Putting the Puzzles Pieces Together

Now that you have your beautiful brainstorm downloaded off your brain and into a Word/Google doc, we can get to organizing. I will say that there are several ways to organize story lines like constructing outlines, writing down main ideas on note cards or sticky notes, or forming a mind map. For the sake of this blog, I will focus on the later two methods.

Sticky Notes and Note Cards

Take the info from your brainstorm and put them on sticky notes or note cards. You can jot down simple phrases like a character’s name or dialogue sum ups. You could write down character traits or actions they take in the story. When you are done putting them on the stick notes, find a table or a wall or something that you can spread your sticky note/note card puzzle pieces on. Start organizing them in the order they will happen in the story. If the pieces don’t fit together, that’s okay. Just put the note near where you think it should be. There will be empty spaces between your sticky notes/note cards and that is normal. Take this time to problem solving until all the pieces are created and in place. By the time you are done, you will have a pretty good idea of what the story line will look like and you’ll be ready for outlining.

Mind mapping

Mind mapping is where you put the main idea in the center of the page and create sub ideas branching out from it. Mind maps can take on many appearances, so don’t be nervous if yours don't look like those you might find on Google or Pinterest. Make them work for you. You can do them on a piece of paper or on the computer. According to DMP, the following are good places to check out for mind mapping software tools (that may or may not be free). For more information on this, check out this website: Compare The 10 Best Mind Mapping Software Of 2020

1. MindMeister

2. Ayoa

3. Milanote

4. Miro

5. Microsoft Visio

6. SmartDraw

7. Lucidchart

8. Coggle

9. XMind

10. MindManager

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