True or false: We writers tend to have messy minds.
My creative thoughts often feel like two five-year-old kids, in a room filled with ping-pong balls and after eating only Captain Crunch and candy bars. Yep, my ideas are all over the place.
That’s a good thing, right? With ideas crashing around in the brain, it easy to feel overloaded, frustrated and even blocked.
Enter the bubble method. Known as mind mapping and webbing, it helps shape and tame ideas while zeroing in on creative content perhaps barely explored.
Recently I’ve been told about a few writing gurus who insist they invented the method, but actually Leonardo da Vinci who first documented brainstorming in this way…or the first one I could find who left samples. Check out “Leonardo da Vinci and mind mapping” on google and you’ll see some of the images.
Full disclosure: If you’re a logical and analytical writer, or a more instinctive writer, you may find the tool weird, awkward or even useless. Hey, that’s okay. You probably have a method you’ve worked with that you like better.
For the rest of us? It’s a gem. Obviously, the first few times can feel awkward, yet more you use it, like any tool, the more comfortable and creative it’ll become.
The following is an example for using the bubble method to brainstorm a nonfiction book. If you’re brainstorming for another genre, sketching characters, working on a novel’s plot line, just substitute the creative focus.
- Get a large piece of newsprint paper and crayons or colored marking pens. You may not use typing paper and pens. You need to think BIG. Walmart, Michaels, Hobby Lobby and office supply stores should have tablets of big newsprint paper.
- Print (don’t use cursive) the topic of your book in the middle of the paper. The reason to print is to slow your creative thinking or so brain scientists tell me. When printing, both hemispheres of the brain work together.
- Draw a circle around the words. Add 10 lines straight out from the circle, or the first bubble. You have made what looks like a child’s drawing of the sun with a word in the center.
- Without censoring yourself, print 10 subtopics that are somehow related to your main topic. Circle them too. That’s it. Simple and powerful. (Don’t stop with seven or nine ideas. You must brainstorm until you have 10 topics or more.)
- Sit back and look at the fresh ideas the system has produced.
- After you’ve looked over your second bubbles, select those that seem sufficient to support an entire chapter of a book. You’ll probably come up with seven to nine. Maybe you’ve made 15 bubbles and 12 are “keepers.” If you can’t comfortably include seven, return to step 1, or consider doing some more research to learn about your proposed topic.
- Take each of the sub-bubbles individually, and bubble again. With this “go around,” you’re actually outlining your chapters and will come up with seven to 10 main topics for each chapter.
- If necessary, and so you’re comfortable beginning the writing process from this outline method, “bubble down” further and outline sub-sub-bubbles.
- After you’ve bubbled and feel comfortable with the focus of the book, put the entire thing away for a day or so. Try not to consciously think about the bubbles during this time, and I promise your brain will be silently mulling up massive loads of creativity.
- A few days later, without looking at the previous bubbles, repeat the entire method.
- Finally, compare the two. Then, put the material in a list form. You’ll have a map that will take you to the completion of your book.
The system is easy and addictive. I use it often. I used it when brainstorming for the blog you’re reading, when changing up furniture and colors in our dining room and when I was working out where to go on vacation.
Now, bubble away and have fun. There’s nothing wrong with bubbles, right?©Eva Shaw, Ph.D., www.evashaw.com, 2019
I use the bubble method as à 2nd step. I start to think about what i want to say. After 2 or 3 paragraphs i stop and start to map thé entire story.
I have not heard of this technique until now and it sounds intriguing. It makes so much sense to me, and I can’t wait to give it a try.
It’s a bit weird at first, but once you get the hang of it, the creative possibilities are endless. I recently gave our dining room a “make over” and did it with the bubble method first. Very happy with the results from paint to cushions to new area rug. Yes, of course, it works for writing.
Hello, Eva
I’ve just had my first look at your blog after discovering that you are the instructor for a course that might be of interest to me. I’m speaking about the Writeriffic: Creativity Training for Writers that is offered by GALE Courses online.
I have often been told that I am “a very good writer,” and sometimes wonder if I should pursue it more professionally. I was an ESL teacher for over 15 years and have always been very particular about using grammar and vocabulary in an efficient and accurate manner. My intermediate students were often ‘guilty’ of making relatively careless mistakes with language points that were way below their level of expertise, so I would ask them, “Did you proof-read your writing at all once you’d finished it and before handing it in?” In the beginning, I was surprised at how many would answer “No,” as if the thought had never occurred to them!
Here’s my question, and I ask with all due respect, of course. In your post about The Bubble Method for writing, I found a few missing words and/or grammatical errors. I am quite sure that the majority of readers would skim over these without noticing or worrying too much. However, as someone who is actively researching potential mentors in the field of writing, I find myself feeling a mixture of surprise and disappointment when I encounter errors that could be very easily corrected. At the very worst, I have to ask myself, “What do these errors say about the writer and/or publisher of this material?” Obviously, your credentials speak for themselves, but it’s these same credentials that make me wonder how something like this could be allowed to happen. Maybe it sounds as if I am making too big of a deal about a few small errors, but if I were to expect near-perfect usage of English from anyone, it would be professional writers!
Thank you for your time and understanding
Chris De Ville
This sounds like ordinary mind-mapping, just with rings around your points. What I was looking for when I found this site was described (in one of a dozen books I was sorting through last night and attributed by the author to a magazine article she couldn’t remember the byline of) as “bubbles” of ideas that were linked AFTER creation into an organization for your book.