popular and special novel .....
(Shahrooz Barari Siglani) The attention of this article is republished
10, novel design stage
. Many people, regardless of age, are interested in writing and especially writing a story, novel, or even their own life in the form of a novel, and because of ignorance of how to write, they get bored quickly and maybe forever. Put it aside, do not go for it anymore. In the continuation of this article, we have stated the correct principles of writing a novel, which are necessary for beginners and even for professionals. By applying these principles, you will surely succeed. Remember that you need patience to succeed, and with each failure, you take a step towards victory. Also know that the first posts are not always the best.
Snowflake method for designing a novel,
If we say that writing a story is simple. It is safe to say that writing a novel is by no means an easy task. And writing a valuable and engaging novel is far more difficult. But it is not impossible to write a good download look! If writing a novel was an easy task, we could all write best-selling novels. And of course, this is both good and bad. Because if you want to be a novelist and you see yourself trying for a long time, it means that you will not have many competitors, but the bad part is that there is no guarantee for the success of your novel.
To be honest, there are thousands upon thousands of ways to write a novel. And there are thousands of people who want to know how to write their own novel. And the best way for you is the way you can get better results yourself.
In this article, I want to introduce you to the method that has worked best for me. I have written about six novels and won a couple of literary awards. One of my ways of earning money is to teach the legendary art of writing at various conferences. And one of the most successful and well-known training courses I teach at conferences is a method of writing a novel, which I call the Snowflake Method.
I posted this article on the internet and it gets thousands of views daily, so you guessed it was a useful article. However, this article may not be useful to some people, which in my opinion is not a problem and is normal. Read the whole article and use the part that works for you and ignore the rest. Different authors are different. I will be happy if my soul helps you. I tried to make this article the best and I hope it is useful for you as you read it. So enjoy and write your novel!
The importance of design
A good story is not made by chance, but a good story is designed. Story design work can be done before or during story writing. I have tried both methods and I believe that storytelling works better before writing and will work sooner.Designing work is heavy, so it is very important to know the basics and follow the instructions. In this article, I will provide you with a powerful concoction as a guide so that you can do your design.
Basic question
The basic question in this regard is: "How do you design your novel?" »
I have worked for many years as a structural designer for large software projects. And in the same way that I designed software, I wrote novels, it is better to say I used snowflake potion. Okay, let's move on to the snowflake method, how does it work? A while ago, I saw a graphic on a website that, with the help of a number of step-by-step triangles, put them together to make a snowflake-like shape. At first it did not look like a snowflake, but by looking at it, you will gradually realize the image of a complete snowflake. Writing a novel is done in the same way.
And I suggest you design your story this way
You start with a small story, then gradually make a big novel.Part of that goes back to your creativity, and I can't teach you much about that. But the other part of the job is to manage this creativity, that is, build the structure of your novel well.This is what I want to teach you.
Are you like most people?
If you are like most people, you spend a lot of time writing your novel even before you start writing. You may do some research. And spend a lot of time dreaming that this novel is a success and مغ brainstorming begins. The voices of different characters resonate in your ears. Think about the subject of your book. This essential part of writing any book I call composting. This is an informal process and every writer does it differently. I guess you know how to compost your ideas. And in fact the download view is well formed in your mind and everything is ready for writing a novel. You only need a pen and paper to get started.
10 design steps
Before you start writing
You have to organize all these unique ideas that you have in mind. You need to put them on paper so that they can be used. Why? Because memory is forgetfulness and you can't put all those good ideas in your memory. Also, your creativity will probably fill many of the dark holes in the story, and this is not possible without writing all these ideas. You need files to design. And you have to do it in a way that does not destroy your desire to write.
The first stage. For the ideal design of a successful time .... Teacher Shahrooz Barari Siglani
The first stage. For the ideal design of a successful time .... Teacher Shahrooz Barari Siglani
first stage
Take an hour and summarize your story in one sentence.Something like this: "An evil physicist is trying to go back in time to kill Jesus Christ" (this is the summary of my first novel) This sentence will always serve you. This is a big picture like the first triangle of those who made a beautiful snowflake.
