Compile a Chronological List to Make Sense of Research Material

Pre-Writing Exercises to Free Your Muse

Is your nonfiction writing project stalled? One fellow, whose career suggests he’s anything but lazy, thought it was laziness that held him back. That’s not the culprit. What’s needed is a means to help you soar above the trees

for a big picture view of your subject, and some pre-writing exercises to provide structure. This, and a few postings to come, will get you launched.

Scribes Writing Class, Spring 2014

Harness That Research Material

A stack of research papers, even if it’s neatly sorted into subject files, is daunting. To distill it into a useable form pluck out the highlights for a chronological list. Your first inclination might be to brush this off as wasted effort—but it’s not. Read on. There’s lots to gain here.

Cue Notes to Guide Your Writing

The chronological list captures the essential details—and it’s applicable to any piece, from biography and family history, to memoir. Write short sentences in point form, and provide a footnote for each. This is important. My book length projects take several years so I need those source reminders.

As you create the list you’ll gain clarity and high level focus. A plot might emerge, which is a bonus, but not a requirement for nonfiction. Find and capture all the points of conflict. They are as essential to this genre as they are to fiction. Does the list give you a sense of your main character’s goals and what got in his or her way?

The chronological structure of this list helps organize your thoughts, as it brings everything into focus. And, in this form, it serves as a handy reference tool as you write.

Compiling the list will move you deeper into the subject and questions will arise. Are there gaps in the chronology, where you don’t have any information? And how about conflicting dates? These and other questions will send you back to your sources.

With the list complete, you’ll have a better sense of how much your character(s) accomplished and when. For a community or family history, you’ll see when the highs and lows occurred, and perhaps get a first glimmer of why.

An Outlining Structure That Works

This list can also form the basis of a short biographical sketch—a form of outlining for a bigger project or perhaps a first, short draft. If you’re writing about someone no longer alive, the list may provide your only clues to a protagonist’s personality. You can surmise a lot from a succinct reckoning of their accomplishments and setbacks.
Memoir writers, this exercise applies to you too. Your recollections, interviews with others, era details and dates all need to be summarized and structured.

And here’s one last pitch for the value of the chronological list. If you’re writing for family they’ll treasure this succinct summary for generations to come. You’ve captured all the important facts here. And that assurance is helpful too, freeing us to focus on just a few pertinent highlights in our narrative account, knowing that all the details have been captured elsewhere for posterity.

Have I persuaded you this task is worth it? Good, because you might need to make a few of these lists. Let’s say your project includes two main characters. You might want such a list for each person, and another for the place, and global events that impacted them.

Writing these lists will give you deeper insights and perspective; and it’ll set you free to write.