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July 12, 2010 By 2 Comments

Are you clustering?

I keep coming back to the power of clustering in this blog because I keep meeting people who once learned how to cluster and then never used it.

Part of an H0 scale model railroad layout
Image via Wikipedia

Our Creator did not provide our brain with an index. As a result, we usually don’t know what we know on any particular topic. “Do you know anything about electric trains?” “No. Well, wait–I had a Lionel set when I was 10. It had three tracks. I remember seeing some other kinds in my neighborhood hobby store–I think they were HO scale and NN scale. Oh, yeah, and…” 20 minutes later, you realize you do know something about electric trains. And given more time, you’d discover more.

Neuroscientists are making great strides in understanding how we remember stuff, but it is still mysterious in many ways. Without understanding how it all works, clustering gives us access to our knowledge so that we can make a list of what we know and don’t know about any topic.

This is useful at many phases of the book-writing process. You can cluster a title for your book; a subtitle; chapters; subchapters; and more. And before you talk to your book coach, you can cluster the topics you want to be sure to cover.

Cluster what to say in your presentation. What to tell people about on your web page. What you should pick up at the supermarket.

Clustering is a mining tool, to let you get at the riches you have stored in your mind. Gabriele Rico devotes an entire book to it:Writing the Natural Way. Highly recommended.

How do you cluster? Here’s a description from the blog of writer Dustin Wax.

Here’s the basic idea:
1.    Write a word in the middle of a sheet of paper.
2.    Circle it.
3.    Write down the first word or phrase that comes to mind and circle it.
4.    Draw a line connecting the second circle to the first.
5.    Repeat. As you write and circle new words and phrases, draw lines back to the last word, the central word, or other words that seem connected. Don’t worry about how they’re connected — the goal is to let your right-brain do its thing, which is to see patterns; later, the left-brain will take over and put the nature of those relationships into words.
6.    When you’ve filled the page, or just feel like you’ve done enough (a sign of what Rico calls a “felt-shift”), go back through what you’ve written down. Cross out words and phrases that seem irrelevant, and begin to impose some order by numbering individual bubbles or clusters. Here is where your right-brain is working in tandem with your left-brain, producing what is essentially an outline. At this point, you can either transfer your numbered clusters to a proper outline or simply begin writing in the order you’ve numbered the clusters.

Try it!

Filed Under: book love, book writing, inspiration, write a book Tagged With: , , ,

Comments

  1. Nicki Goff says:
    January 23, 2012 at 9:11 am

    Your mention of using clustering to write a grocery list was an aha moment for me – that’s exactly what I do. Now it makes sense to apply the same process to writing! Great article.

    Reply
    • admin says:
      January 23, 2012 at 9:50 am

      Thank you, Nicki! I’ve found clustering to be a great way to dredge my not-completely-conscious mind for stuff.

      DennisandNicki.com seems full of useful things, too!

      Reply

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