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The Quickest, Easiest Way To Organize Your Book

Struggling to get your book topics in order and create a chapter outline for your manuscript?  The easiest and quickest way to organize the structure of your book is… drum roll, please… CLUSTERING.

Clustering is a form of word-association or brainstorming.  You may know it as “mind-mapping”.  It is a technique that allows you to get information inside your head out onto a piece of paper so you can visualize your thoughts.  It is a powerful tool to in preparing to write and organize your book.

When clustering, you quickly write all the words and phrases you associate with a specific keyword or key-phrase.

Here is my NO-NONSENSE, SIMPLE METHOD FOR CLUSTERING:

1. Get a large, blank piece of paper (oversized construction paper works best).
2. In the center of the paper, print your book topic   Draw a circle around the keyword or phrase. (For example, if you are writing a book on the topic of marketing your business using the Internet, you might use the key-phrase: “Internet Marketing”).
3. Moving quickly, draw a dash-line from your key word and scribble down the first word or phrase that pops into your mind (for example, “social networking”). Circle the word or phrase.
4. Now draw a dash-line from that word and jot down the next word that comes to mind (for example, “Twitter”).
5. Repeat this process until you’ve run out of word associations.
6. Now, return to your keyword or key-phrase and repeat the exercise.
7. Continue clustering until have created 10 to 15 sub-topics, each with several sub-sub-topics.

They key is to move quickly through the process, without censoring yourself or thinking about what you are doing – just let the creativity flow.

When you’ve finished, put your cloud-cluster diagram aside.  Review it later and extrapolate the topics, sub-topics, and sub-sub-topics that will make up the content of your book.

Congratulations!  You have just created your CHAPTER OUTLINE.

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Posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 4:10 pm.
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    • About Me

        Laura Cross
    • I'm Laura Cross, your trusty tour guide through the non-fiction writing landscape. I am the owner of Scenario Writing Studio and have been a freelance writer, editor, and story analyst for more than sixteen years. I have researched, edited, and ghostwritten non-fiction books on various topics and worked as a script reader for production companies and literary agencies. I earned my certificate in Writing, as well as Feature Film Writing, from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Writer's Program. I divide my time between the Wild West (Santa Fe, NM) and the West Coast (Los Angeles, CA).
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