Story webbing, as a brainstorming technique, allows you to make free associations and more fully explore your ideas before beginning the initial draft. Essentially, it serves as a way to order and visually map out your ideas. This may help you remember the details you want to include and to eliminate less important or distracting details. Clarity in writing bridges the gap between the author's intent and the reader's interpretation.
Webbing scene-by-scene may make it easier than trying to take on your entire story at once, especially if you're planning to write a novel. Begin with what you see as most important to a scene, such as a central character, object or place that the scene will revolve around. Start somewhere specific--a large concept, like "marriage," for instance, likely won't get a plot rolling. Instead, choose a specific object, character or place. Write the name of this character, place or object in the center of the page and circle it, making it the initial focus of your web.
Branch out from the central topic with subtopics or "threads"--qualities, objects, people or events that directly relate. Continue to build off those threads, adding details to support or explicate them. Allow yourself to record any associations you make, then connect them visually by drawing lines from one to the next. For example, if you start with the scene location, you might surround it with the characters who will be present. From the names of the characters, you can expand on their roles, moods, goals and preoccupations.
Don't be too picky about your details. Story webbing should start the flow of ideas and center yourself on a topic or scene. Only when you run out of ideas should you begin revising and eliminating details. Your story web serves as a visual aid that will reveal weak areas that require more thought, as well as illuminate your scene's strengths and interests. Such associations can bring surprises.
You can follow the same method when interpreting another work, to improve your reading comprehension. Beginning with the central theme of a scene, branch out with characters or events and their respective details. By creating the web, you ground yourself in the work and force yourself to make connections. Doing this for every major scene creates comprehensive story maps from which you can study--an especially helpful technique for visual learners.