Explore and organize ideas in Brainstorm

Use Brainstorm when you want to see several possible directions before deciding what to write. Your document’s map holds ideas, notes, and their connections.

Start with material you know

Open a document and choose Brainstorm. Add ideas around the central topic. Give each idea a useful label, and keep supporting detail in its notes. Connect related ideas and move them into an arrangement you can read.

For a piece about a local reading group, you might collect “How meetings work,” “Choosing the next book,” and “Questions for new members.” Mark anything you still need to find out as a question.

Keep your audience, purpose, and factual constraints in Writing brief. Choose the writing style you want to use for generated suggestions.

Ask for a specific kind of help

Open BlueTip AI and use Choose a tool. The available tools include new angles, assumptions, connections, readiness, and research.

For Explore new angles, describe what would help. For example:

Suggest two different ways to introduce the reading group to a new member. Use the saved notes. Leave unanswered questions open.

Choose Suggest additions. Review the option titles and notes; both are editable. Add to brainstorm saves an individual suggestion with its notes. Show in brainstorm brings a saved addition into view.

You can close the assistant and return to its saved results. Review factual claims against your sources before using them. A suggested connection is a possibility to investigate.

Choose a direction

Compare the ideas against the reader and purpose in your brief. Remove duplicates, combine related notes, and keep the questions that affect the piece. You can use Undo and Redo while working on the map.

If you already know what the piece needs, move on. A small map can be enough.

Turn the map into a plan

Choose Build outline. Review the proposed sections and edit their titles, notes, or order before saving. When an outline already exists, choose whether to add to it or replace it; check the confirmation before replacing existing work.

Continue in Outline to arrange the plan, then use Draft from plan in Write when you want a proposed draft.

Open your idea map, or follow the first-draft guide.