by Dave Haslett
Question brainstorming
Question brainstorming is a relatively new technique that’s rapidly gaining favour with everyone from writers to company directors – and everyone else who needs to come up with great ideas quickly.
A typical question brainstorming session produces twice as many ideas as the more traditional brainstorming techniques we’ve already looked at.
Traditional brainstorming has its place, as it forces you to think about the problem from angles you might not have considered before. But its main drawback is that you have to come up with the answers – or things that might become answers – in the session itself. That slows things down. You’ll also reject lots of ideas before they leave your head, especially if they seem wrong or outrageous. It’s even worse if you’re brainstorming with other people: you’ll prejudge and dismiss these ideas, and not put them forward for further consideration.
But these off-the-wall ideas are sometimes the most innovative and ground-breaking ones. They could have a massive impact on the success of your book. The problem is it takes a lot of willpower to write down something you think is “stupid” – even if no one else will ever see it.
So let’s try question brainstorming instead. You just need to think of as many questions as you can about the idea or subject under consideration. You don’t need to worry about what the answers might be, or think through the problem and come up with solutions, or worry about how stupid your ideas might be. As a result, the whole process speeds up. You’ll come up with a lot more questions in the time available, they’ll be less inhibited, and all those off-the-wall ideas will make it onto your list.
You’ll probably come up with questions for which there are no answers, or where the answers are currently unknown. If you write fiction, that might prompt you to devise your own solution – and perhaps earn praise for your vision and insight. If you write non-fiction it might prompt you to come up with a new approach that hasn’t been tried before. The possibilities are endless.
When you review your list of questions, you just have to decide which ones are the best. You don’t need to think about what the answers might be at this stage. That’s a job for later.
Mind Maps
Mind Maps let you see your entire knowledge of a story or subject – and often a lot more – laid out in front of you. This makes it easy to check you’ve covered everything and haven’t missed anything out. You can also see how the different topics fit together.
Mind Maps are fantastic things for generating ideas too. You could easily come up with over a hundred ideas in just a few minutes.
I create my Mind Maps electronically, but let’s start by looking at the traditional method, as it’s easier to see how it works.
You’ll need a large sheet of paper and some coloured pens or pencils. In the centre of the page, draw a small picture that represents your subject or key idea. Use several colours, as this will stimulate your brain to produce more ideas.
Next, think about the main concepts that relate to this idea. These will be the chapters, topics, key points, or major scenes and events in your book. Add these to your Mind Map as you think of them, forming a ring around your central idea. Some people like to draw a box around each item, but I prefer to draw boxes around groups of items that belong together.
The human brain prefers to work visually, so it’s best to draw pictures, icons or doodles of the ideas, objects or concepts as you add them, rather than just writing the words. Colour in each picture, and draw lines to link it to other items where you can see a connection. Use different coloured lines to show the different types of connection. This will help your brain to generate more ideas.
You’ll probably find that when you start adding drawings and colours to your Mind Maps, you’ll need to use much larger pieces of paper – or several of them taped together – because you’ll have so many more ideas.
If you’re planning on creating lots of Mind Maps on paper, try using rolls of cheap lining paper. You’ll find them in the wallpaper section of your local DIY store.
Now consider each item in turn, as if it was at the centre of its own Mind Map, and add more items to surround it. And then consider each of those items and surround those too. Keep expanding outwards as far as you can, adding more ideas, related subjects, thoughts, concepts, properties, and so on. Draw lines between them to show how they’re connected. Some of the branches will end up being longer or shorter than others, but that’s to be expected.
As you start to see how the subject is organised and how things are connected, you’ll gain a better understanding of it. And that in turn should lead to even more ideas.
When you’ve expanded each item as far as you can take it, and drawn lines to show the connections, and drawn boxes around groups of related items, your Mind Map is complete. You now have a pictorial summary of everything you know about that subject or story.
Producing a good Mind Map takes time – allow at least a day – but it’s worth the effort because of the number of ideas and connections it generates. How long would it have taken you otherwise?
It will also look rather impressive on your wall!
Electronic Mind Maps have several advantages over paper:
The page is infinite in size.
You can add branches as far as you like in any direction.
You can collapse or expand branches to get a better view of what’s going on.
You can move branches around, or drag items from one branch to another if you change your mind about where they belong.
As you add new branches, the existing ones move to make space for them, so your Mind Map always looks neat and organised.
