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Short Stories: October 28, 2015 Issue [#7297]

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Short Stories


 This week: Get Visual: Mindmaps
  Edited by: 🦄🏳️‍🌈Sapph Author IconMail Icon
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Table of Contents

1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions

About This Newsletter

The purpose of this newsletter is to share my personal thoughts and ideas of what can make (or break) a short story. In doing so, I hope to inspire new, creative stories and to help short story writers improve their craft.

Today's Topic
Get Visual: Mindmaps


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Letter from the editor

Welcome to part two of Getting Visual with Short Stories! This week I'm going to focus on another technique that isn't quite as visual as last week's storyboards but is a visual aid that can help you when writing a short story: Mindmaps. I've created these for various projects I've worked on in the past and think that these same ideas behind them would work well when you're coming up with a new story.

First, what is a mindmap? It is simply a giant "web" of words, ideas, or concepts that link together from a single starting word. This is great for a design project because you can go from any word that someone in marketing may give you and then spread it out to incorporate various topics and techniques that could relate to that word in the overall scheme of your project.

When doing this with a short story, you could do that with any number of parts of a story. A few that come to mind for me right away would be plot, location, or character. So what's the central theme of the plot? Is it murder, saving the world, trying to get out of bed? Take that idea and put it in the center of your mindmap, then write words around it that relate to that plot. Which of those could you include in your story to advance the plot, or which could you use to spice it up?

Here are a couple examples of mindmaps that I found online. As you can see, mindmaps can be really simple or they can get super complex but either way, they can help you spread those ideas out and build the world of your story around it, or even use it to create a character:



Try out creating a mindmap for your next short story and see how it helps you develop that concept even more. *Bigsmile*


Editor's Picks

 
From the ground up - lesson one mindmap1 Open in new Window. [E]
From the ground up - lesson one mindmap
by Fran 🌈🧜‍♀️ Author Icon


 
From the ground up - lesson one mindmap Open in new Window. [E]
From the ground up - lesson one mindmap
by Fran 🌈🧜‍♀️ Author Icon




 
Don't Forget to Turn Out the Lights Open in new Window. [13+]
A kindly old proprietor offers potential buyers a key piece of advice about a quaint B&B.
by SapphireDragonScales Author Icon


 Invalid Item Open in new Window. []

by A Guest Visitor


The Club Open in new Window. [18+]
An old club owner seeks new talent
by George R. Lasher Author Icon


 Invalid Item Open in new Window. []

by A Guest Visitor


 
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Ask & Answer

My question for you this time: Have you ever created a mindmap for a story before? Would you ever give it a try?


Question from before in ("Short Stories Newsletter (October 21, 2015)" Open in new Window.): Do you just jump right into writing your story or do you plan it out first? And how do you plan it?


Ash Author Icon replied: I think story boards are a great idea! I use them from time to time, and forget about them for awhile. When they rematerialize, they are something fun to look at. :)


Danger Mouse Author Icon replied: I always start at the beginning, usually with just one character a setting and a plot all running laps in my brain. I do make notes as I go along and often rectify the sequences later. The actual writing is what makes my brain work. Planning is too confined. I have to let that cowboy ride.


ladeecaid replied: This reminds me of my Civics/Economics class in high school. That had to be the most boring class in my whole school experience. I paid so little attention that I was dangerously close to not graduating. I had to cram in order to get an "A" on the finals. I am about three decades past that now, but I still remember one thing: the stick figures and furniture I drew to remember how a bill was passed.



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