#unnamed littell project

[galacticvampirisms]

Step 2: Write a Paragraph

All right, and now we’re back to the Snowflake Method in this, the most dry attempt to write a novel ever. Yesterday, I kept getting drawn to Ophelia and Darcy, so I had a friend be the tie-breaker. Ophelia won! I’ll probably use Darcy elsewhere. (You can tell I wrote this a couple days ago. Life) 

Now, I’m a strong believer in the three act story, and luckily, so is the Snowflake Method! Now, the idea is to write a high school style paragraph introducing the concept, outlining the first bump in the road, the turning point, the final climax, and the resolution. Dude calls the middle three “disasters” but I feel that’s a bit too general for my literal-minded brain. 

So let me pull up my one sentence summary to use as reference for the full thing:  A young woman escapes her home life to a fantasy world of her own creation.

Weirdly, this is the hardest part for me. I’m a rambler, so pulling my thoughts down into five sparse sentences can be super difficult. So, first I’ll break it down into what I want for each sentence before trying to write five simple to middling complex ones.

Introduction:  Ophelia Littel is a pre-med student, forced into it by her parents. The inciting incident is that she runs away during a holiday party because of the pressure her family puts on her to become a successful and rich doctor.

Stumbling Block:  Ophelia ends up in a different world and is immediately freaked out and tries to go home. Before she can try the maze behind her, she gets found by an oddly familiar looking group of people who proceed to kidnap her when she lets on that she is familiar with them. They think she’s some sort of oracle. Really, she’s just the author of their story.

Turning Point:  On the way to her first battle on the rebel side, she gets taken as a prisoner of war. Once again, she recognizes her characters and tries to weasel her way out of being a POW, but this just gets her sent to the head honcho himself instead, a necromancer she had created to represent everything she hated about her life. Instead of him being evil incarnate though, she discovers the necromancer is just a sad man who tried to be alone with his undead animals for company. He unwittingly was forced into the role of overthrower when enough people were disenfranchised with the system and sought him out. 

Final Climax:  With her new knowledge intact, Ophelia decides to write a new ending to the story. She turns a battlefield into a counsel and draws the opposing forces together. There is little bloodshed, but she knows it’ll be hard for the country to shake off their old brainwashing. This is my weakest point right now because I want to include a system of control where anyone who is too different is killed/ostracized, and my original ending is a bit too fluffy for such a thing. There is a strong chance of it being easier for her to look at her old manuscript and realize how simplistic it is and tear it up, deciding that she was done hiding in a black and white fantasy world.

Ending:  Ophelia finally returns home and stands up to her parents, demanding that she get a choice in her own future and admitting to really loving biology. It’s uncertain if she changes majors, but she does pull up her digital manuscript and begin to write again.

Okay, with all that out, now I have to simplify. Yay... I also can’t decide if it’s ultimately more satisfying for Ophelia to realize she can’t simply fix everything in one counsel session, but instead chooses to rewrite the story and research ways to make the world a better place in her own reality. I would find it satisfying, but I’m not my audience here.

Summary:  Ophelia Littel’s overbearing parents push her too hard during break about medical school and send her literally running away to hide in a nearby cornfield. Unfortunately, when she exits it, she finds herself both in a completely new world of her creation and kidnapped by her very creations! Ophelia is pressed into service by a rebelling force led by the former queen of the land, but she doesn’t make it very far before once again being kidnapped and brought before her worst creation: the necromancer dictator whom the rebellion is fighting against. But it turns out that he isn’t what he seems, and she stands up to both the rebellion and her past writing, recognizing that underneath the black-and-white lens of her self, she had created a world just as nuanced as what her parents are trying to squash in her. Ophelia ultimately makes it home, tearing up her physical manuscript and standing up to her parents before deciding to start again. 

That took way too long, and I’m not totally happy with it. This step of the process requires me to squash so much into five sentences, and it feels like I can’t lol.

Once again, if you’ve read all the way to the end, please like the post! I’d really appreciate it. c:

[galacticvampirisms]

Step ?: Naming the Protagonist

/Continuing on from my last post, we would be looking at Step Two of the Snowflake Method now, but my naming conventions kind of got away from me a bit here... so. Yeah, this will be an in-between step while I break down how I name characters, especially the protagonist.

Names are significant, I think. Especially for primary characters whom you spend a lot of time with. And I plan on spending a lot of time in this woman’s head. So, who is she? Well, I already decided on the surname Littell. It’s homage to Alice Liddell, whom the original story I’m so loosely basing my tale on was written for and about. For her first name, I’ve been using my dump name of Jaime (it used to be Daniel, but that’s a long story lol). But I’d like to come up with something a little more fitting now.