You can choose from the hundreds of images supplied with the software. Or you can use your own, or import them from imagesharing websites, stock photo libraries, Google Image Search, and other places, rather than having to draw them yourself.
You can link items to other things, including documents, spreadsheets, charts, photos and websites.
When your Mind Map is complete, you can export it as an outline and work on it in your word processor.
Mind Mapping programs and apps are readily available. Search online for “mind mapping software”.
You can also use Mind Maps for learning, note-taking, revising, remembering things, and more. For more information, see The Mind Map Book by Tony & Barry Buzan.
Clustering
Clustering is similar to Mind Mapping, but it uses word-association techniques. Psychologists often use the same methods: he says “black”, you say “white”; he says “wicked”, you say “witch”; and so on.
As you add each item, think about how it connects to the previous one and what would come next in the chain. Add the next item and write the connecting factor on the line that joins them. If several items come to mind, add all of them.
As with Mind Maps, you can draw lines between items on other branches, creating a web of links. Keep extending your cluster for as long as you like. You’re more likely to run out of time and paper than ideas.
You can use Mind Mapping software to create clusters as well – then you won’t run out of paper!
The main advantage of using clustering rather than Mind Maps is that the ideas come faster and easier. The main disadvantage is that the result is less organised; you’ll have to reject more ideas at the evaluation stage.
You could try combining Mind Maps and clusters, especially if you run out of ideas while you’re creating your Mind Map. It might send you off in a whole new direction that you hadn’t considered.
Keywording
What if you aren’t sure which word to put at the centre of your Mind Map or cluster, or your word is so uninspiring that you can’t get started? There are a couple of simple approaches here.
The first is to take your initial list of words and look them up in a thesaurus. Write down all the relevant words that appeal to you. This should give you a more inspiring set of words and you should find that ideas start popping i
nto your head immediately.
The most popular word processors have a built-in thesaurus. Right-click on any word in your document and choose Synonyms to see a list of alternatives. Or you could try an online thesaurus such as thesaurus.com or Power Thesaurus.
The second approach is to use one of the keyword generators we looked at in the previous chapter. Again, you should find that they produce a much more inspiring set of words and phrases, and you’ll be able to get started on your Mind Map or cluster.
Word webs
Word webs are similar to Mind Maps and clusters, but they’re better for generating ideas for fiction.
Write a word that represents your main idea in the centre of a large sheet of paper. Again, you could use Mind Mapping software for this. If you can’t think of any words, choose one that says something about you personally: creative, inspired, happy, busy, conscientious, bored, brain-dead, tired, drunk.
Draw six spokes radiating out from the central word to the edge of the page. Then, without thinking too hard, quickly come up with six more words that you associate with the word in the centre. Put one on each spoke, close to the central one. Then pick one of the spokes and follow it to the edge of the page, adding words that are associated with the previous one, as in the clustering idea we looked at above.
For example, if the central word is conscientious and the first word on a particular spoke is careful, you might end up with: conscientious, careful, safety, pin, needle, sewing, craftwork, hobby, amateur.
Do the same for the other spokes.
Then let your eyes wander over the page picking out words, or groups of words, or phrases, and see what happens. You’ll probably find strange combinations that you’d never have come up with any other way.
As with the other techniques we’ve looked at, draw lines to link the words, and use circles and boxes to group them together so you can remember particular combinations.
The critical review
The next stage is to evaluate the list of ideas you’ve come up with. Read through the whole list first before you start deciding whether to accept or delete anything.
Do some of the ideas fit together? Can you see connections between them? If so, draw lines to connect them or draw circles or boxes around them to show they belong together.
If you created a Mind Map, cluster or word web, you’ll have done this already.
Now consider each item on your list and decide whether to keep it or reject it. You might find it helpful to score it against a set of criteria, such as relevance, interest, plausibility, excitement, feasibility, and so on.
If you decide to reject an item, think back to the brainstorming session where you came up with it. See if you can remember the thought process behind it. If you still think it’s stupid or not relevant, delete it.
You should be left with a list of your core knowledge about the story or subject, plus a few additional ideas that will make your book stand out from similar ones. You might also have a vague idea of how your finished book might look.
There will almost certainly be some gaps in your knowledge. Your list might reveal how little you know about some of the topics. Fortunately, research is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing a book. We’ll look at the fastest ways of doing it in the next chapter.
Keyword review
Another way of evaluating the items on your list is to underline all the keywords. These will become the chapters and major topic headings (or key plot points) in your book. Keep everything on your list that’s directly connected or related to these words. Everything else can be considered for deletion – but do consider them first, don’t just throw them away.
