How to Brainstorm Using the Bubble Method

[Sunny Irene Roth]

Hi ladies,

This information is part of your lesson for this week. However, for those of you who are not following the lessons or working on them, I am going to post that section on how to brainstorm using the Bubble Method. If you are not yet using it, please try it out.

Take care, and have a great week!
Irene Roth

Brainstorming With the Bubble Method

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The Bubble Method is sometimes called clustering and mind mapping. It is a brainstorming technique used by fiction and nonfiction writers. It’s a powerful tool if you want to discover the unexpected and to clarify thoughts.

The method works whether you’re brainstorming for interview questions, article topics, or to come up with ideas that you’re interested in writing about for a larger project, such as a travel book. The Bubble Method is a winner if you want to brainstorm titles. I sure hope you will use this method for your future writing endeavors. It is so easy yet so effective to generate new ideas.

Here are a few tips about how to use the Bubble Method to generate ideas for a travel article.

• Get a large piece of paper and crayons or colored marking pens. You may not use printer paper and writing pens. You need to THINK BIG.
• Print the topic of your article in the middle of a piece of paper. Draw a circle around the words. Add ten lines straight out from the circle or the first Bubble. You have made what looks like a child’s drawing of the sun with words in the center.
• Without censoring yourself in any way, write down ten subtopics that you believe are related to your main topic. Circle them too.
• Do not stop with seven or nine. You can brainstorm until you have ten or more topics if you wish. In fact, the more the merrier.
• Sit back and look at the fresh ideas the system produced. Read the ideas out loud.
• After you’ve looked over your second Bubbles, select those that seem to be sufficient to support an entire article. A simple topic might not be sufficient to propose for a 2,000-word article. However, it might be better in a 200-word article.
• Take each of the sub-Bubbles individually and Bubble again. This time around , you’re actually outlining your article and coming up with seven to ten topics. These will become the main points of your article. They may actually be the topics of the articles paragraphs.
• After you’ve made your bubbles and like the focus of the article, put the entire thing away for a day or so if you have time. Try not to consciously think about the Bubbles during this time; however, I promise your brain will be silently mulling up a lot of new and fresh slants and ideas.
• Let is cool down. After a day or two, and without looking at the previous Bubbles, go back and repeat the entire method.
• Finally compare the two. Then put the material in list form. You’ll have a map to take you to the completion of your article.