Research for Authenticating Detail in Fiction Writing

Writers use research for many reasons: to find inspiration, to develop an idea, to gather the authenticating detail. We may consider art to be a type of research in itself. This exercise leads you through a process of incorporating research into fiction.

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Step 1: Drafting a Story: Write a story of any length that involves a character who wants to take on a new profession that somehow causes conflict. The profession you choose can be common or uncommon: Maybe the character wants to become a Big Foot impersonator, a professional cuddler or professional mourner, a golf ball retriever, a gardener for a botany professor, an iceberg mover, etc. Your story will require you to research what is involved in the profession you choose. Bring your story to class.

Step 2: Identifying Authenticating Details that Are Missing: After an initial draft of this story emerges, sit down with a small group of fellow writers and read the story together. Then take time to reflect on your story as a group of readers: What authenticating details (i.e., details that make a story seem more persuasive or "real") would add to this story? In particular, for the purposes of this exercise, what would you like to know about the characters' professions? What details and "insider knowledge' would these characters have about their professions? Make a list of what "insider knowledge" you want to find, as authenticating detail in your story. Do this for each story in your group; work together as a team of practitioners to come up with a list for each story.

Step 3: Finding These Authenticating Details: Now you'll need to consider how you'll go about finding answers to your research questions. How can you find details about your character's career that only someone in that career would know?

In The Art of Creative Research, Philip Gerard recommends making a research plan that answers the following questions:

• What do I need to find out?
• Why do I want to know it?
• Who knows what I want to know, and how can I find them? How can I access a source that will take me inside my subject in a crucial way? 
• Where is the information I need located, and how can I access it?
• What are the obstacles to finding out what I need to know?
• What form might my research take on the page?

A few sources to consider as you start this research:

• O-Net
• Occupational Handbook
• Glassdoor
• DataUSA

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Websites like this can only take you so far in your research. After browsing these websites for details that might round out your knowledge of your character, think about other strategies you have for researching your story:
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• Interviews: Brainstorm with your group how you would go about finding someone to interview for information about your career, how you would go about setting up such an interview, and the types of questions you would ask. Consult articles by writers on the art of interviewing, such as this piece by Steven Harper.

• Archival Research: A library's Special Collections has boxes of letters, photographs, diaries, greeting cards, checkbooks, to-do lists, and a wide range of other materials. These materials will have signs of life all over them--coffee stains, lingering scents of perfume, torn corners, phone numbers written in the margins. As such, archives are a writer's go-to spot for finding authenticating details. Is there an archive you can access that would be relevant to your story? Visit your local public or university library's website and look for guides to Special Collections holdings (e.g., Humboldt State University's Special Collections). Remember also that archives don't only exist in libraries; you may have an archive of your grandmother's letters stored up in the attic, or your local elementary school may have old textbooks and teachers' notes hidden in the basement. With your group, consider how an archive may play a role in your research process for this story.

• Immersion: Is there a way you could immerse yourself in a setting and environment that is akin to the places where your characters' dwell? Is there a place that you could observe, recording notes about what you see, smell, or hear? Make a plan to visit such a site and spend a few hours there, recording everything you can perceive with all your senses. Your story's settings may be composites of multiple places that you visit in conducting your research. With your group, make a list of possible places to visit as you develop your story.

• Other Artforms: Are there other forms of cultural production (e.g., films, plays, songs, visual art, stories, poetry, etc.) that could help you gather authenticating details for your story? Look to these other artforms for their use of authenticating details. See if the authenticating details these artforms include might lead your imagination to invent more that are right for your story. Work with your group to generate a list of works that might be relevant to what you are developing in this story. See this research guide for more information about finding stories.

For more information about conducting research as a writer, see this collection of resources.

Step 4: Revising Your Story: Revise the story you began in Step 1 to include the research you found in Step 3. Remember that you don't need to include every single detail or fact that you collected. Use only what serves the story.  Don't overwhelm the plot or the character development with random facts; instead carefully select from your research to embed the apt description, the unanticipated prop, the unexpected reference to a detail of the environment. Use the details you've collected to reveal the conflicts and complexities that drive your story.  

The term "research" is derived from a french term from the late sixteenth century: a compilation of the old french prefix 're-,' which adds intensity to a word, and 'cerchier,' which translates as 'to search.' Re / cerchier can thus be defined as: to look, intensively. 
​ ​​-Jen Webb, Researching Creative Writing