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Rectangular memories

The concept of mind mapping may have evolved from the mathematical spider diagram, but, not being a mathematician, I wouldn’t know about that. What I do know is that by placing a single concept, in the shape of a word, phrase, or image, in the centre of a piece of paper, and using word representations, associations and memories to expand outwards, answers fall into place.

This technique prevents you from losing those tiny peripheral thoughts that may be the nub of creativity, and encourages new ideas to drop from the muses.

I use a mind map at the start of each new story I write. I’ve also used it to help poems along. I start by drawing a circle in the centre of my paper. Inside it I put an image, phrase or word, something core to my initial idea. Alternatively a random word or image can produce quite amazing results.

From this core, I draw a few short lines ending with smaller circles. Using word association, and by allowing my mind to wander in any direction, I fill each circle with a new word. Major ideas often come first, so those are connected directly to the centre, but other ideas branch out, and they can go off on any tangent at all.

One of my students, wrote this in her first Reflective Commentary:

I struggled with Project 4 where I had to describe objects and scenes using only their visual qualities, because I found it hard to let go of their functions. I was trying to describe the row of flats I could see from my window, but all I could seem to come up with was the word ‘rectangle’. I used the OCA forum to ask for help and Barbara Henderson advised me to try word-associating using a mind-map. She suggested being creative with sensory details by linking them to memories.

Soon I had filled a whole page with a mind-map of rectangles. I noted all the rectangles I could see whilst on a walk, and any further associations that came to mind.  I used my ‘rectangle research’ to create an abstract poem, listing objects that reminded me of rectangles, and finally redrafted, adding a memory to each association.  Who knew I could be so inspired by the humble rectangle?

I was delighted by Katie’s methods. Firstly, she used the Student Forum because she had a problem. This is always a good idea. There will no doubt be a writer on the forum, be it student or tutor, who has some sort of answer to any question you care to raise. There are few rules to writing, none of them fixed in the stars. Experimentation is how previous writers have pushed their own boundaries, and from there, the boundaries of literature. So my advice is to at least try out everything suggested. Katie tried out Barbara’s ideas, using a mind map in such a way that the result was this refreshingly different poem.

“Rectangular Memories” by Katie Probert

We played Giant Jenga at cousin’s Jen’s wedding,

stacking towers that teetered and toppled.

My father hung picture frames perfectly straight above the sofa,

on which he sat to puzzle over crosswords and sudoku.

The right angles and margined pages of my maths class.

The pencil case, bulging with rulers and set squares.

Glossy magazines on Dr. Langley’s waiting room table,

lurk like dark mirrors distorting the world.

I played along on my guitar to Crosstown Traffic

as taut metal strings cut into my calloused fingertips

Katherine Jasven
Why not take a leaf out of Katie’s book and try out a mind map the next time an exercise or assignment stalls your writing? Here are some tips to get going:

  • Take a plain piece of paper – A4 on its side (landscape) is fine, but preferably use something bigger, a page from a sketchbook or the back of a piece of wallpaper
  • You’ll need a sharp pencil and a pack of felt tip pens
  • Draw a circle at the centre in pencil
  • Within it write your crucial word. It could be:
  • an abstract word (see Part Four Writing Skills Project 4, Exercise One)
  • a drawing, or small image you’ve cut from somewhere (See Part Two Writing Skills Project 1 Exercise 1)
  • the name of a character you want to develop (see Part Two Writing Skills, Project 6)
  • A random word or phrase plucked from any book or newspaper (see Part Six Writing Skills, Project 1 Exercise 1)
  • Or any other thing you wish – e.g. the working title of a story
  • Join five or six pencil circles to the centre and allow you mind to go blank
  • Inside each one, you can write the first thing that comes into your mind
  • Now draw another row of circles and find associations with the previous words
  • keep going outwards – don’t worry if it starts to look chaotic
  • If you get stuck, return to the centre, or any previous circle, and bring another line-circle-word directly out from it
  • Have fun filling the mind-map
  • Put it away for a time.
  • When you return you your mind-map, first read it through. If any further ideas occur, add them in pencil
  • Now take your felt tip pens. Chose several colours and outline any word circles that seem to link effectively, using the same colour. It will be easier to spot the links again if they are colour-coded.
  • Try writing several single-coloured words from the mind-map on a new page and freewriting the thoughts that emerge, as a whole, from them.

