeks ago, while I was away on ‘writing retreat’, so the timing’s perfect for ‘book 2’. Thank you.
Ann
Yeah, I forgot to mention that your timing on this was perfect. I was just finished “composting” the idea for my new novel and was getting ready to do the formal outlining. Now I’m off and running with SnowflakePro!
Very cool. I’m in. I’ve never really jumped in and gained an understanding of this method because it seemed a little confusing (probably did not take enough time)
This seems intuitive and step by step though which is great. Just ordered and downloaded. Thanks for the deal.
Snowflake Pro is ‘exactly’ what I was needing. I can see in clarity where I need to make some changes and how my characters will come to life. I’d like to spend as much time as I can with it.
Merry Christmas to me! Thanks so much for the incredible offer on Snowflake Pro ~ I purchased the program within a nanosecond of receiving the email notice. I’m writing my first novel and for some reason decided to make the plot as complicated and convoluted as humanly possible, so Snowflaking is keeping me semi-sane.
Suggestion for future updates: On step 9, please add l&r margins to the text box. As it is the lines stretch on forever making it very difficult to read. I’ve been adding a hard return to keep it on the same page, but then editing gets complicated.
Thanks again!
Lauren
HAY RANDY!!!
YOU BETTER BE READING THIS!!!
The praise – a lot of “how to write” books often give un-required advise and commanding guidelines, which in your snow flake article you try not to do.This is good
The faults – as I know you understand there is more than one way to write a book, you suggest a novel should be “three disasters plus an ending”. But having read a book called “the seven basic plots” it seems that you are looking at only a handful of the thousands of different plot templates you could be mentioning!
I also purchased this within seconds of the email and I love it.
Only one thing. Adding a print option for step 9 and/or export option for the scene list for work to start in the word processor.