Clustering (bubble mapping)
The technique to unlocking anything in your brain
Source: Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway, p.5-8
Burroway’s Sources: Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Rico
Best for: brainstorming, getting un-stuck, non-linear thinking
Flexible and powerful, clustering, or bubble-mapping, is the process of thinking on a piece of paper in ‘bubbles’ that you then connect together. Brains don’t always work in a linear way. Clustering allows you to get everything out and then make connections and put it together in a way that makes sense and is compelling.
Clustering is a way of quite literally making spatial and visual the organization of your thoughts. - Burroway
You start by writing the central idea, problem or scene name in the middle of a piece of paper and circle it.
Then, you write down everything that comes to mind in different spots around the paper. Images, dialogue bits, actions, abstract, concrete, everything. Don’t worry about how they fit. Just jot it down how and where it feels natural.
As different things feel important, you can circle those, draw lines and surround them with related ideas that spring up. Don’t censor, as Burroway emphasizes:
…it is crucial to keep going, without self-censoring and without worrying about whether you’re making sense. What you’re doing is making; sense will emerge.
Burroway suggests clustering for 2-3 minutes, then to “take a few seconds, no more, to look at what you have done. Then start writing.”
I feel that, if at any moment, things suddenly click and you can see the scene or the paragraph in your mind—jump off and start writing with that momentum. You don’t have to complete the bubble map if you get what you need halfway through.
This works for all kinds of writing, and equally well for discovery writers or outliners. Non-fiction, fiction, lecture-planning, journaling, brainstorming about a topic, figuring out character relationships, getting unstuck when you can’t figure out what should be happening next.
I, like Burroway, mostly thought of this as a high-school composition class technique. Sure, I used it, but did it really have a place outside of classroom essays?
Yes. Yes it does. I’ve used this technique over and over again. It speeds up my writing, clarifies my thoughts, and helps me organize. It’s gotten me un-stuck more times than I can count. I’m amazed at how when I try to think what I should write next I come up with a blank wall, but when I write down the central idea for what I vaguely have in mind, ideas pop up out of nowhere.
Note: You can do this digitally, but I find paper more effective. That said, you figure out you, and there are tons of great mind-map programs out there.
I hope this nugget helps you get through your next piece faster, smarter, and with more organic fun.
Bubbles! Bubbly bubble brain bubbles!