Snowflake Method

Thanks to Mary Danielson over at First Edition (awesome blog, by the way) I've discovered a new outlining process: The Snowflake Method.

See Mary's post here.

So far I'm really liking it. It's given me a lot more direction than my previous attempts at staying organized with numbers, letters, bullets, and questions that led me in circles (organization that was not very organized, let me tell ya.) It does get extremely tedious by step 4 (at least for me) and I pretty much gave up by Step 6. Even so, I've come away with a lot more from this process than I had before and there is always the option of tailoring the method to suit my attention span, which I plan to do.

Mainly, it's helped me drill down the seperate story lines I have going for each character. It also helped me realize I have too many minor characters being introduced that I don't know what to do with. I have five teenage foster kids living at the mansion (the main setting of my story) and I can't find a way to make them all pertinent to the story, so now I'm debating between two or three or if I even really need them at all. I think I do but I'm still weighing it out.

As fabulous as this all is, well, I've run across a problem that we all face as writers - I now have scenes that need rewriting. This seems so tedious to me since I've been appreciating every added character of my word count lately. Certainly I'm being being saved a lot of trouble in the long run and a lot of the story will probably end up rewritten anyways, but now I'm faced with a choice: Do I rewrite the scenes now or mark them for later and continue with my new train of thought?

It's really another question that relies heavily on habits and personal preference but I'm curious what other writers generally do. Do you leave a note and forge ahead or do sacrifice the time to stop and set the story straight again?

**Added** I just realized today is Wednesday! Wow. Gotta love these short weeks. The Weekly Wednesday Word Count is to follow!