Later, when you want to suggest your book, this sentence should be at the beginning. This is what helps sell your book to the publisher, the review committee and the marketer, the bookstore owner and ultimately the final reader. So choose the best sentence you can.
Here are some tips to help you get started:
The shorter the better. Try to be under 15 words.
Do not name any character, it is better to say "a disabled artist" than to say "Jane Doe".
Attach the global image to the personal image. Which character is supposed to be the biggest loser in this story?Now tell me what is his purpose?
Read one-line ads written in newspapers. Writing a one-line description is an art.
- Second step, take an hour and turn the sentences into paragraphs ....
second stage
Turn each sentence into a complete paragraph describing the story in which the biggest challenge (or dilemma) and the end of the story are told. This is like the second triangle that forms the microscopic shape of a snowflake. I want to create a story structure with three challenges and one ending. Each dilemma includes a quarter of the book and the final quarter is dedicated to the end of the story. I do not know if such a structure is ideal or not, it is just my personal taste.
If you believe in a three-part structure, then the first challenge ends in the first scene. The second challenge ends in the middle of the second act. On the third screen, you finish everything. If the first part of the challenge is the first part of your story with external factors, there is no problem.But I think the next two challenges have to revolve around the main character of the story, and he is the one who solves the big problem. Everything gets worse and worse. You can add a paragraph to your proposal. This paragraph has several sentences. The first sentence describes the space and structure of the story. Write three sentences for each challenge in your story. And in the last sentence, you tell the end of your story. You should not confuse this paragraph with anything else, just a summary of your whole story. The description is not on the back cover, which only provides a summary of the first part of the story!
Step 3
In the previous steps, we only had a high-level look at the novel. But now you have to go into more detail about each character. Characters are the most important part of any novel, and the time you spend designing each of them is actually a worthwhile investment. Take an hour for each of the characters in your story and write a page for them, in which:
Character name
A summary of a sentence about his character and role in the course of the story
Motivation of the character (what he wants most).
The purpose of this character (what he really wants).
Conflicts and challenges that the relevant character faces.(What prevents him from achieving his goal.)
Manifestation of character (what does he learn / what does he change?)
A summary of a paragraph from the character's story trajectory
One important note
You may come back and review your sentence or paragraph summary. Keep going the right way Your characters are learning things about your story. It's great to go back to each step of the writing process and review the previous sections.This is not just a good thing, it's inevitable. When you review your writing in this way, the quality of the work is much better because it is not easy to review and re-examine the 400-page novel.
Another important point
It does not need to be perfect. The goal of the design process is to take you step by step. Keep moving forward. You can always come back and fix the problems. You can make any changes that can make your story better later. A review should not cause you to miss out.
The fourth step
At this stage, you should have a good view of the whole story space and you need about a day or two. To be honest, you may even spend a week in this part of the job, no problem.You need to do this well because a cluttered story and fragmentation will make your job harder in the later stages.So just develop the story, take a few hours and turn each sentence into a complete paragraph. All your paragraphs except the last one should lead to an accident or disaster.And your last paragraph should tell the end of the story.
This is a lot of fun, and at the end of the exercise, you have a valuable page of your novel's skeleton. It's okay if your posts are longer than one page at this point. The important thing is that your design gradually takes on the look of a download.You explore contradictions and contradictions. You have now prepared something similar to Proposal.
Step Five
Take a day or two to write a one-page descriptive description of each main character and a half-page descriptive description of the important characters. These are the introductory letters of the main characters of your story and should tell the story from the point of view of those characters. And do not hesitate to go back to where you needed to be and make the necessary corrections in the previous steps because you have discovered new things about the characters in the story! This is the most enjoyable part of the work, and I recently used the characters' introductory letter for my proposal. I must say that the editors fell in love with it. Because they like the story based on the characters.
Step Six
You now have a simple story structure and multiple story lines from each character. Now take a week to expand your one-page summary to a four-page summary. In fact, you are expanding your one-page summary from step four again, turning each paragraph into a full page. This is very interesting and fun, because you are creating a high level of logic in the story and you are making strategic decisions. No doubt you will go back and solve problems because you have gained a more comprehensive view of the story and new ideas have come to your mind.
