A brain board is a tool you can use to try to empty your head of ideas related to a particular project. If you’ve ever done a live brainstorm during a staff meeting or created a vision board for a new year of your life, you’ve essentially created a brain board.
Think of a brain board as you dumping your puzzle pieces before you start solving it.
A brain board is something you hold on to throughout the project so you can always refer back to it if needed. You may think of a few different ways to handle your plot or content, choose one, find it doesn’t work, and then want to refer back to one of your other original options.
WAYS TO CREATE A BRAIN BOARD
Brain boards can be physical or digital and can be created with as few tools as a pencil and a piece of paper. Some physical brain board options include:
- Chalk on a blackboard
- Crayons on card stock
- Dry-erase markers on a whiteboard
- Markers on poster board
- Grease pencils on glass
- Index cards on a bulletin board
- Post-it notes on a wall
For a digital brain board, you can use a Word file or Google Doc, or a free, online design interface like Adobe Express.
Anyone can use a brain board for just about any reason, including the ones I just noted: vision boards and brainstorms. Maybe you’re deciding which country you want to move to. Maybe you’re deciding what you’re looking for in a romantic partner or which job offer you should take.
The point of the brain board is to get all the ideas buzzing around in your head recorded in some form so you can refer back to them.
Don’t concern yourself with being neat or organized or even logical while creating the board. Just put your ideas down without hesitation, judgment, or editing. Remember that no one else will see this document except you, so go wild and really stretch your creative muscles!
Example Brain Boards
Here are some examples from famous books. These are what their brain boards could have looked like if that’s a tool the authors had used. This helps illustrate how vastly the finished product can change from the initial concept—and that’s fine! Making adjustments as the concept matures is all part of the writing process.
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