Prewriting: Clustering
Hello Neophyte, are you still enjoying the broom closet? You’ll stay there until you tell me what I need to know. So far, we’ve discussed tools to aid you in the prewriting phase that were pretty much self-explanatory, though still vague and confusing, at least in the way they were explained. Now, dear Neophyte, we’re delving into what, in my humble opinion, is the worst explained of them all—Clustering.
Every single definition I’ve come across explains it in the same way: a method of ordering ideas and thoughts in clusters to give them meaning. Not word for word, but the meaning remains the same. Which is a shame because every time I read about it, I come out more confused than when I went in. So, let me give you the list treatment first, and we’ll expand on it later:
- Choose a Topic: Start with a general topic or idea you want to explore or write about.
- Central Idea: Write the main topic or concept in the center of a piece of paper.
- Branching Out: Create branches radiating from the central idea. On each branch, write related subtopics, concepts, or keywords.
- Secondary Ideas: From each subtopic, extend additional branches to explore more specific details or related thoughts.
- Connections: Draw lines or use arrows to connect related ideas or show relationships between different concepts.
- Expand and Explore: Continue expanding the cluster by adding more details, examples, or supporting information.
- Organize: Once you have a visual representation of your ideas, you can start organizing them into a more structured outline for your writing.
This approach is all well and good, but it is not mandatory. Remember, you are setting your ideas on paper, taking an immaterial thing and making it material. While this method is probably college-approved, it is not mandatory outside the four magic walls of higher education. As I have stated before, thoughts are such chaotic things that the author capable of representing them in a realistic fashion has yet to emerge. So when you want to write, you need to give them order and clarity, and clustering is perhaps the best one from among the prewriting toolkit that we are assembling. Let’s explain the process I detailed, shall we, Neophyte? It’s not like you’ve got a choice.
You can make as many drafts of this as you wish, make as many corrections and versions as you desire. No one is looking over your shoulder with a ruler to force you to do it in a preapproved way. You can even ignore that series of steps and make it your own way. You could even start from the edge, a series of disconnected ideas, and work your way to the central pillars if you can´t see the central idea. Do whatever you want; don’t be anxious about “the right way.” this process is messy and unclear by definition, if you have ever seen any movie and series where a character has information displayed on a wall connected by lines and its a massive thing then you have seen a version of clustering it isn´t pretty. Also, you are not going to publish your prewriting process; it is part of the larger process of writing. It won’t be the final product unless you wish to make a companion book, but even then, it will have to be cleaned for publication in whatever format you desire.
Like with many things, it is up to you. Start from the center and branch out, build one branch larger than the other, organize however you wish to organize. If you came in here expecting that I will give you a step-by-step surefire recipe, then you were badly mistaken, Neophyte. What is that? How can you tell? Gut feeling. Wish that there was a more scientific method to it? Well, cry harder. The more you work, the more you will realize there will be points where you say, “That is enough,” without having any sort of metric to measure that feeling against.
Like with most tools of this phase, it won’t be enough, not by a long shot. You will still need to develop whatever it is that you write down, but that will be a topic for later. Until then, back to the broom closet you go, Neophyte.
Until next time.
