2.5 Moving Topics Into Your World

Move your ideas from your mind to your world.

How do you scaffold the creation of an outline with a structure like the one in Figure 2-5? The structure in Figure 2-5 has one basic element: the topic. A single paragraph expresses each topic. You use the paragraph to inspire your cognitive scaffold by basing your cognitive scaffold on topics. To replace your need to represent topics in your mind, you represent each topic as an object in your world. You organize topics by rearranging objects in your world. For example, you can place objects representing related topics near one another in your world. Moving objects around in your world replaces thinking about topics in your mind.

I propose you represent topics using a particular object: the 3” x 5” index card, blank on one side and lined on the other. When a topic comes to mind, you make a note about the topic on an index card. Your note moves the topic from your mind to your world. In Chapter 1, I noted index cards offer many affordances which make them well-suited for scaffolding your outline.

For your scaffold, your index cards offer duality: you can write on both sides of an index card. You exploit duality when an index card represents a paragraph topic: you write the paragraph topic on the index card’s blank side; later, you write the paragraph’s topic and concluding sentences on the card’s lined side. As a result, a completed index card represents one horizontal slice of the Figure 2-5 outline structure, a slice illustrated in Figure 2-6.

I cannot begin a writing project by creating index cards as detailed as Figures 2-5 or 2-6. Instead, when I begin a manuscript, I generate broad, unorganized topics. By thinking about – by physically rearranging — my broader topics, I organize my topics into a narrative structure for my manuscript. I can then consider what paragraphs I require to communicate each broader topic. As I consider, I develop topic cards for each potential paragraph (i.e., you create cards like the one on Figure 2-6’s left). Later, I add sentences to the opposite side of each card (i.e., Figure 2-6’s right).

When you use my method, you create index cards like Figure 2-6 later in your process. However, you can still use index cards earlier to scaffold how you generate and organize broader topics. You perform ‘bootstrapping’, where you begin with index cards for broad topics, you organize them, and then you convert them into larger sets of index cards representing finer details. Bootstrapping, in my method, uses index cards as a medium for fragmentary inspiration – for developing ideas by interacting with what you have already written down.

You eventually create a card set in which each card takes the Figure 2-6 form. When you have such a card set, your scaffold has succeeded; you have a complete outline. I now describe the steps I use to ‘bootstrap’ index cards into a desirable outline.