Research Techniques For Writing Creative Fiction

Research for creative fiction works differently from academic or market research. You are not seeking to verify the validity of an idea or concept, neither are you sourcing information in order to influence a decision or determine a direction.

In fact, the opposite is true.

You are looking to reduce the cognitive overload created by too much information or too many unanswered questions — the thought gaps that interrupt your creative process — while increasing the sensory information and emotional memory available to you. This allows you to build worlds, construct scenes between characters, and direct emotional movement through and out of your story.

You are writing not only from your thinking brain, but from your feeling body. This is what allows you to craft language that feels alive, human and relatable.

The way you gather information through the process of conducting research, then, is an exercise in full-body immersion within the experience you are wanting to communicate. Your ability to cultivate empathy as a result of this experience — to walk in the shoes of another — allows you to craft a story that can offer a perspective that is different from your own without excluding your own.

Empathy is an ability that everyone can practice and develop. It asks for an openness and willingness to suspend judgement and really experience a reality different from your own, without immediately critiquing it, trying to change it, or imposing your own interpretation upon the person or experience.

The way you document, organise and synthesise the information you gather to prepare yourself for writing the story, however, can borrow from some tried-and-tested techniques also used by academic and market researchers.

The exact method and process you choose should be informed by self-knowledge. Consider how your mind best processes and metabolises information and then choose the method that best supports your natural flow.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Are you a visual thinker or a linear thinker?

• Does your thinking progress and evolve convergently or divergently?

• Do you tend to respond from feeling first, or are you more analytically inclined?

• Does associative thinking energise you, or overwhelm you with too many choices?
  

Understanding how your mind works best will help you organise information in a way that excites, supports and encourages your creative practice, rather than forcing you into a process that creates frustration and blocks your flow.

Below, I’ll outline a few methodologies that support different cognitive preferences and styles of thinking.

But first!

There is one universal law that should govern every research practice, regardless of your cognitive preferences or the story you are writing…

Create a Scope!

The universe is an infinite, vast and mysterious source of information. And, yes, everything is interconnected and interdependent.

Writing a story is communicating one thread — perhaps two or three interweaving threads — in a way that mirrors an experience of the universe for the reader.

But not too many at once, or you’ll overwhelm the reader. Similarly, you’ll overwhelm your own mind. Even Galileo, wanting to communicate the vastness of the universe to his community, needed to select one story at a time in order to do so.

The skill is not in how many words you write, or how many threads you can weave together. The skill is in choosing what to leave out.

Most stories begin with a question that leads to the attainment of an insight. So, what is the insight or central message that your story is communicating? And what is the question that launched the journey towards that insight?

Work backwards from insight → question.

Then ask:

What are the experiences along the way that document this journey?

What do you need to know about the environment and its characters in order to make this world real for your readers?

Answering these questions will create a scope for your research. Any information that does not support and strengthen the communication of the specific insight you are choosing to build your story around gets left out.

You don’t need to know Everything About The Topic to write your story. You need to know what Your Story Needs You To Know to be able to write it in 2D form. Decide what information you’ll need to build out the world of your creation, and then discern what enough information looks like.

Constraints create attainable possibilities.

Designing your scope according to the narrative arc you’ve chosen (Week 2/8 of our Creative Writing Course) will support your process. Shortly, you’ll see why.

Here is an example of what your narrative arc → research scope could look like in practice:

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The three books I have selected all use the same basic narrative arc: a beginning, rising tension, a crisis or peak, and finally, resolution.

Now, we’ll reverse-engineer the questions their authors would have needed to ask themselves in order to build the environments, characters and interactions that ultimately give rise to the central insight each story communicates.

Next.

Now that you’ve asked your questions, immersed yourself in the environments that could yield relevant answers, and accessed alternative sources of information — interviews, archival research, cross-medium research, and even more immersive techniques — you’ve gathered a wealth of material.

Perhaps you’ve also listened to music from the period in which your story is set. Maybe you’ve also attended a dance class because your lead character is a dancer. You’ve immersed yourself in the world you’re trying to understand.

Now comes the question: how do you synthesise and organise all of this information?

This part really depends on your cognitive preferences. Are you a visual, divergent thinker? Or a linear, convergent thinker? Either way, the important thing for your creative writing process is to eliminate as much disruption to your writing flow as possible when you’re ready to put pen to page.