Step 7
Take another week and expand your description of the characters into an evolved table of all the details needed to get to know them. A standard description can include year of birth, description of personal and physical characteristics, background, motives, goals, and so on. Most importantly, how do these characters change at the end of the story? This is actually the expansion of your work in the third stage, which teaches you a lot about the characters in the story.You will probably reconsider steps one through six and your characters will become more realistic, they will have feelings, and each will want a greater share of the story. It is good that valuable stories are told by its characters. Take the time to do this as carefully as you can. Once you have done this (which may take a month) you have more than you need to write a proposal. If you are a novelist whose work has been published, you can write your own proposal and sell it even before you write your own novel. But if none of your work has been published yet, you should write your novel in full before selling. This is not fair, of course life is not fair and of course the world of novel writing is the most unfair.
Step eight
You may be hesitant at this point to write a story that may not sell. And you may start writing your novel right away. But before that, there are a few things you need to do to help make your first experience easier. The first thing you need to do is divide those four summary pages into a list of sequences that you need to move the story forward and turn it into a download. And the easiest way to do this is to use a table. And if you use a computer, you can use Excel software.
To some writers who are just used to writing, using tables may seem scary in the first place. But it's worth it to do it.Even if you need to learn to work with that software, it will take you up to a day, but it will cost you a lifetime.
Make a good table of your four-page summary. Write only one line for each scene. In the next column, write the views of the characters. In the next column of your table, tell what happens. If you want to use your imagination more, you can add more columns to your circle and write things in them. For example, you want this sequence to take up several pages of the novel. In the table you can see a summary of the whole scene at a glance and make the changes you want.
My table usually takes up to 100 lines, starting with one line per sequence. As I expand the story, I add newer versions of my story to the table and make the necessary corrections.This is extremely valuable for story analysis. This may take up to a week, but when you are done you can specify a page number for each chapter of your book and start the next chapter.
Step IX
At this point you can sit down and make your first real attempt at writing and start the first draft of the story. You will be amazed at how fast the story flies from your fingers. I have seen writers write at three times their speed at this stage, especially at night. Sometimes even the first draft has a much better quality than the third draft.
You may think that all your creativity is seeping in at this stage. But that is not really the case, and it is the result of the effort you have put into writing in the previous steps. I think this is a fun part of the job, because there are a lot of small-scale logic problems that you can work on. How does the protagonist come down from the tree surrounded by crocodiles and save the female character in the story who caught fire in a boat? Now is the time to solve problems to your liking! But this is fun because you know the main structure of the story does its job well. And now you only have to solve small problems, which is why you have a relatively high speed to write.
This stage of writing is really interesting and fun. I have heard from many writers that this part of the story is considered very difficult and exhausting, and the reason is obvious that they do not know what will happen next. I'm really sorry! Life is too short for this kind of writing! You do not need to spend 500 hours to prepare the first draft of your story, while you can write it in 150 hours with minimal problems. And by calculating the time you used to design the story, you are still ahead.
I usually go back in the middle of writing the first draft and, as a break, fix my design problems in the story and connect the parts that seem to be fragmented. Yes, no one's design is perfect. This is normal so do not worry. The story design is not made of concrete that you can not change, but the story design lives with you. If you modify your story design and do it well, you may laugh at your original design when you refer to your original writing! This can happen to any great writer.And be thrilled with how deep and meaningful your story is now.
For years, I have taught the snowflake method to hundreds of writers at various conferences. And I put this article on the internet and now it has been visited about two million and one hundred thousand times. And many writers have commented on it, some like it and some do not. And my advice is if this method helps you use it, you can even use only the parts that help you. I wrote my novel using the snowflake method and I was satisfied with the result. To write, you need a tool that is specifically designed for storytelling, whether it is the snowflake method or any other method, identify it and use it!
10 tenth step
Publisher, FIPA License, Registration of the Central Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Audit Supervision, Amendment, ISBN Code. Printing, supplying, selling in bookstores
(Shahrooz Barari Sighani, official instructor of the Higher Education Organization)
