You’ve heard of the Snowflake Method. Now for the Chainsaw Method. Let me take up the mantle of corny metaphor for a moment and compare writing a novel to cutting down a tree. This About.com article provides the steps to chainsawing a tree, which is exactly like writing a novel, except that it’s not.
Have a clear fall path: You may not know all that will happen in the novel, but you should know where it will end up, or have a fairly good idea. The fall path for a novel should target a tight space, say, between an orphanage and a basket of kittens. In other words, the massive hulking whole must nearly crush but not destroy the story or its characters, and result in near-miss. At first, the fall path may appear clear, but as the chapters unfold, items begin to gather underneath the drop-zone and thus rising action takes place.
The Top Cut and the Bottom Cut Makes the Notch: A large bite out of the tree forms a notch. Suspense begins here. This may be the end of Act I in a sense, because the novel has a large gaping wound in the side, and readers by now can see the branches moving and start to wonder when gravity will cave the trunk on itself. But this is an illusion, as our lumberjack shows us – many cuts are still to come to bring this great plant to ground. Once the notch reveals itself to the reader, the main characters or the main plots should have a nice conflict going. Moreover, these two converging characters or plots (the “Top Cut” and the “Bottom Cut”) should extend from two radically opposed worldviews, such that the conflict is natural and opposing, if not altogether spiteful and nasty.
Try for a One Piece Slice: Make the meeting between the plots fit together. There should be a silence in the air, and the tree should wobble. Now is a good time to have some interesting minor characters lean against the tree, provoke the main characters, steal a few scenes, stoke the wind, and otherwise clutter the fall path with risk. Perhaps a baby carriage is now sitting directly in the fall path, or a bulldozer is unloading from a flatbed trailer and crawling toward the tree with its pusher.
Making a Back Cut, the Third and Final Cut: While the reader still observes the face cut, return to the story from the opposite side, and begin to notify them that the cause of the collapse is not coming from the expected angle, but from the rear.
The Falling Tree and a Felling Retreat: The growing slice on the backside of the tree should produce creaks and groans from the trunk as the inevitable collapse begins. However, the falling, like a tree, should start and stop, and start again, until it reaches a tipping point from which there is no return. The final process of falling should be swift and devastating, a near-miss of the orphanage and the kittens.
Image Attribution: About.com
Very nice metaphor for the task of plotting and writing.