The Snowflake Method

What I get out of the Snowflake Method:
1. Your story in one sentence.
2. Expand your sentence to a paragraph.
3. Write the blurb for your book (that you see on the backs of books), but include the ending.
4. Write your book in a page.
5. Write a page about each main character - motivations, desires, what they do/what happens to them, end goal reached/ outcomes.
6. Expand your story into three pages - beginning, middle, and end.
7. Break into a plotline with steps, connected with character's pages

There are several versions of the snowflake method, and it really depends on the writer what you want to do. But this helped me figure out what my book was really about and get my plot organized, so I know it can really help!

Some pages on the Snowflake Method/more instructions:
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php
http://www.writerscafe.org/courses/So-You-Want-To-Write-A-Novel%3A-What-Method-Should-You-Use%3F/4782/The-Snowflake-Method/4783/
http://jordanmccollum.com/2009/10/pros-cons-snowflake-method/
http://bubblecow.co/see-how-easily-you-can-write-a-novel-using-the-snowflake-method/

January Contests!

So...it's almost break...what are we going to do with all the time on our hands? Hey, maybe we can all do some writing! Here are some great contests coming up in January to prepare for :D

Writer's Market has a lot of contests on their webpage, just so you know. Here are a couple they told us about:

John Ciardi Prize for Poetry - $1000 and publication (January 15, 2012 postmark)

Iowa Award in Poetry, Fiction & Essay - $1500 and publication (January 31, 2012)

Good luck with your writing!

Querying & A cool blog..

Here's a quick video from agent Kristin Nelson.

If you check out her blog, she's got a whole list in the side of other blogs that might interest you too! On writing, blogs from other agents - you could learn from this stuff. :)
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/

Creating Worlds

So, Ryan Sanderson is great at crafting worlds, and you can access his lecture videos and information at this website:

http://writeaboutdragons.com/

Writing Query Letters!

All of us who want to get our writing published need to know about querying. It can be kindof a scary step in writing & publishing, but there are a lot of resources out there to help us along the way.

Writer's Market is great for finding who to send the letters to, and it's always a good idea to find out what the SPECIFIC publisher/agent wants. Sometimes you can find information like that in the entries in Writer's Market, or visiting their website.

Here are some good quick tips for writing query letters:
- You ALWAYS want to know about who you are submitting to. It's a little embarrassing to send them fantasy if they only publish historical fiction or romance.
- Know who to address the query letter to (it's better to have a name rather than "To Whom it May Concern" (it'll show that you took the effort of five extra minutes to figure out who the person is. Even if it isn't listed, you can probably find it on their website)
- be formal, and without grammatical errors. Some places toss letters with a mistake without a second look.
- new/different/original idea, present it soon in the letter (they read a lot of letters, don't want to take a lot of time)
- SHORT - only one page for the query letter.

Also, here is a great blog for learning about query letters:
http://queryshark.blogspot.com/