What you don’t know
The final step is to compile a list of all the gaps you’ve come across. These might be gaps in your knowledge; gaps in your outline or storyline; or ideas, topics or concepts that you think are missing.
We’ll fill in some of these gaps in the next chapter, and we’ll fill in the rest during the planning and outlining stages that follow.
The next step
It’s time to do some research – the fast way.
6. Research
Traditionally, writers have been encouraged to gain as much knowledge as they can about the subjects they write about. Typically, they learn far more about each subject than they’re able to include in their books. Having such an in-depth knowledge of their subject enables them to write about it with authority – or so the theory goes. The trouble is, most of what they learn doesn’t make it into their books.
We’ll be taking the opposite approach here. We can’t afford to spend time researching material we won’t ever use. So we’ll work out exactly what we need to know, and only research that.
We’ll also look at several techniques you can use to gather the material you need quickly and painlessly. You’ll gather more than enough to be able to write about the subject with authority, and your readers will feel confident that you’re an expert on it.
At the end of the previous chapter, I asked you to make a list of the gaps you came across as you worked towards creating an outline for your book. We’re now going to work through that list as quickly as possible. Over the next few pages you’ll find research techniques and information sources that should cover everything you need.
Even though you’ll be carrying out your research quickly, there’s no excuse for skimping on accuracy. You must ensure that every fact you include in your book is accurate. Cross-check everything, otherwise it will come back to bite you later and you’ll wish you’d done it properly.
Don’t guess.
Don’t assume.
Don’t make it up – unless you’re writing fiction that isn’t based on reality.
Don’t rely on a source you don’t trust.
Better note-taking
Fast note-taking doesn’t mean jotting down a word and hoping you’ll remember what it means. You probably won’t remember.
Let’s say you’ve just come across some of your old notes and found the word “doors” written there. It might even be triple-underlined and circled multiple times. You obviously thought doors were super important at the time. But what the heck does it mean to you now, weeks, months or perhaps even years later? It probably doesn’t mean anything.
But if you’d written “door colour reflects owner’s personality” or “every closed door hides a mystery” you’d know exactly what it meant.
Always make sure the meaning is clear.
Do the absolute minimum
If you want to write books quickly, it’s important not to over-research them. Decide exactly what information you need to tell your readers, and how much of it you already know. Fill any gaps in your knowledge by reading, talking to friends and experts, and using the other techniques listed here.
Page after page of facts, descriptions and background information is boring, especially in fiction. In fact, many readers will just skip it. If you don’t need it, and it isn’t essential to the story, don’t bother writing it. (And, obviously, don’t bother researching it.)
If you really must pack tons of information into your novel, weave it into the action and dialogue a bit at a time, in such a way that your readers don’t get bored.
Look at the list of gaps you identified after working through the previous chapter. The next step is to turn those gaps into a simple list of questions that need straightforward answers. Then, as soon as you’ve found out the answers, stop researching and get on with writing your book.
If you come across anything new or especially interesting during your research, and it isn’t on your list of questions, make a note of what it is and where you found it. Go back and read it properly later for your own interest. Or, even better, save it for your next book. After all, if you’re planning to write a book every month, you’ll need a heck of a lot of good material. If you’ve done some of the research already, the new material can be maturing in your mind while you write your current book. And you’ll have a good
head start when you’re ready to begin working on the next one.
Extra-value research
Why not research two or more books at once? If they’re on similar subjects, or part of the same series, the information you need will probably come from the same sources anyway, so it makes sense to do this.
You’ll need to draw up a rough plan for each book first. Then use your favourite techniques from the previous chapter to organise your ideas, find the gaps in your knowledge, and turn those gaps into simple questions.
Once you’ve found the answers you need, store them with your notes for each book. You’ll then be ready to outline and write your next book as soon as you’ve finished the current one.
As long as you keep things organised, and maintain separate sets of notes for each book, this simple technique can save you a huge amount of time, effort and money.
Get involved with a website
Running a website, blog, or Facebook page or group is a fantastic way of immersing yourself in a subject.
You’ll soon get to know people’s likes, dislikes and preferences, the questions that come up most often, how much most people already know, and so on.
As your site becomes more widely known, people will come to you for information and advice. They’ll regard you as an expert, send you press releases and products to review, invite you to conferences and events, invite you to contribute to other publications, and ask to interview you – which helps with your publicity and marketing efforts.