Field Researching Your World

Madeleine Winch, Reverie

Keri Smith's list in my last post is all about the journey, not the destination, about the process of art, not the finished product. Many writers will say they feel most alive during the writing--completely absorbed in the messy process of research, drafting, revising, polishing.

That is my experience completely. Once something of mine is published, the result feels like an artifact, unfamiliar and clearly void of its organic, dynamic, fluid genesis.

Today's question:  At what point in the luscious organic process is the best time to perform research? My experience has been to begin writing and research the subject as I need information--background details, exact dates, historical or literary references. If a story is pushing you forward, get to it and research as needed. 

The most repeated advice for writer is probably this: Write about what you know! And you should. Use knowledge you already have to ground the telling. This works well in fiction and nonfiction.

How about this: Write about what you don't know! One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the more knowledge and life experience I gain, the less I really know. If I ask my 98-year old father, "Are you sure?" about any statement he makes, from what he wants for breakfast to the reason wood is warping, his answer ifs always the same: "I'm not sure about anything" I get it. For sure.

Kurt Vonnegut's advice: Find a subject you care about and which you feel in your heart others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.

The best thing about writing, for me, is discovering new ideas as they formulate on the page. It's what makes writing rewarding and hard--allowing uncertainty its own autonomy.

Try this: Instead of getting right to the story-telling, get out and do the field work. Immerse yourself in it--look, consider, observe, document, trace, collect, uncover. 

Consider taking enough time--wandering, wondering, quiet, noisy time--looking for something that moves you enough to write for months. Maybe you need to travel to the South to meet obscure cousins or across the Atlantic to the old country to find a grandmother's childhood home. Maybe you need to read every edition of the hometown paper to find that crime story that was kept secret for your entire childhood. Maybe you need to shelf anxiety and telephone the one relative no one in the family has spoken to in decades.  

Have the courage to acknowledge the value of those subjects that are so important to you, those personally cherished ideas and interests about which you might feel "in your heart others should care about" as well. 

See where it takes you. Trust your instinct for a story worth unearthing, for unrelated details that might congeal into a new whole. Take courage along, the courage to wait for the story in the subject to reveal itself.