 | Researching a story can lead down fascinating (but not always productive) tangents. The trick is excavating exciting new ideas without getting lost in a research rabbit hole. Writing blogs warn of under- or over-researching, research pitfalls, the importance of balancing research with imagination, and the critical role of research in creating verisimilitude in story worlds. Here are four tips for using pre-writing research to spark story ideas and on-the-go research to flesh out drafts and revisions, when not to include your research in the story, and ways to keep research organized. |
1. PRE-WRITING RESEARCH can be as simple as saving links (or making photocopies) of interesting articles and ideas encountered day-to-day to later weave into existing or future stories.
 | I’ve written elsewhere of my fascination with parthenogenesis, which originated when I read about lesbian lizards in a biology textbook. Learning that cockroaches can breed parthenogenetically was the primary creative spark that inspired "Captain Palaio’s Twilight Flight. " If you haven’t read the story yet, I invite you to read Captain Paliao now. Spoilers follow~ |
Captain Palaio opens with these images of cockroach grooming:
I’m alone in the dim central chamber, compulsively preening, when a warning light flashes.
. . .
I resume grooming unnecessarily with quick, anxious jerks.
. . .
I resume grooming unnecessarily with quick, anxious jerks.
I gathered pages of information on cockroach anatomy, physiology, social behavior, and reproduction (including parthenogenesis). In the published story, parthenogenesis merited one paragraph:
Our people have replicated by parthenogenesis since extraction procedures released a prehistoric fungal infection from the permafrost. Millions of dankomata died, and all surviving males were sterile. Over the centuries, our all-female species has dwindled toward extinction, breeding-age females laying fewer and fewer eggs. Every Interstellar Exploration Corps member dreams of finding breeding males somewhere in the universe.
First mention of the social structure (communal aggregation) of cockroach society:
I click to myself in irritation. I’m the most senior crew member and my programming skills are critical for mission success, but the consensus the two scientists share over studying the aliens gives them a source of communal aggregation I don’t share. A foretaste of the bitter isolation I’ll face as a retired has-been.
Serendipity can also influence a story. Reading about ‘Oumuamua, an interstellar object that tumbled through our solar system in 2017, led me to Harvard University professor Avi Loeb, who suggests life on Earth is the result of directed panspermia.
This gave me a pseudoscientific way to justify compatibility between cockroach species. As Doctor Giaotos explains when confirming the similarity of Dankom Gis and Earth cockroach DNA in Captain Palaio:
This gave me a pseudoscientific way to justify compatibility between cockroach species. As Doctor Giaotos explains when confirming the similarity of Dankom Gis and Earth cockroach DNA in Captain Palaio:
“Incontrovertible proof of Doctor Katsarida’s theory of parallel panspermic evolution.”
2. ON-THE-GO RESEARCH. During early revisions of Captain Paliao, I focused on scale after feedback from my writing group. What circumstances might create pony-sized cockroaches?
 | Like the more famous giant reptiles (dinosaurs), insects were also oversized during Earth’s Mesozoic Era. Because oxygen levels were 30% to 35% during this age of dinosaurs (compared to 21% today), scientists believe high oxygen saturation contributed to increased animal size. The largest insect found in the fossil record was a millipede (Arthropleura) almost 9 feet long that weighed 110 pounds. |
So the Dankomata of the story presumably come from an oxygen-rich planet. This research was distilled into a single paragraph in the published story:
She’s right. Only twenty percent oxygen at the surface . . . Far different from the humid, oxygen-rich atmosphere of Dankom Gis--
Initially, the cockroaches hunted for lithium (one of the universe's rarest minerals) near Camp Pendleton in California, but in later drafts I switched to beryllium, which is more common in aerospace engineering:
Thankfully, long-range scanners detected enough beryllium on the obscure planet below to repair our hull.
This led me to change the setting to Utah, which has the largest beryllium mine in the world. The Burger Barn in nearby Ashton, UT looked like a good hangout for off-duty military personnel on a road trip (referred to by Doctor Giatros as “a feeding site for the dominant tetrapods”), leading to this sarcastic comment by a captured airman:
“Road trip to the Burger Barn,” the decorated alien says. “Great idea.”
I chose Hill AFB for the final confrontation, which represented hours of research, but mere sentences in the final story (my friend Wes helped me with realistic military communication):
Through the translator, we hear the planet-side aliens prepare for our arrival: “Atypical heat signature. Ground radar confirms. Projected trajectory forty-one point one zero niner seven degrees north by one one one point niner eight two seven degrees west.”
