This leads to a new bubble under setting, plot, and even timeline. Let’s say your main character decides to take a solo vacation to think things through. Now you can start connecting these parts together. What you’ll end up with is a huge picture of these four important parts to any novel. Repeat For Your Other Topicsįill in all the details you can think of for setting, plot, and timeline. Hopefully you can see how a mind map can help you generate ideas spontaneously and creatively.

You’ll also have some thoughts about the setting, like the main character’s place of business, etc. As you fill in ideas about your characters, you’ll generate ideas about your plot and maybe some scenes. So you can expand virtually in any direction and connect ideas together. I can connect other characters to her such as friends or business associates. Notice there are endless connections to make. It took me less than 10 minutes to crank out these character traits and some of the conflicts going on between characters. Do you work on characters or do you try to nail down your plot’s big idea? Whichever way you choose, start brainstorming from the corresponding topic. Where you go from here is a personal style preference. Here’s how I might start my mind map to get the big picture pieces in place. Let’s say I have a story idea about an older woman who's unhappy with life choices she made. Here’s what mine looks like after giving them my name and email address (click to expand): It’s simple and easy to sign up for a free account. You can access your MindMeister account from anywhere, anytime as long as you have an internet connection. I chose MindMeister because it's got great ratings, it’s free, and more importantly, it’s online, so there’s no downloading software or apps. It’s also a great tool for generating new ideas, like scenes for your story or contrasting character traits. With a mind map in front of you, ideas will spark and you’ll see connections where you hadn’t before. If you’re trying to outline a novel (left-brained) and it’s just getting messy, consider trying a mind map first to let the ideas flow naturally. Mind maps help you capture your creativity in a right-brained manner, by graphically displaying the connections between ideas. There’s More Functionality-If You Buy a Planīrainstorming is a huge part of preparing for any writing project.Using MindMeister to Roadmap Your Novel.

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