I first came across this while reading up on writing techniques and found it fit nicely with what I called my ‘Cards’ method.
Read about the snowflake method here : The Snowflake Method
The ‘Cards’ approach was simple.
- Write a summary of your story on a 5×3 lined card
- Take 3 new cards and break that summary into a beginning, middle and end.
- Throw away the original card
- Take the first card and split that
- ……… repeat as needed
This led to the first tool I built to do this electronically – can it can still be found in the wavemaker software as the snowflake tool

Hello there: I have a suggestion for the Snowflake tool. I understand the method used, but it could be best if instead of throwing away the “mother” card, we could only hide it. During the development of the idea of the novel, there could be situations in which you have to think better an idea… and it involves to do changes in “mother” or even in “grandmother” cards.
Thanks for your attention and keep the astounding work!
I agree with the other comment. You are supposed to keep your initial card, so that it can guide your further writing, and so that you can go back and revise it. Even the post linked to from this page says that too. Would be super useful if we could keep all the cards.