Go Visual to Communicate Simply

It's easier to grasp a character
profile that's visual

I'm gradually getting converted to using more and more visual elements for communicating. Earlier, I posted about using drawings to get going on a project. But now I'm seeing the importance of going visual when one is mid-project, as a way of pulling back and getting clarity. A drawing, idea map, picture, or storyboard can help you to get back to basics, to simplify.

And so, as my collaborative novel group is ramping up on inviting people to contribute 1500-word subchapters to their outlined novel, I thought I would use some visualization to assist myself and others who wish to contribute to the novel to get a better sense of the characters they will be writing about.


Right now, the group has laid out a set of character biographies on their project wiki. This is work well done, since everyone can be on the same page about who is who. But from another angle, the very problem is that people are being taken to pages -- rather than pictures -- and so it is hard to grasp what these characters look like, or their relationships with other characters. I spent time today reading through each of those biographies carefully and then remixing / translating that information into a Prezi presentation. I know this will help me keep the characters straight when I write my segment for the novel. What do you think of the following?

Keeping Confusion out of Collaboration

One of my student project groups is conducting an experiment in creative collaboration. They are crowd-sourcing a novel whose characters are already set up and whose plot is also fixed (divided into chapters and subchapters or "segments"). People sign up to complete a component of the whole.

I'm excited and scared by this idea, and immediately I'm seeing the messiness of collaboration: there are too many ways into the information about the novel and not a clear enough path for the would-be contributors to get to the info that they need:

1. A clear concept of the experiment and what their role in it could be. (The pitch needs to be as clear as the NaNoWriMo concept)
2. A quick, inviting overview of the story and its world (Potential contributors need a quick teaser into the genre, characters, and general plot of the novel -- but without having to read an entire detailed plot summary. Right now, my only choice is to got to a complete chapter outline. That's too much info too soon!)
3. An easy way to sign up for a portion of the project (Something that guides them through a process rather than giving them a lot of links to get lost in.)

Much of this confusion has been fixed through a new wiki. They are getting there! But I still think that the way that they have all their information online shows that they are not keeping straight the three different groups of people for which they are providing resources:

Consider the Spiral

Spirals occur in nature (like the DNA molecule) and artificially (like a spiral staircase). There is an efficiency to spirals: one comes back around to where one has been before, but at another level -- perhaps with added height or perspective. Repetition is not recursion, but amplification: a spiral can expand the circumference of its circling, like a spiral galaxy.

I'm drawn to the spiral as a powerful metaphor because it is a model for iteration, and I am an advocate of iteration for learning and for developing meaningful content or projects.

I also like the spiral as a metaphor because it is a way of combining linear concepts (such as progress) with circular concepts (such as wholeness or eternity). Whenever I hear those water metaphors for the digital age ("surfing" the web, or the "drinking from the fire hose" of information) -- I like to substitute the spiral metaphor. It goes somewhere by circling back. And circling back is exactly what we often need to do if we are ever to move forward.

Draw Upon Drawing when Developing Projects

See this crude drawing? I just grabbed an index card and a marker and drew this. It's a mockup for a scenario that could be the basis for a novel chapter. Took me 30 seconds. Now, why would I inflict my lack of art on you all? I mean, look at that man's head! Is that even a head? And the flying saucer -- looks more like a sinking speed boat. Please.

Crude though my drawing may be, you do get a very clear sense of what the dramatic tension is all about in my fictional fictional book.