17 January 2005
Mind map
Start with a circle in the centre of your page. Call it, for example, City. Once you have done that, draw more circles, connected with lines to the centre circle. In those circles add details - the size of the place, the industries, history, populations.
Then make connections between these circles and draw them in - the smart houses that used to be working class; the popular school; the narrow shopping lanes and the larger mall; the museum.
As you do this, start to think about the people who live in these places.
Think about their lives and, as you build a completer picture of them, the connections between them.
Here's a prose version of a mind map created in a recent creative writing class:
The city is a rather bleak place on North Sea coast of England. It numbers 50,000 inhabitants, about 17,000 homes. It was first settled in Roman times or earlier and its architecture is a mish-mash of styles, including contemporary.
In WWII the port was used by the Royal Navy and it and the city as a whole were bombed. The port today successfully serves North Sea oil facilities but most of the fishing fleet is now redundant. There are WWII bunkers on some of the beaches and part of the seafront occupied by fishermen's cottages has been gentrified.
Above the town but still on the coast is a hill with a cliff overlooking the sea. There is a lighthouse on this hill and a few other dwellings.
In addition to serving North Sea oil, the town provides a dormitory for commuters who work in the regional centre twenty miles away, along the straight old Roman road. There is a small airfield – ex-RAF – used by the oil industry and by two small tourist carriers as well.
In the centre of the city is a cathedral, rebuilt after war damage. There is an excellent museum with many historical artefacts. On the outskirts of the city is a very new shopping mall called the Temple, in memory of the Roman building once found on the site.
Derek Agnew, 45, has been Conservative mayor for 3 years. He lives at Willows, 5 The Grange, a five-bed roomed faux-Georgian house in a residential suburb near the golf course. He frequents a pub called the 19th Hole. He attends a creative writing class. He is married to Jessica, 30, ex gala queen of the city. They have three children, one of whom might not be his. Jessica has a brother, also called Derek, who owes a lot of money to bookmakers.
Constance Partington-Smythe is 62. Of independent means, Constance worked for years as a hobby librarian. She lives in one of the converted lighthouse keepers' apartments in a long low building attached to the lighthouse on top of the cliff. Her mother died when she was 10 and, from that time until 6 years ago, she lived with her father. When Constance was 56, however, her father fell in love and moved out of the lighthouse flat and into one of the chi-chi cottages by the port with his lady friend. Since he left, Constance has acquired a cat.
Maria Vitaliev works in an upmarket wine bar in the centre of the city. She used to be a property lawyer in Ukraine but became involved, in spite of her honesty, in a deal including Russian mafia figures. Her fiancé was murdered and she fled. She lives in a cheap bed-sit in an ugly part of the port. She is 35 and very beautiful.
Joe Agostini is 36. He inherited his father's pizza and ice cream parlour a few years ago when his father had to go into a home. He is 2nd generation Italian. His father was a PoW. His mother died of cancer before Joe left school. He lives in the flat above the restaurant. His father is still alive and fairly vigorous, but he drinks too much.
Janice Xxx is 28, a high-flyer in the city's business community. She meets Joe for a date at the wine bar where Maria works.
The story needs a map, then it can outgrow its own boundaries.
Even the Labyrinth needs a map.
