Day 05 – Make a Mindmap, Start Anywhere

I was never a fan of mindmapping until I had a tiny conceptual breakthrough not so long ago.

Breakthroughs can seem trivial when you look back on them, but who cares? Often it’s “the least of these” that unlocks the big doors.

This was my breakthrough: you can begin a serious, developmental mindmap with…anything:

a character – Bob a character aspect – Bob’s anger a scene – the murder a setting – the beach a concept heading – war an idea – love is eternal…

Freewriting, of course, has long been my favorite tool for tapping the unconscious. Mindmapping is similar, but different in 2 ways:

(1) It’s visual. That never mattered much to me.

(2) It’s nimble. You don’t write as much. But you find yourself generating subtopics almost instantly. That ended up mattering a lot.

Let’s say your mind’s on Bob. Yes, you could begin with “Bob,” but try something more random: “summer heat.”

Let this start sprouting subtopics like, “football practice,” “fraternities,” “sex in a car,” “fear of dogs,” “the funeral,” any one of which you can “map” toward a fuller, richer textured Bob. and then “funerals” – and it all started with a single mind map idea at the center of the page. summer heat.

Today’s mini-task: create a mindmap that starts anywhere.

When you feel hemmed in by too many subtopics–or if a subtopic becomes overwhelmingly fruitful–just lay the first mindmap aside and start a new one, beginning with one of the subtopics as topic.

Spawn as many as you wish. 20 minutes. GO.

PS The quick and dirty way to mindmap is with paper and pen, but if you working things out on your screen, you can get a free, web-based mindmapping account at Mindmeister.com.

Note: You can access all previous mini-tasks at Write a Better Novel. Just mouse over the “15 Day Countdown to NaNoWriMo” navigation tab at the top right of any page.