The Story Power of Research

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You probably don’t realize it but I’m a time traveller.

For many years now I’ve marched with Alexander, created with Leonardo, battled Japanese prisoner of war camp commandants, and watched Israel born.

Exciting days of incredible characters and events. I’ve seen them all. So can you.

Life is the laboratory of countless compelling story ideas, characters, and events. Life’s archive is called History, and history is a gift to fiction writers.

I’m not primarily talking about true stories you can adapt from history’s pages. I’m especially talking about researching the world, lives, and events that relate to your story.

 If, for example, you are writing a World War Two drama chances are you didn’t participate in that world-changing event. To write a realistic and compelling story set during that war you have no choice but to read countless books and articles about it. To watch numerous documentaries. To interview veterans. To read their oral histories. Until your mind and story journal are filled with the wonder of fact about that historical period.

Benefits of History

When researching the period and people of your story, you will be stunned at the material you will find and can use. True events often truly are stranger than fiction.

When reading all this rousing history, you can not only borrow conflicts, choices, and events from real (long dead) people, but your reading will also stimulate your imagination to create conflicts and events for your story.  

I spend at least three months – sometimes six -- researching every new story I write. I scribble notes of the useable things I find. I write down any imagined scenes or dialog that pop up for my story. When I develop my story premise and its plot outline, I consult my research notes to great advantage.

Every writer should be digging deep into history. Research is story gold.

Actionable Creative Takeaways

Following are several practical ways to research and work its gold:

The Best Research

Primary research is the best source of the telling detail. General history books are often a good way to start learning about an era and its events. But personal accounts -- diaries, journals, autobiographies, oral histories of people who lived those times -- are much more valuable for the ambitious storyteller. Don’t just look at history through the distant lens of someone else. Try to discover it as raw and as personal as you can. People telling their own stories in their own voice!

Be wary of sanitized current writings about history. Don’t, for example, just read some current historian writing about traditional Aboriginal life in Australia. Go to oral histories of actual Aborigines who lived it. And to the accounts of the earliest European explorers or escaped convicts who lived among the wild tribes. You will find amazing stories to consult. You will find stunning new things that will sizzle on screen.

Go online or to your local physical library and read or borrow those dead old white pages – these revealing first hand history accounts. I especially use Gutenberg Books and Google Books online to find old history accounts from people of a particular period. Going back hundreds if not thousands of years. Oh, Herodotus I salute thee! These time machines called books are free!

Notetaking

First thing I do when I start a new story in a serious way is to create a work/notebook for the script. I tend to use an exercise book, but digital or verbal notes can also work. The choice depends on how you work best. When researching, I start with paper and pen. When later developing the story, I move to digital.

When I’m ready to read or watch history sources, I have a rough idea of the premise of my story. A glimpse of its characters. And perhaps a hint of its theme. These are the standards I use to select what material from the sources I will scribble in my workbook. That material is anything I think I could use in my story: Character traits and beliefs, events, daily life details of the period or people to add color, themes of the times, and so forth.

Where you can, download the history source and keep it in your digital file for that story. You never know when you may need to come back to that source for checking or more research. In your notes, always name the source and its page or tape minute number.

Applying Research

By the time I’ve finished making countless notes (sometimes several exercise books full), I have a much clearer idea of what my story is. I’ve usually clarified the theme and know who the lead characters are. Now I’m ready to do serious premise, character, and theme development. If the Muses love me, I know the climax and have a very rough bird’s eye view outline of the plot and its script structure in acts and sequences.

 After that creative work, I will read my research notes all the way through to help me develop and outline the plot and its screenplay structure of three acts/eight sequences. During this reading of my workbooks, I label any note I think is good for the script, and usually which sequence it might go into.

 Now I can develop a proper outline of the script.

Next

History is stories. Stand on the shoulders of earlier real-life storytellers and use their personal evidence to make your story more true, vivid, and stunning. Now that’s a time machine worth travelling in! Do it well and it can even transport you into the future. A creatively exciting and rewarding one. Stories imbued with history are leavened into much more compelling tales.

To read more writing tips of my free Story Guy Newsletter, click here.

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