(non)Writing Report October 29, 2021

David Gerrold has famously observed 90% of a writer’s job is research.*

Currently instead of actually writing, I’m researching several upcoming projects (one slated to be started January 1, 2022; another for January 1, 2023; plus a handful of still coalescing ideas for 2024 onwards) so I figured this is as good a time as any to discuss research methods.

As always, we’re going by Kipling’s immortal dictum here:

There are nine and ninety ways
Of constructing tribal lays
And every single one of them is right

What follows is what I typically do when researching most projects.  Every new story presents its own unique set of parameters so just because I usually do it this way is no guarantee I always do it this way and even more importantly, no requirement you do your research in a similar fashion.

But wot da hey, this works for me most of the time, so let’s give the model a spin.

Prospecting The Rabbit Hole

We’ve all been there, right?  You log on to find the address of the nearest pizzeria that delivers and the next thing you know it’s four a.m. and you’re reading about the favorite wallpaper designs of Polish nobility in 1740.

One thing leads to another which leads to another which leads to another to another to another to another…

You catch my drift.

Much -- perhaps even most -- of my research falls into this category.

I’m not looking for anything…

…but I’m looking for something.

What am I looking for?

Well, let’s quote another verse, this one from the musical Paint You Wagon.

“Where ya goin’?”

“I don’t know.”

“When’ll you git there?”

“I ain’t certain.”

“What’ll you find?”

“I ain’t equipped to say,
but who gives a damn?
We’re on our way!”

To mangle metaphors, the rabbit hole is where I cast my widest net.  I can’t tell what will tickle my fancy until my fancy gets tickled.

Decades ago I was reading a thick tome on the naval history of the Civil War and in one paragraph buried deep in the middle of the book it casually mentioned that the enslaved harbor pilot Robert Smalls hijacked a Confederate gunboat and escaped to the Union fleet blockading Charleston and I thought, “That’s interesting” and I turned the page and got halfway through the next paragraph and I said ”He did WHAT?!?!?” and flipped back and lo and behold that led to me doing a lot of research on a screenplay that, alas, I never sold but gave me a brand new perspective on the horrors of slavery and just how deplorable the Confederacy was.

It’s like walking through a smorgasbord / buffet / cafeteria and selecting items you’ve never seen much less tasted before and trying them and discovering your new favorite food in the process (those of you born after the pandemic started, find some old pharte to explain what smorgasbords / buffets / cafeterias were).

Prospecting the rabbit hole looks a lot like wasting time on the internet to non-creatives, and truth be told probably the bulk of it is fruitless insofar as no usable ideas spring from it.

Ah, but you only have to strike gold once or twice every few trips for it to pay off…

Building The Foundation

Once I’ve arrived on an idea (and ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere), I try to figure out what the general shape of the story that best serves that idea.

Typically this means coming up with a ballpark idea of the types of characters involved and the types of conflicts and obstacles they will encounter, and more importantly, the environment.

By “environment” I’m not talking about the location but rather the culture / community / circumstances that binds everything together.  

For example, the musical Pajama Game uses garment manufacturing as its environment; everything in the story orbits around the fact all the major characters working at a pajama factory.  Singin’ In The Rain features classic Hollywood on the cusp of the talkies revolution, The Sound Of Music is Austria as the Nazis take over the country, etc., etc., and of course, etc.

Of course, this is no guarantee that initial rough idea will survive.  More than once I’ve set off on one path only to find another far more interesting one along the way.  Never get so enamored of an early idea that it blinds you to better possibilities.

Right now I’m involved in foundational research for my 2022 and 2023 projects:  
I know what I currently think the broad strokes of their stories will be, their major characters (or at least the character types), and more importantly what kind of information I need to create a sense of verisimilitude about my story.

Research for my 2022 project is focused on how professional sports are run as a business.

I’ve already done enough research to learn a major portion of my story can’t happen in the real world because the leagues in question have a specific rule against it.

So that means throw the story out, right?

Wrong.

It means I create a fictitious professional sports league where my plot twist can happen.  

I wouldn’t have even known about that rule if I hadn’t done my basic foundational research.

If I just whipped together a story set in the professional sports world without doing that basic research, I would have walked right into a plot hole that would impair many readers’ enjoyment of the story.

That’s my fig leaf if anyone says,
“Hey!  That can’t happen!”

Yes, it can.
In my league.

(Think that can’t happen?  Guess again.  You’d be astonished at the number of crime and mystery novels, including a good number considered to be classics of the genre, that make a complete mishmash out of criminal investigations.  Looking at you, Perry Mason.)

Fine Tuning The Details

Once I’ve got enough information to build a solid base for my story, I start looking for little bits of information that will help bring the story to life.

These are not lynch pins that the work will rest on, but minor details that help sell the story, either by making it more relatable to readers or by suggesting an idea that hadn’t occurred to me.

Case in point:
I recently stumbled across a minor piece of mid-20th century…well, can’t really call it folk lore or folk medicine, so let’s say folk science that fits perfectly in my 2023 project.  It was an idea that at the time didn’t seem obviously bogus but, once a few people tried it and found it didn’t work, soon was abandoned.

Ah, but in the time frame of that story, having a bunch of people all trying this not-exactly-dumb-but-certainly-not-right idea at the same time will provide the perfect trigger for my climax (which I don’t know what it’s going to be yet, other than it’s gonna cause a lotta tsuris to a lotta people).

Now, I probably never would have uncovered this not-exactly-dumb-but-certainly-not-right idea if I’d gone actively looking for it, but while doing foundational research for my 2023 project, this popped up, and I instantly recognized it as the key to my story’s conclusion.

Which brings up another principle that harkens back to the first: You will never ever know where the ideas will come from.

As I said, this idea just happened to present itself while I was researching something entirely different for the story, but I knew instantly that would be crucial the resolution of the story.

Which means when you’re falling down the rabbit hole or laying the foundation, don’t ignore the little details.

You never know what will surprise you…

…or help you.

© Buzz Dixon 

*  The other 10% is revenge, says David.