Whereas a lot of (more expensive) mind-mapping software have one central note from which you spider out from, Scapple is completely freeform, allowing you to have unconnected notes (or groups of notes) if you so wish.Īnd once you’ve completed your mind map you can import it into Scrivener, just by dragging notes across. You can even drag in images and external text files. Then you create connections by dragging one note on top of another. You simply double click on the screen and start writing your new note. What notes you make and how you connect them is entirely up to you. You can format the boxes, text and lines how you wish, and you can drag your notes around the screen without losing the connections you’ve made. At its most basic, Scapple will allow you to place notes on a screen and connect them with lines.
In many ways, it is a very simple software product but coming from the makers of Scrivener you know that simplicity doesn’t mean it isn’t versatile. But imagine you could do this with a software product instead, where you had an infinite-sized whiteboard or notebook and notes could be dragged around the screen, be they text, images or links. And as you progress, creating more notes and more connections with lines going all over the board or page, it will get to the stage where it becomes such a mess that you will feel the urge to wipe the board or tear out the page and start again. You might have a line coming from the character name to their description, another one relating to a plot point. Now you link these notes together with lines. Imagine you had a huge white board or sheet of paper on which to collect and collate your notes where you could link characters and plot points together, add notes about themes and make notes to yourself? You might ask yourself important questions such as “why is the character doing this?” or “what is the importance of this?” Or maybe note some physical characteristics: “Looks like a young Carrie Fisher”. So what is Mind-mapping? You may find you already unknowingly do it, but for the benefit of everyone, here are the basics. It is certainly not a tool for every project or one that suits the way every writer works, but it can be extremely useful in the planning stages of a story or novel.
But despite its misleading name, mind-mapping does have a place in the writer’s toolkit. You imagine the phrase being used alongside “mind palace” without the slightest hint of humour. It sounds like one of those words that belong to those aforementioned sorts of writers. It is for this reason that you might not have really looked seriously into the concept of mind-mapping. They will wave a hand in the air and talk about their muse and their energies with such upmost seriousness you will wonder if they are trying to be a writer or a wizard. If you have been writing for any length of time it is inevitable that you have come across those writers who treat the act of writing as if it is bound in the realms of magic and mysticism rather than just being a lot of hard work and a case of bashing out one word after another.
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