Research? What Research?

Research seems like much too official a word for what I do as a writer to find out information I don't know offhand, but I can't think of a better term. Whenever I tell people I'm researching something for a book, I imagine they imagine me pouring over ancient texts in a library or scanning microfilms or strolling with university professors on ivy-strewn campuses.

I remember when I was traveling in Israel to research FAITH FOR BEGINNERS, and I described what I'd been doing to an Israeli I was interviewing, he said to me, "That's not research. That's going on vacation!" But then that's the beauty of researching as a fiction writer. It's the intellectual equivalent of taking a vacation.

Each writer addresses this issue in his or her own way. Some can spend years in libraries or archives or museums, but that's not what I do. Here's how my process works:

After I come up with an idea to write something set in a specific place, I'll make plans to go there. Before going, I might do some reading on the history of the city, country, or the particular community I'm going to be seeing. Usually it's a subject I'm already interested in and have been reading about anyway. While I'm in a bookstore, I might casually drift by the section devoted to the history of this place or the religion or bit of sociology I plan to tackle, leaf through a few books, maybe buy one. I might do a google-search, or I might not. I'll probably send emails to everyone I know asking if they know people who live there or know something about what I'm interested in.

Next, I'll visit the place I'm writing about. (Hopefully I'll have earned enough frequent flyer miles on my credit card to score a free flight.) While I'm there I will walk, eat, sightsee, participate in local functions, meet up with friends of friends. The only organizing principle is that whatever I'm doing has to interest in me. I'll keep a journal and keep track of everything I'm doing, every fleeting impression that comes to mind. I collect bits of scrap paper, advertising, free magazines, leaflets, newspapers, packaging, anything that could later give me some sense of the place. I'll take pictures too, not usually of tourist attractions so much as of local streets, city views, a restaurant, a park, an interesting block or public square. Local graffiti and bumper stickers are often very helpful. The most important thing I do is talk to people. The conversations I've had (or listened in on) have given me much more than anything I've gleaned from a book or an article.

So far, in my limited experience as a writer, I've found that this kind of traveling will lead to some encounter or question that suggests a story. And when I come home, usually several months after my return, I'll scribble down a first draft of that story as quickly as I can. In the case of FAITH, it took me a month or so before I was able to start writing. With the novel I'm working on now, set in Berlin, I waited half a year after coming home from Germany to begin.

When that first draft is done, I'll read over what I have and then and only then do I know what I have to find out. For example, with my current project, after writing my first draft, I realized I'd have to learn about physics, childbirth, missing persons cases and the Berlin police department, the German language and German classes for foreigners, immigration rules for Germany, Russian immigrants to Germany, American communists, Disneyworld, a city called Magdeburg, Albert Einstein, and the British royal family, Prince William in particular. (I think I've left a few things out.) A lot of people ask me which comes first, the writing or the research? I find that generally speaking, the two processes are mostly interdependent. In the case of the Berlin book, I traveled to Berlin, wrote a draft, then went back to find out the information I needed, came back and wrote some more, and may probably go back again one more time. Yet the most serious in-depth research could begin only when I had a working draft of my novel.

Although the amount of topics you have to familiarize yourself with can seem daunting, what's wonderful about being a fiction writer as opposed to a journalist or a non-fiction writer, is that the depth of knowledge required can actually be pretty shallow. This will depend heavily on your plot or the angle of your story, or if you're writing historical or science fiction (which James Wood argues are pretty much the same thing and I agree with him). Still, I don't like to over-research as if my Ph.D. depends on it because I'm writing novels, not operating manuals. So I read. I talk to more people, I keep my eyes open for articles related to what I'm doing. I check out things on-line. I tell my friends what I'm doing and nine times out of ten, someone will say, "Oh, I have a friend you should talk to!" or "I know the perfect book you should read." And I hunt down their leads. But I don't become obsessive. Reading too many books, scanning the Internet, and rummaging through libraries can turn up useful information, but more often than not it can lead to dead ends or down avenues that aren't relevant to what I'm working on. Then I end up wasting time researching that I could have spent writing or focusing on the works of fiction writers I'm looking toward for stylistic guidance. Also, sometimes the research can be so fascinating that I feel daunted coming up with my own fresh details. Tidbits from real life often seem so much better than anything I could make up and I feel stuck. These are the times when I'd prefer not to know everything, but rather just enough to get the shadings right. Then I can close my eyes and imagine myself as my character going through an experience and I find the details I need that way.

In other words, I usually research until I get bored. Then I go back to telling a story. After all, in the end, isn't that the job I'm really supposed to be doing?