This is where your pre-designed narrative arc becomes extremely useful. Having a map or plot outline for your story gives you a structure around which you can organise your research — thematically, systematically and chronologically — aligned to your chosen narrative arc.

The aim is to be able to access the relevant information when you reach the corresponding section of the story, rather than interrupting your writing flow to go searching for it.

If you’re a visual, divergent thinker, a storyboard or visual story map will likely serve you best. If you’re a linear, convergent thinker, a filing system — digital or analogue — may serve you well.

Either way, the more you can make your research visible, tangible and comprehensible as a whole, the easier it becomes to see how all the threads connect — and to keep writing without constantly stopping to find your way back into the world you’re building.

To do this, here are three different types of Research Synthesis Systems that can support you:

Physical Mind Map — Externalise the whole research landscape spatially across a wall or table. By physically placing information, ideas, questions and sources in relation to one another, you can see the research as a whole while also making connections and relationships between different ideas visible. The physical space allows you to move, group and reorganise information as your understanding develops, supporting expansive and associative thinking.

This approach works particularly well for visual, divergent thinkers who benefit from seeing information spatially rather than processing it linearly. It can help you hold the bigger picture while working with detail, making it easier to notice patterns and connections without becoming too lost in the detail, sidetracked by interesting tangents, or overwhelmed by the volume of information.

Reference Card System — Organise your research into individual analogue cards, with each card containing a single idea, source, quote, observation, question or insight. These cards can then be sorted, grouped, categorised and rearranged as your understanding develops. By breaking information into discrete units, this system makes it easier to organise large volumes of research, identify patterns and themes, and build a logical thread through the material.

This approach works particularly well for analytical, linear and convergent thinkers who prefer to process information in a structured way. It allows for sustained focus and helps create a clear path through the research that can be followed from beginning to end. By sorting information into categories and themes, it also reduces cognitive overload, allowing you to engage with only the information relevant to the section of the story you are currently working on.

Digital Research Wiki / Knowledge Base — Build an interconnected research library using a platform such as Notion, or a combination of Miro and Google Drive, where information can be categorised, linked, organised and easily retrieved. Unlike a project-specific research system, this approach allows you to build a knowledge base and archive that can grow alongside your work as a writer. You can return to research for future books or projects, repurpose information for content creation, and share relevant resources with other writers.

This approach can work for both visual and analytical thinkers and is particularly useful for building and maintaining a long-term knowledge system. It works well alongside either of the other two approaches: you might use a physical mind map or reference card system to synthesise research for a particular project, while using your digital wiki to archive and organise the material for future use. I work on and update mine every week. I currently use Notion, but Miro and Google Drive can work just as well if you think more visually.

Regardless of which research organising system you choose, the process of sorting and organising your research is already part of the writing process. As you work with your material, you are digesting it, making connections and subconsciously beginning to shape the story. It is like preparing the soil from which your ideas and insights will grow.

In Reality, research and writing are rarely as cleanly separated as this process might suggest. As we write, we often discover questions or plot holes that we could not have known were there until we reached that point in the story. The aim, then, is not to try and know everything before you begin writing, but to create enough clarity and coherence that you can write without being constantly interrupted by the need to search for more information.

Think of the difference between driving freely along an empty highway on a long, enjoyable road trip vs. getting stuck at every red robot in rush-hour traffic. That is the difference between writing with research that has been thoughtfully scoped, synthesised and organised, and writing while carrying an overwhelming volume of information because you are afraid you might not know enough.

So: follow the process. Align your research with a narrative arc. Define a clear scope. Choose a research and synthesis method that works for the way you think. Then create enough clarity around your material to give yourself the freedom to write.

Because everything you need to know for the story may not be in your research. Some of it is already within you. Your job is to find the words that give your Inner Knowing shape.

Happy writing!

If you have questions, or would like support with a specific writing project, you’re welcome to book a 1:1 creative coaching consultation. We begin with a 30-minute discovery call and, if we’re the right fit, develop a coaching approach that meets you where you are in your process.

Alternatively, join our 8-week Creative Writing Course, which offers a holistic approach to starting and finishing a creative writing project — from idea to publication — while connecting you with a community of writers on the same mission. Courses are available in person in Cape Town or Online.

Email tanika@hatuakali-storytelling.org to book a discovery call or reserve a place on our next course.