I want to try for a more gender neutral or masculine leaning name because I like the idea that Littell was supposed to be a boy and is thus a bit of a disappointment to her parents from the very start. So a name that was either an obvious variant of a boy’s name or a gender neutral name like Alex/Sam would be good. Though I’m also remiss if I don’t look at some classics like Cassandra. Interesting side note, but Cassandra from Troy can also be read as Alexandra, but I’m going to be avoiding both Alex and Sam because too popular/friend named Sam. 

So strong contenders would be:

Ophelia (yes after the character from Hamlet who went mad obeying her father’s orders)

Cassandra (Trojan prophet cursed that no one would believe her very true prophecies)

Addison (comes off the tongue as similar to Allison -> Alice)

Darcy (aloof romantic hero who had to change to get the girl, also unit of permeability)

A long time ago, I read that the perfect protagonist name is between five and eight syllables long. Harry James Potter: 5 syllables. Idk, it’s always stuck with me. I also like to read how the full name and various potential nicknames look together. Why? Because if I’m going to be writing/reading it for hours and hours I want it to be pleasant on the eyes while standing out from other words.

Ophelia/Ofelia/Ofilia/Ophilia Littell, Ophie, Poppy, Effie, Fifi

Cassandra Littell, Cass, Cas. Cassie

Addison Littell, Addi, Addie, Addy

Darcy Littell, Dart

Honestly, I’m leaning pretty heavily towards Ophelia and Darcy. I guess I’ll be spending the rest of the day thinking about this now, lol.

Thanks so much for reading and please hit like if you made it this far! I’d really appreciate it.

[galacticvampirisms]

Step 1: One Sentence Summary

For people not familiar with the Snowflake Method, you can find the original source here. I personally don’t have the software that the guy peddles; I’m going to use Google Docs and Sheets to link everything too long to (ie the actual rough draft and one of the later steps, essentially). 

Step one is to take an hour and write a one sentence summary of your novel idea. Being specific without using names is good; writing under 15 words is also good. Before I start that though, I try and write out a bunch of my thoughts for the story. In my case, it’s more of a YA fantasy loosely based off of Alice in Wonderland, specifically that Tim Burton remake. Super original, I know. I also don’t really write bullet points but just ramble at myself instead.

Rambling: Main character is a pre-med student, forced into the path by her parents and societal pressure to succeed. Family is wealthy? Or just very into academia. Both. Doesn’t actually want to be a doctor, but true love of writing and history has been squished by starving artist syndrome. Uses writing a detailed fantasy world as a method of escapism. Fall break happens, pushed about med school, runs away. Hedge maze? Corn field? 

Comes out in fantasy world. Ideas: typical fantasy, war between two factions with the evil side already on the throne and the good side rebelling. Throne got taken over by evil side, not an old evil dictatorship but new. Social class built on brainwashing everyone out of stress and killing off people that don’t fit in? Possibly. Maybe they turn into monsters like in One Punch Man when they get too stressed or obsessive. Or just see them as monsters because different. The Giver had no color, killed people that were different. Similar?

Evil faction not actually evil, just trappings of evil. Leader is sibling to former queen, ostracized because necromancy and not good around people. Older sibling? Not killed because royalty and royalty gets away with everything. Doesn’t actually want the throne but got pushed into it by other outcasts of society that successfully escaped the purge. Very similar to how protagonist is being pushed along in her life, and now here, where everyone thinks she’s a prophet because she knows people’s names and the story. It’s her story, except the evil dictator isn’t how she imagined at all.

Big battle setup but it gets stabbed with a needle and deflates because protagonist refuses to join the prophesied fight and takes the reigns of fate. Little fuzzy here.

Okay, so that’s it for the rambling. Now I got to take all of that mess and synthesize it into a single sentence that conveys the gist of the story. Let’s start.

Summary: A young woman escapes her home life to a fantasy world of her own creation.

I thought about trying to write out the thought process behind getting here, but honestly this is something I worked out a bit ago because I’ve been playing with the idea of writing via the Snowflake Method for awhile now. But I can still share why I chose this particular summary and not something that tells more of the fantasy world itself. 

The idea behind the story is that it is about the protagonist learning about herself and coming to terms with the strife she feels between what she needs to do and wants to do. It’s about finding a balance and not letting herself be brainwashed. It’s why the fantasy world so strongly feels like the ballooning of her real-world problems. It’s basically what she’s done to cope. So I wanted to focus my paltry 15 words on her escaping her home life over anything else.

On to step two! Please stop and give this post a like if you read it all the way through! I’d really appreciate it.