Step two of the snowflake method is expanding the one sentence summary into a paragraph. According to this method, a good story has an introductory setting, 3 disasters and an ending. It was really hard for me to come up with this because I kept changing my mind. The more research I did, the more I changed things, although they weren't huge changes for the most part.
Update: This was actually the hardest step because I had to really think things through and plot (uh-huh pun intended) the course of the story. What were the big events? How did they work together? Why were the characters involved (this really helped with the next step, coming up with character synopses)? I had to throw out things that didn't work and make sense of it all. I think this is the most valuable step of the entire snowflake method.
The first outline I wrote up had good elves going bad, which I still think is a good idea, but it didn't stick.
Disaster #1: Dragon threatens village, is insane because of cursed magical item, band must find dragon and get the item off
Disaster #2: rogue elves are trying to kill copper dragons, band must fight elves which doesn’t go well until…
Disaster #3: Dragon-girl reveals herself as silver dragon to save band from elves, which freaks hero out and he leaves, the man who is hunting hero catches up with group and captures dragon-girl in order to lure in hero
Ending: Hero overcomes his personal insecurities as a man and faces the hunter in order to save the dragon-girl. The band decides to continue the quest to rescue the dragons because the dragon-girl’s clan is under attack next.
Then I started going crazy and I realized that this would make an awesome series of books. I haven't even written one book and I'm already planning a series. In the first book, the copper dragons are attacked, the silver dragons in the second and the gold dragons in the third.
Disaster 1: Copper dragon
Disaster 2: Silver dragon
Disaster 3: Gold Dragon
Ending: 4 dragons must band together, red dragons won’t join-Tobann is required to embrace his red dragon side and throw away his chance with the magical item that can turn him back into a normal person.
So here's the paragraph I came up with.
The second prince is jealous of his older brother’s birthright and plans to take over the kingdom by killing the good dragons and thereby gaining the support of the evil red dragons. To begin his plan, he craftily has a group of rogue elves slip a cursed magical bracer into the lairs of the copper dragons. This bracer drives the copper dragons insane and the hope is the local humans will kill the dragons. One copper dragon flies into the village of Aonorach demanding the humans restore his gold hord which he believes they have stolen. He grabs a local villager and takes off with her, threatening the village that he will continue to kill villagers until he has his gold.
Then I realized this was more of an introduction and I tried listing it out again, especially now that I had some ideas of the background of the story.
1. Prince is jealous, wants to take over kingdom
2. Copper dragon is driven insane with cursed magical bracer and village hire a band of dragon killers to kill it.
3. After removing the bracer, the band hunt down the Drow elves who snuck the bracer into the dragon’s lair-Airgid must turn herself into a dragon to keep band from getting killed, Tobann leaves because of this
4. The Drow priestess hunting the hero catches the band and holds the heroine hostage to lure the hero back.
5. The hero saves the girl and the band continues the quest to save the other metallic dragons after finding out that the dragon-girl’s clan is next.
Hmm, better, but it still didn't seem to work. I tried writing an outline for the series so that I could get a better idea...
There is an evil wizard who is trying to take over the world.
He wants to use the red dragons to do this
In order to get the red dragons cooperation, he has to appeal to their greed and their cowardice
He offers them the chance to be the only breed of dragon left alive if they help him take over the world-and of course they get to take all the treasure they want
He will kill off the copper, gold and silver dragons
He tries to kill the copper first because of their cleverness and because there are more of them than the gold and silver, which are rare
The wizard wants to kill the dragons without implicating himself because he is the prince-the second son of the king of the realm-and a cleric as second sons always are
Okay, I think I've got it! Here's my paragraph (in outline form) for the story for book one.
1. A small farming town along the Dragonsjaw Mountains has a problem with a dragon.
2. Copper dragon is driven insane with cursed magical bracer and village hire a band of dragon killers to kill it.
3. After removing the bracer, the band hunt down the Drow elves who snuck the bracer into the dragon’s lair-Airgid (the girl the copper dragon took in the village, who is actually a silver dragon) must turn herself into a dragon to keep band from getting killed, Tobann leaves because this freaks him out
4. One of the drow in the town is the priestess who experimented on Tobann when he was a Drow slave. She wants her slave back. The Drow priestess hunting the hero catches the band and holds the heroine hostage to lure the hero back.
5. The hero saves the girl and the band continues the quest to save the other metallic dragons after finding out that the dragon-girl’s clan is next.
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