How to do research for a story set in a field you know very little about (the film, music industry, sports like basketball...)?
The adage “write what you know” is often bandied about like it’s something deeply meaningful. It’s the one piece of writing advice I’ve always hated, because I think it over-simplifies what it’s essentially trying to convey. There’s a lot you know already, like the full range of human emotion and experience. The rest is set dressing. So rather than saying “write what you know,” I like to say, “write what you can learn.”
Just because you don’t know something right now doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. You don’t have to have actually experienced something to put yourself in another’s shoes. That’s why fiction exists. Otherwise we’d all just be writing autobiographies and calling it a day.
You don’t need to become an expert to write about something you haven’t experienced. You just need to make it feel real. To do that, you need to learn. And to learn, you need to research. But where do you start?
Start with the “why” before the “what”
Before you dive into research, ask yourself why you chose this particular setting in the first place. What drew you to the basketball world, the music industry, or film production? What is it about those settings that speaks to you, and what do you want that setting to mean to your readers?
If you’ve chosen a setting, then chances are you already have at least a passing interest in it. And if you have an interest already, then you probably know where you can start to look for a deeper understanding. But you also need to understand what kind of research to target for the type of story you want to tell.
If your basketball story is really about family pressure and identity, you don’t need to memorise every NBA rule. What you do need is a passing understanding of the way the sport operates. But more important than that, you need to understand what it feels like to carry expectations, what the daily grind of training does to a person, and how relationships form and fracture in that environment. Those might be the elements you know already because that’s the underlying part of the setting that speaks to you, so your research should serve your themes, not overshadow them.
Immerse yourself in the accessible
You’d be surprised how much you can learn without leaving your desk. Start with the resources that are readily available:
Popular non-fiction books written by professionals or researchers can tell you a lot about an industry. There are more non-fiction books out there than you can ever hope to count, about every topic under the sun, from every conceivable angle. So there is no better resource than reading.
Documentaries and behind-the-scenes content are goldmines for understanding the ins and outs of an industry. Watch how people move, speak, and interact. Notice the small details, like what’s on the walls, what people wear, and how they speak to and about each other.
Memoirs and autobiographies give a personal, insider’s view of an industry. Personal accounts will give you emotional truths that you can incorporate into your work.
Podcasts and interviews give you a chance to hear professionals talk about their work. Pay attention to what excites them, what frustrates them, and other interesting anecdotes from their industry experience.
Social media offers lots of examples of people talking about their experiences. Athletes, musicians, and filmmakers often share glimpses of their work and daily lives, and also often invite influencers into their spaces. While this is still a curated experience, this curation can say a lot about what an industry values in and of itself.
Focus on the sensory and emotional
Readers care more about how a book makes them feel than they do about the technical details. They might notice if you get something glaringly wrong, but ultimately, the surrounding story is the bit that’s the most important. A reader seeks immersion, but this often means prioritising the sensory details and emotional experiences above pinpoint industry accuracy.
With this in mind, there are sensory elements that you might already know without having to go down a deep rabbit hole. How does your body feel after a basketball game (think about what you feel like after any kind of physical exertion)? How does the mood feel in a recording studio when everything goes quiet before a take (think of a time when you’ve been waiting nervously for something to start)? How does an actor feel when they forget a line (think of a time you forgot something important)?
These are the details that make a world come alive, and even if you haven’t had the exact experience, you’ll have enough personal experiences that you can draw on to paint a picture.
Learn the language, but use it sparingly
Every industry has its jargon, and getting it right matters to some extent, but it isn’t the most important focus. For readers with experience in the specific field you’re writing about, the wrong terminology will pull them right out of the story. But overusing it comes with its own set of problems.
Using too much jargon becomes irksome for non-industry readers, and it also increases the likelihood of using it wrong or info-dumping. Your characters should speak like people who take their world for granted, not like they’re explaining things to an outsider, because in their minds, they’re not.
You want to learn the jargon so you know what your characters would naturally say, and use it sparingly and in context. Because if you use words in context, you can usually trust your readers to infer a meaning without having to explain it in detail.
The most important thing to remember is that you are writing fiction. It’s okay if you’re not an expert. In fact, in my experience, some of the most boring books I’ve read are by experts writing fiction about their particular field of expertise. They often get so bogged down in teaching the reader about their special interest they forget that the most important part of a story is an immersive plot and interesting characters.
More than anything, you want the emotional core of your story to ring true. If you get this right, most readers won’t care whether you have all the tiny details of a particular industry right or not. The Da Vinci Code didn’t become a bestseller because of its deep and profound recognition of realistic art history practices. It was just a really fun story. So while it got a lot of criticism for its inaccuracies, it didn’t stop readers from going along for the ride.
Invent a fictional team, record label, or production company. Create composite characters based on your research. Change timelines and mix up events to serve your story. The goal is emotional realism, not accuracy. Your job is to make readers believe in your story world, not to pass a fact-check.
You don’t need to know everything before you start writing. In fact, trying to do all your research upfront usually just ends up with you procrastinating.
Start writing with what you know (or what you think you know). Make notes as you write for where you need to verify something and either save it for later, or set aside some time at the end of the writing session to fill in those gaps.
Personally, I like to write first and let the draft reveal the gaps in my knowledge as I go. In my experience, I usually need a lot less research than I think I do (unless I’m writing non-fiction, of course) because if I’m writing about something, I’m already somewhat interested in it. If I’m interested, I usually have at least a passing knowledge, and any specific questions that come up as I write are much easier to research individually than just doing some vague background reading in advance.
Trust your readers and don’t over-explain. You don’t need to info-dump unnecessary details if they’re not plot relevant.
Resist the urge to include everything you’ve learned. Most of your research should remain invisible. It should inform your writing without overshadowing plot and characterisation.
Vague descriptions feel poorly researched. One specific, unusual detail is worth more than ten generic ones.
No matter how foreign the world, your characters are still people with universal emotions. Keep the focus on their humanity and who they are, not on what they do or the industry in which they operate.