From this work, you can create new plots, new themes, new characters, and perhaps most especially, the starts to new poems. You can also investigate ideas you already are brewing, as I do with my novels. Whatever turns up, it is never a waste, so save all your mind maps in your Commonplace Book.
They are the very essence of ‘rectangular memories’ and can be used time and again.
 
Image Credit: Kat Jasven, OCA student.


Posted by author: Nina

11 thoughts on “Rectangular memories

  • Thanks to Nina and Kate for this helpful reminder. I have tried what I call spider diagrams before, but not in such a developed manner. I’m stuck with Poetry 1, having completed parts 1 and 2. I can’t find time or inspiration. Ideas drop into my mind, but as soon as I try to write, I get snagged.I feel my ideas are too complex to distill into a comprehensible form. I’ll try this approach again.
    Alison

  • Hi Nina, I find mind mapping hugely useful. The mind maps that you in the example were done for an exercise we did early on in “Illustration 1”. This just demonstrates how wonderfully transferrable and useful this technique is in generating ideas across many creative fields, from poetry to illustration to textiles and so on. I feel quite privileged that you chose to use my mind maps as an example! : ) Thanks! Kat

  • Like Kat, I discovered spiderdiagrams on the Illustration course, and find them reallygood at triggering ideas. I used them on nearly every exercise from then on, including Book Design, and in fact when decisions have to made about other matters.

  • Hi Nina, I always use mind mapping before attemting any story but I call it ‘clustering’ which is the term used by the OU. I find it almost always stimulates enough ideas to get me freewriting and most of my stories/poems originate from this method. My current story in Writing for Children Assignment 3 was born out of clustering for the imposed title JOURNEY BY NIGHT.
    I never thought about using it for things like book design Dorothy but that’s a fantastic idea. Thank you..

  • Thanks Nina. I remember reading a book on mind maps years ago by Buzan and it seemed so incredibly complicated and you had to do this and NOT do that and I got all anxious about whether I was doing it right or wrong …. I like your method because I used to do something similarish but less organised whenever I needed to write an ad slogan. I can see how this would work!

  • Thanks, Nina, and other contributors. It’s always good to be reminded of processes that some of us may take for granted but may come as new ways into writing for others. It’s encouraging, too, to know that spider diagrams, as I’ve always called them,can be used in the visual arts as well as for writing.
    They are also useful for commentaries so you can use the same technique for your final reflective commentary, and your creative reading commentary. I use them when I’m writing a book review or an article on literature or teaching.

  • Oh! Oh! What a basket full of big juicy cherries landed on my lap I so truly say to,surprise and amaze!.This brain mapping,reminds me also in some ways, of therapeutic techniques exploring wounded troubled minds hurting. By Freudian or Carl Jungian techniques assessing,,measuring in some manner, feelings,,moods or,thoughts. And you do this by some controls, you, as the clinician, or nurse therapist, by using words , a whole list of them, designed to give a deeper cognitive understanding of the patient. It can also be applied, by Free-association word techniques; or by paintings; In management seminars(,N.H.S. training’s), we had Brain-storming,,Brain-pooling,Brain Probing in,solving specific problems. But this can be equally of benefit stimulating,creative thinking and imagery. I am convinced, now, some five years or so, later!,,that the whole of my Poetry course, was an unholy almighty brain storming tsunami! The worst part of it was I did not even have time to refine it,control it, nor reshape it, or in-deed follow what I,, as a student was asked to do. But strangely enough I madly enjoyed all of it! My trouble was and always has been…Time. I am convinced that when my creator calls, I shall miss my own funeral. .The whole poetry course, was a catharsis of a sort came straight from my gut and brain and out it went to my then Tutor of our O.C.A. It took Nina’s Blog yet again,, to fetch this out of me, Very refreshing article worth exploring and practiced, especially when you are trying very hard fighting writer’s block. I do have time now, just a short 5 minutes,, as I am brooding over my 5th,Have now finished my 4th. at long last! Special thanks to Liz for her enormous insight and encouragement. Thank you Nina.for this juicy, basket full of cherries,,.in-verbal English. Keep Blogging!, Dear Nina, and I shall keep-on reading getting, now and again some of the books you so kindly introduce.with your Book-Reviews. The time will be Summer; Sabbie is for Easter-times…God willing, and me hoping..Nicholas Nicholas::oca:.309678.

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