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By T.P. Jones, Author of “The Loss of Certainty” Trilogy


When I finally got serious about writing fiction, I understood one thing above all others: research is a requirement. To write the sort of book I had in mind – a novel about politics in a small Midwestern city – it wouldn’t do just to read the local papers, poke around in the library and otherwise haunt the edges of the city’s political culture. I would need a more intimate coign of vantage.

I found it in Dubuque, Iowa, a city of 60,000 on the Mississippi River, where I was able to become a participant-observer in the local government - riding with the police, sleeping in fire houses, cleaning out the intake of the wastewater treatment plant, collecting trash, attending city council meetings, and many, many other things. Eventually, my interests spilled over the original boundaries to include local farming practices, the meatpacking industry, religious communities and various state and national organizations. Once you start pulling on threads, you find out that a lot of things are connected.

In all, I spent two years in Dubuque, and the boxes of material I hauled away contained the raw material from which I fashioned The Loss of Certainty trilogy, the last volume of which is called River Rising and will be published by Synergy Books this month. Naturally, over such an extended period I learned a lot about researching—how to go about it and how not to go about it. Below are 10 tips for writers contemplating writing articles or books:

1.  Decide how much research is required. This is part and parcel of the initial conception of the article or book. Don’t underestimate the difficulty of this first step in the process. The success of the whole project could very well depend on it. I believe that the conceptualization of a work is at least as hard as the actual writing. 

2.  Have a hypothesis or a conjecture, if not a theory. You’ll ignore most of what you collect, anyway, but without a plan, you’ll be swamped with unusable material. This was perhaps my greatest failing. I had no specific narrative in mind when I moved to Dubuque, a grave mistake efficiency-wise. So I recommend beginning with a story, even if, once under way, that story changes out of recognition.

3.  Conduct original research. Don’t expect that you can spend a few hours on Google and get what you need. Fine writing radiates a special quality, the sense of a writer who has seen the world in his or her own unique way which the reader is now privileged to share. Perhaps, for you, your “original research” is simply the life you’ve led. If so, lucky you. For the rest of us, this research will be much more a matter of conscious design and, in effect, answers the question: Why is this book or article being written in the first place?

4.  Conduct unoriginal research. Sometimes Google or other sources are very useful when you need to ferret out a particular piece of information. There will be many points along the way requiring a momentary stop so that you can look something up.

5.  Get out of the house. Talk to people. Participate. Observe.

6.  Living is research: carry a small notebook. Having an indifferent memory and the habit of getting good ideas at odd moments, I find that being able to jot something down quickly is essential – some observation in the landscape perhaps, or an idea for a narrative, or a word that you like but that isn’t yet part of your usable vocabulary, anything that strikes your fancy. Looking through the notebook I have on me at the moment, I came across this: As he walked upstairs, the various lights threw his shadows in different directions, at one point three copies of himself laid out at acute angles to one another. I have no idea if I’ll ever use this, probably not, but it was an observation that most likely would have evaporated had I not been able to mark it down on the spot. I suspect , as well, that simply having the notebook makes me more attentive to my surroundings.

7.  Be forthright. This doesn’t, obviously, apply to undercover work, but that is highly specialized and not relevant to most research. For all the rest, honesty is the best policy. It got me almost everywhere I wanted to go. One example involved my research at the local meatpacking company. I told the company president, when I first met him, that the company in my novel would be in desperate straits, on the point of going out of business. He allowed me extensive access to his company anyway. Of course, he might not have, but my meeting with him was, I believe, less about what I intended to do than what kind of person I was. Had I pretended I was just generally interested in meatpacking, I believe he would have seen through the pretense and very well not been willing to help me.

8.  Don’t attempt to force yourself on people. Getting access often isn’t easy but if you know someone who knows someone, you can sometimes get an introduction that way. You should give some thought as to the best way to approach an individual or company.

9.  Don’t use a recorder (except rarely and when absolutely required). This applies to camera phones or other modern devices that can be very intrusive and, used in the wrong place, can get you into a peck of trouble. Notebooks are still very serviceable and usually acceptable to people. At other times you’ll just have to depend on your memory.

10.  Put in the time. It’s going to take longer than you think.

About T.P. Jones


T.P. JONES lives in Berkeley, Calif., with his wife, Elisabeth. He received his bachelor’s degree from Trinity College. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, studying under Kurt Vonnegut at the University of Iowa, and a master’s in mathematics from the University of Connecticut. Jones worked as a math teacher at a business college before retiring to focus solely on his writing. Visit www.thelossofcertainty.com to learn more. 









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