Maybe a balance of both? Save the computer generated one for when you are truly stuck or simply brainstorming? (As in your title.) I’d think even the computer generated one probably guides your spontaneous, internal pictures more than you’d think. Just looking at the one you posted brought other words to my mind immediately that aren’t even on there.
I think I’ve done this internally and didn’t even know it. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that in my manuscript, one of my characters is deaf, and I never set out with the intention of writing a deaf character. It’s more like he came to me that way and I couldn’t change it for anything, not even when I was stressing out about exactly how much I did NOT know about deafness. I was like a mom with a deaf child who had to learn everything from scratch. Anyway, it was kind of like you described–starting with a name, then branching out from there, which is pretty much what these word maps are.
Cool! I’ll definitely be checking out the visual thesaurus site. There are a few search engines I found when I was getting my library science degree that even do that while you’re searching the internet. I’d forgotten about them. Just checked and one is still there. Check out http://www.kartoo.com
You put a word in, then it creates that kind of visual map for searching further. Thanks for reminding me!
And now that I’m looking at visual thesaurus, I’m thinking it’s the coolest thing since sliced bread! Thank you so much for posting this! I love how it shows the parts of speech, too.
My students might like this too. I am overwhelmed as usual-teaching high school and college. I did take only one college class-I travel about 30 miles…and two nights a week-too much…however, I may be teaching a college class at the high school too…oh well…
The title-good luck, Diane…I’ll bet you have a really great one. I love going into stores and seeing the beautiful book, BEFORE THE STORM, on the shelves…
Just testing! I have a new spam filter on the blog and want to be sure non-spam posts are getting through. Let me know if any of you have a problem, please!
Maybe a balance of both? Save the computer generated one for when you are truly stuck or simply brainstorming? (As in your title.) I’d think even the computer generated one probably guides your spontaneous, internal pictures more than you’d think. Just looking at the one you posted brought other words to my mind immediately that aren’t even on there.
I think I’ve done this internally and didn’t even know it. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that in my manuscript, one of my characters is deaf, and I never set out with the intention of writing a deaf character. It’s more like he came to me that way and I couldn’t change it for anything, not even when I was stressing out about exactly how much I did NOT know about deafness. I was like a mom with a deaf child who had to learn everything from scratch. Anyway, it was kind of like you described–starting with a name, then branching out from there, which is pretty much what these word maps are.
Cool! I’ll definitely be checking out the visual thesaurus site. There are a few search engines I found when I was getting my library science degree that even do that while you’re searching the internet. I’d forgotten about them. Just checked and one is still there. Check out http://www.kartoo.com
You put a word in, then it creates that kind of visual map for searching further. Thanks for reminding me!
Oh my gosh, Julie, what a fabulous website! I’m going to play with it all evening, for sure.
And now that I’m looking at visual thesaurus, I’m thinking it’s the coolest thing since sliced bread! Thank you so much for posting this! I love how it shows the parts of speech, too.
My students might like this too. I am overwhelmed as usual-teaching high school and college. I did take only one college class-I travel about 30 miles…and two nights a week-too much…however, I may be teaching a college class at the high school too…oh well…
The title-good luck, Diane…I’ll bet you have a really great one. I love going into stores and seeing the beautiful book, BEFORE THE STORM, on the shelves…
Just testing! I have a new spam filter on the blog and want to be sure non-spam posts are getting through. Let me know if any of you have a problem, please!
I’m going to test too Diane, since I was one of the ones who’s posts went missing. Testing, 1-2-3…LOL