My Writing Process: Brainstorming

Whenever I write, I have found that I always need to write down all my thoughts and ideas before actually forming complete sentences. Although I am not exactly sure why this process is not called brain-spilling, rather than brainstorming, I am certain that it is essential for crafting an effective piece of writing. I like to sit down with a pen and a piece of paper with a heading of topic that I am looking to write about. I make a bulleted list of various words or phrases that I may want to include in my writing, in addition to any ideas that even relates to the topic.

As I was brainstorming for a paper about the realistic fiction, I frequently thought of books that I have read that are considered to be part of that genre. Naturally, I wrote the titles of these books on my brainstorming list. When it came time to write up my first draft, I decided it would be a good idea to include a few of these books in my paper to supply a few examples with summaries of books written in the realistic fiction genre. This is not a thought I had when I originally listed the titles while brainstorming, but it turned out to fit well in the rough draft. Quite often I find that the ideas that I believe I will not include in the writing but decide write down anyways end up becoming a special feature in my piece.

Once I have spilled out my ideas on paper, I frequently attempt to cluster them into common themes or categories. Depending on my mood, sometimes I will simply draw lines to connect the ideas, and other times I use different color highlighters to identify similar or related thoughts. Either way, my brainstorming list becomes a bit more organized when I web the ideas together. I prefer to cluster my thoughts right after I think my list is complete because I have found that I am better able to remember what I was thinking when I wrote what I did. 

Now that the brainstorming and clustering of the ideas is complete, this is where I like to take a break. I feel my best work is written when I give myself time in between the main steps of the writing process. If I do not have much time to wait before I must begin drafting, I give myself a break of at least ten minutes before I begin constructing my rough draft. The last thing a writer should do is rush the process; of course, unless procrastination won the battle!