6 Creative Story Mind Map Templates and Ideas

When creating or analyzing stories, mind maps are amazing assistants or tools to visualize them further. Sometimes, keeping track of different story elements can be challenging, especially with lengthy novels, movies, or texts. This is why creating a mind map is excellent for further appreciation of a story.

If you want to create a story mind map for a book you’re reading or a movie you’ve just watched but don’t know how to start making one, you’re in the right place. Here, we’ll give you six creative story mind map designs or ideas you can follow.

With these templates, you can hopefully get started on your work. Whether it be for a passion project or a school requirement, the ideas provided here will surely be of help.

6 Creative Story Mind Map Ideas

As mentioned earlier, we will give you 6 creative story mind map ideas to start your project. As you go through them, remember that creativity is all about exploration. If you liked something here, don’t feel obliged to follow them through and through. Use them as a jump board, as a creative start.

This mindset will help you maximize all the ideas in this section. Remove the general idea of a mind map; you’ll explore different designs here. But you’ll realize that they all function similarly to a mind map, regardless of appearance.

Bubble Narrative Creative Mind Map

First off is this bubble-format mind map. While it’s no ordinary mind map, it’s a great way to express your ideas more creatively. You can use larger bubbles for the main ideas of the plot, then connect smaller ones for subtopics or sub-ideas that you might want to take note of.

You can even use varying bubble sizes, like in the picture below, to create variance in your mind map. This will make it even easier to follow.

Photo & Text-Heavy Creative Mind Map

Here, the focus is more than just creativity; it is on giving information. Often, adding images can drastically improve a mind map. Now, imagine that for stories. Books can be pretty hard to read because you only have text to help you visualize.

Now, by adding images like in the example below, you can make it more visual. You can see its effect with the mind map example incorporating Toy Story pictures to make it more understandable despite the blocks of text in the mind map.

Web-Like Spider Mind Map Design

Another great way to present a story is by using a web-like design. See the photo below for an example. While this may seem more complicated, it can accommodate more information than the other ideas. For instance, in a complicated story like Game of Thrones, you can follow all the simultaneous arcs with this mind map.

This web-like style also opens up many story mind map design possibilities. You can add unique arrowheads for different storylines that are available in a story.

Story Elements Roadmap Mind Map

A quick solution for creative story mind map designs is this example. It incorporates the typical elements of a story in a mind map with plenty of space to add text in. You’ll usually see this design on school projects. After all, the format here is what most teachers use to help students analyze stories.

With that fact alone, you’ll understand the value of this mind map design. It’s a tried and tested way of analyzing stories. So, on your next project, consider incorporating these elements into your creative designs.

Flower Creative Story Mind Map

If you want something a bit more creative, use this flower-style creative story mind map. The map uses the petals of the flowers to accommodate different parts of the story like the “Who,” “When,” “Where,” and “Why. Of course, the “What” is in the central part of the flower.

With this idea in mind, you can also use other shapes with similar structures. Say, for example, a wheel or something similar. It’s a quick way to level up your mind map’s creativity.

Colorful Shapes Creative Mind Map

Of course, adding colors is an age-old way to make anything more creative. It works the same with mind maps because too much design can sometimes be overwhelming. If you want to keep it simple, add varying colors for each story element.

Look at this example; it’s simple, but it provides ample space for all the necessary elements of the story, like the Main Characters, Setting, and more. It’s an excellent template for a quick overview of a story.

Start Mind Mapping With Edraw.AI

Like what you saw in this article? You now might want to try and create them. Of course, the easiest way to do this is by using a mind-mapping tool. One excellent option is Edraw.AI, an innovative platform designed to streamline your mind-mapping process.

Edraw.AI is a powerful online tool that combines artificial intelligence with user-friendly features to help you create stunning mind maps effortlessly. Here are some of its key features:

• AI Mind Map Maker. Edraw.AI's standout feature is its AI-powered mind map generator. Simply input your main topic or idea, and watch as the AI creates a comprehensive mind map structure for you.
• Mind Map Templates. Edraw.AI benefits from EdrawMind and EdrawMax’s vast template library; you can even import your work from those apps to Edraw.AI. Of course, Edraw.AI has its own template library that you can enjoy.
• Real-Time Collaboration. Edraw.AI allows you to work in real-time with your team members or your group mates for a story analysis project.
• Flexible Export Formats. You can save your work as image files (JPG/PNG), PDF, SVG, or even convert it to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint formats.

With these powerful features, Edraw.AI makes it simple to turn the creative story mind map ideas we've explored into reality. Start using Edraw.AI today and create your next creative mind map storyboard.