network theory and writing
October 29th 2008 06:31
I am abuzz with thoughts of network theory, sparked by How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer show on ABC last night. Apparently, Six Degrees of Separation actually works - we are all linked to Kevin Bacon after all. Math heads have found that everything - relationships, brain design, cities, the internet - are all following network theory.
It's a process whereby chaos is calmed by a natural order that shrinks individual bits into clusters called worlds. These clusters could be work groups, friendships, countries - even the way disease spreads.
Critical in these networks are hubs, or people or places that have many, many links - far above the norm. Ergo - if you want to make a network quickly, you find a hub and get that hub to work for you, connecting you to whatever you need. With people, that means finding someone who is linked in to many people to make the best of a situation. To stop diseases spreading, you find the hubs where disease can be spread to lots of people, such as an airport or a particularly sexually active person. Naturally, if you want lots of links to your website, link to a mega site hub like Google or Yahoo or whatever.
So, with writing, network theory can solve plot problems. Find the characters, work out which ones are hubs, and make a network diagram around those characters to see how they might be connected. Character A might not intersect with protagonist B until they come across Hub C who introduces them. Hub C is your subplot. In doubt about where the story is going? Chart it on a network diagram and see who the character might meet by introducing possible connections (actions, like going to a coffee shop or going out to drinks with friend D who knows B). It seems there is no co-incidence, only the outcomes determined by our network links.
Freaky. Maybe it can be applied to life. A road map, if you will, of infinite possibilities. Can the future be predicted by network theory? Probably not definitively. But you can see what might happen ... which is near enough.
It's a process whereby chaos is calmed by a natural order that shrinks individual bits into clusters called worlds. These clusters could be work groups, friendships, countries - even the way disease spreads.
Critical in these networks are hubs, or people or places that have many, many links - far above the norm. Ergo - if you want to make a network quickly, you find a hub and get that hub to work for you, connecting you to whatever you need. With people, that means finding someone who is linked in to many people to make the best of a situation. To stop diseases spreading, you find the hubs where disease can be spread to lots of people, such as an airport or a particularly sexually active person. Naturally, if you want lots of links to your website, link to a mega site hub like Google or Yahoo or whatever.
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