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Feb. 6th, 2009
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Clustering
Feb. 6th, 2009 12:42 pmThis last month was the best writing month I ever had. It was so challenging and in more than one occasion I thought I would fail. But I succeeded, much to my own surprise, and learned so much about writing I can't even begin to describe.
I often complained about having a lazy muse. The plot bunnies aren't so lazy, but all they do is give ideas to the lazy muse that refuses to follow them to a logical conclusion. What to do then? Well, I gave myself a challenge because I know I can't refuse a challenge that I set for myself. I'm too much of a perfectionist to allow myself to fail. I have always liked writing drabbles. I discovered that they are my strength. I thought that if I perfected my own technique to write them, I would have some insight on writing longer fics. It worked.
The thing is that the epiphany only came in the very end of it. But at least it came. I found out that my greatest weakness is outlining the story and brainstorming ideas. I may have one good idea, but it doesn't multiply or go forward. It only stands still. Eventually the idea fades and I'm left with nothing but a beginning of a story that can't work. Once I found out what I needed to improve, I started working on it. When I worked on it by myself, it was a complete disaster. So, I went to Google.
The first page I visited had a list of several techniques to outline a plot and generate more ideas. Most of them were completely useless to me because I had already tried them in the past and had little results, but they offered some insight so I could continue researching. The second page was gold. It had a little power point presentation that sparkled me. It was such a silly thing to try that it made me feel utterly dumb and stupid for never having tried it. I had heard of it, but never payed any attention to it, thinking it was just another stupid idea. Anyway, the presentation is in this page. Just scroll down until you reach the bottom of the page. It also has a link to another page that was also very useful to me.
The part of that idea that got to me was that I know that I can't outline following a logical order. Still, I hate writing chunks and pieces out of order, especially without an outline. It was like a roadblock. The technique that ended this debate is called clustering. The theory is that the brain has two ways of processing information. You can use the left or the right side of the brain. With the left, you think linearly, one step at a time (what I was doing before). With the right side, you think in patterns, emotionally, you create connections and images, in a more complex way and the story suddenly flashes to your mind as a whole. That's what I wanted to achieve.
Basically, using clustering I can write any story of any length I want, out of thin air. And you can do as many clusterings as you want in the same story. Then I will use the logical side to organize the ideas and sequence the story. A combination of both.
( For those who don't know how the technique works and are too lazy to download the presentation in the site )
I often complained about having a lazy muse. The plot bunnies aren't so lazy, but all they do is give ideas to the lazy muse that refuses to follow them to a logical conclusion. What to do then? Well, I gave myself a challenge because I know I can't refuse a challenge that I set for myself. I'm too much of a perfectionist to allow myself to fail. I have always liked writing drabbles. I discovered that they are my strength. I thought that if I perfected my own technique to write them, I would have some insight on writing longer fics. It worked.
The thing is that the epiphany only came in the very end of it. But at least it came. I found out that my greatest weakness is outlining the story and brainstorming ideas. I may have one good idea, but it doesn't multiply or go forward. It only stands still. Eventually the idea fades and I'm left with nothing but a beginning of a story that can't work. Once I found out what I needed to improve, I started working on it. When I worked on it by myself, it was a complete disaster. So, I went to Google.
The first page I visited had a list of several techniques to outline a plot and generate more ideas. Most of them were completely useless to me because I had already tried them in the past and had little results, but they offered some insight so I could continue researching. The second page was gold. It had a little power point presentation that sparkled me. It was such a silly thing to try that it made me feel utterly dumb and stupid for never having tried it. I had heard of it, but never payed any attention to it, thinking it was just another stupid idea. Anyway, the presentation is in this page. Just scroll down until you reach the bottom of the page. It also has a link to another page that was also very useful to me.
The part of that idea that got to me was that I know that I can't outline following a logical order. Still, I hate writing chunks and pieces out of order, especially without an outline. It was like a roadblock. The technique that ended this debate is called clustering. The theory is that the brain has two ways of processing information. You can use the left or the right side of the brain. With the left, you think linearly, one step at a time (what I was doing before). With the right side, you think in patterns, emotionally, you create connections and images, in a more complex way and the story suddenly flashes to your mind as a whole. That's what I wanted to achieve.
Basically, using clustering I can write any story of any length I want, out of thin air. And you can do as many clusterings as you want in the same story. Then I will use the logical side to organize the ideas and sequence the story. A combination of both.
( For those who don't know how the technique works and are too lazy to download the presentation in the site )
