Mind map

I love me a mind map. I make them constantly in notebooks, on my whiteboard, with my iPad. That stream of conscious flow from one idea to the next is so helpful for my brain.

And the visual element of a mind map is so helpful too!

I use them both when brainstorming broken story solutions as well as simply brainstorming my first drafts when I get stuck. Heck, I use them to write lessons like this one!

The beauty of a mind map is that you can write down all your ideas without concern for connection or order. Then, once everything is down, you can start arranging and looking for how things connect.

An example of a mind map from my brainstorming for Witchlight, showing circles with different scene ideas inside, then X's through ones I didn't like--followed by brainstorming in sentence form
An example of a mind map from my brainstorming for Witchlight, showing circles with different scene ideas inside, then X’s through ones I didn’t like–followed by brainstorming in sentence form