“That’s Hill Air Force Base,” another signal says. “Hill Command Post, do you copy?”
A third signal comes across the translator. “We copy. Scrambling fighter squadrons.”
“That’s Hill Air Force Base,” another signal says. “Hill Command Post, do you copy?”
A third signal comes across the translator. “We copy. Scrambling fighter squadrons.”
The editor at Bullet Points Magazine, Nathan W. Toronto, sought clarification of story details during the submission process, prompting further research into orbital defense, SIPRNet, and the 75th Air Base Wing at Hill AFB. This research added one sentence: “Another unidentified ping from orbital defense."
3. WHEN NOT TO INCLUDE RESEARCH. I uncovered a lot of fascinating information researching Captain Palaio, but too much detail bogs down a story's pace and tone. Here’s what didn’t make it into the story:
- The exact wavelengths insects can hear (15 kHz-60 kHz) versus the wavelength of the human voice (60 Hz-1500 Hz), or the data I gathered on radio and TV waves out of curiosity. The in-story summary: “They [humans] emit relatively fast vibratory waves,” Neos says.
- Twenty pages of research on orbital debris (researched for another story and briefly summarized Space Trash) became part of one sentence in Captain Palaio: "The pods rise in response. They’ll have to navigate the thick band of satellites and debris girdling the alien planet to reach us. "
Ideas I researched but decided not to pursue in this story:
- Anaerobic organisms: I originally envisioned Captain Palaio and crew as carbon-monoxide breathers.
- Intelligent psychedelic mushrooms: I read Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, who is the son of Rupert Sheldrake, a peer of Terrance MckKenna, who “hypothesized that psychedelic mushrooms might be intelligent extraterrestrial life”. I originally planned to construct the spaceship out of mycelium but decided instead on a structure inspired by animal cells.
4. ORGANIZING RESEARCH. I create a “background file” of associated research for every story, and some have multiple files.
My poem Inanna Eclipsed, started as a short story that never quite jelled. Research for the story/poem included a thematic outline; background on Mesopotamian beliefs and funeral practices; translations of Gilgamesh & Enkidu, Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven, and Descent of Inanna; and interpretations of Ereshkigal’s role in the underworld and Inanna’s Descent as a powerplay between sisters. I embedded these links in the files for reference.
My poem Inanna Eclipsed, started as a short story that never quite jelled. Research for the story/poem included a thematic outline; background on Mesopotamian beliefs and funeral practices; translations of Gilgamesh & Enkidu, Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven, and Descent of Inanna; and interpretations of Ereshkigal’s role in the underworld and Inanna’s Descent as a powerplay between sisters. I embedded these links in the files for reference.
 | For more involved projects, like the novels Sky God’s Warrior and the drafted sequel, Sea God’s Lover, I have spiral-bound notebooks of key world-building elements for Kolkha and neighboring states: Geography, Flora & Fauna, Religion & Gods, Culture, Trade & Economy, Travel Timelines, Social & Political Structure, Architecture, Magic System, Legal System, etc. Notebooks for the main characters (Ayda'ia and Sary) have a story synopsis, X-Ray outline, scene outline, and themes & images for each character in the story. |
While writing, I consulate (and update as needed) digital files with character names, a glossary of in-world terms, a scene-by-scene book outline, the book’s thematic outlines for each major character, and a timeline (spanning before and after the entire series of possible books from 10,000 BCE when migrants from Mesopotamia first reached Kolkha to 513 BCE when Darius the Great absorbed Kolkha into Persia).
I’ve used Scrivenor in the past to link these files, but currently organize most of my writing in Google Docs, which is free to anyone with a Google account.
I’ve used Scrivenor in the past to link these files, but currently organize most of my writing in Google Docs, which is free to anyone with a Google account.
 | I also keep a spiral notebook nearby (on my nightstand in the evening) to jot down story ideas. I number the pages, and link relevant pages in my scene-by-scene book outlines or as a comment in a short story revision. For example, the short story I’m working on now has references to Green 128-129 and Blue 334, 335, 337, which are page numbers from two different notebooks where I recorded snippets of dialogue or story ideas that I want to consider during revision. As I incorporate (or choose to discard) ideas from these notebooks, I scribble them out so I know not to revisit these elements. |
I hope you enjoyed this exploration of writerly research and that it will either give you helpful guidance on your own projects and/or more appreciation for the work that goes on behind the scenes of published stories. You may also like Short Story Writing, Building Inclusive Worlds, and Scene Architecture
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