By James Hannibal @jamesrhannibal

Research: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

I have a love-hate relationship with research. I love getting lost in the weeds of detail. It’s how I landed the job of writing the first stealth bomber tactics manual and how I wound up on a DARPA think tank. But now, as a fiction author, I hate how getting lost in those same technical weeds sucks away the time I should be using to write. So, what’s a fiction writer to do? This will be the first in a series of tips to help you focus your research.

The volume of what I don’t know is far greater than what I know, you know?

Confused yet?

In the intelligence world, we had a saying. “You don’t know what you don’t know.” And if you don’t know what you don’t know when you sit down to research, how can you focus your effort?

To put this idea into intelligence terms, you can’t stop a threat you never saw coming, and you can’t see a threat coming if you never knew it existed. Remember Al Qaeda? Remember ISIS? There was a time when no one in America knew those names. This is why the intelligence services constantly gather data. Once they know they don’t know about a threat, they can focus their efforts to be in the know and counter it. 

Focus is the key. 

The day you start your next story is focus day—not the time to begin gathering data. Instead, a good writer, like a good intelligence analyst, is constantly gathering data. Do it every day. This way, when you sit down at the computer, you can focus your effort. 

So, how do you gather data? Here are a few suggestions confined to my genres. Use these ideas to help you find sources unique to your genres. These include social media, which is an outstanding intelligence gathering tool (don’t ask me how I know that), email lists, and podcasts. Reading books and periodicals, not mentioned below, is also a must, starting with God’s word.

• Spy stories and techno-thrillers

  • Social media: I follow the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and defense contractors like Lockheed and Raytheon. Yes, @CIA is the real CIA. As a focus rule, follow pages and accounts, never generic hashtags. Besides, in the military/spy area, generic hashtags like #spy or #specialforces can leave some pretty ugly images on your feed. 
  • Email lists: I subscribe to press releases and new contract announcements from the Department of Defense. They can be boring (and shocking at times) but there are occasional gems like tethered airship drones and new multi-spectrum sensor packages.

• Fantasy

  • Social media: Again, avoid generic hashtags like #dragons or #fantasy. Instead, I let God’s creation inspire fantasy settings and creatures by following picturesque landscape and architecture photography sites, reptile and amphibian sites, oceanography sites, a couple of horse ranches, and so on. 
  • Email lists: Check out Realm Makers and Lorehaven. 
  • I just discovered what feels like a cool fantasy podcast, but let me preview more episodes before I reveal it. Stay tuned . . .

• Christian writing must be founded in God’s word

  • Social media: I follow theologians and institutions like Mark Mittelberg, Lee Strobel, Denver Seminary, LifeWay Student Ministries, etc.
  • Podcasts: I love the ongoing Veritas series by Dr. Jeremy Evans.

Now you know how to know what you didn’t know

I hope you get the picture. Absorb data in your genre every day. This generates new ideas and prepares you for focused research. As an added bonus, using social media, email, and podcasts as a tool for intelligence gathering displaces some of the chaff disrupting our collective feeds. That’s all for now. Stay tuned for my next tip: Escaping the Research Bog.

Part Two: Escaping the Writing Research Bog

As a former stealth pilot, James R. Hannibal is no stranger to secrets and adventure. He has been shot at, locked up with surface to air missiles, and chased down a winding German road by an armed terrorist. He is a two-time Silver Falchion award-winner for his Section 13 mysteries for kids, a Thriller Award nominee for his Nick Baron covert ops series for adults, and a Selah Award finalist for his Christian CIA thriller, the Grypyhon Heist. James is a rare multi-sense synesthete. Want to know more? Visit JamesRHannibal.com.