The Value of Unfocused Research

In interviews, writers often talk about the large amounts of research they have done for a novel.  In most cases, they come up with the plot of the novel first, and direct their research to flesh out specific bits.  Sometimes, research for one book leads into ideas for another.  With short stories, often one or two ideas are enough to make up the brunt of the story, and research inspires writing more than the other way around.

However, whether you write short stories or novels (or both), I believe that unfocused, random research is vital for the brain machinery that generates story ideas in the first place.  In fact, you do unfocused research all the time, often without realizing it.  You do it when you watch strange people on the bus, or have awkward conversations with that weird guy from accounting.  Every little experience can be research that will inspire the next story.  But why stop there?

Thanks to the internet, unfocused research is amazingly easy these days.  Of course, you can always search google for terms that interest you, but there are other tools on the net that are also worth checking out.

1.) Wikipedia.  I've noticed that some people have an inherent distrust of articles that anyone can edit, but the fact is that 99% of the content on wikipedia is clear and accurate.  Moderators, locks and constantly scanning robots do an excellent job at fixing graffiti and malicious edits.  In most cases, it won't replace a history or text book for in-depth research, but it's fantastic for jumping across topics.  Links between articles often allow going from one interesting article to another.  I don't know how many times I've gone to wikipedia and ended up with 10 or 15 tabs of interesting articles open, one linked to the next.
If you don't have a specific topic you want to look for, I suggest trying the Random button or looking at Featured Content.

2.) StumbleUpon.  This great tool comes as a plugin for several web browsers, or you can use the website.  Click a button, and go to a random page based on the interests you chose.  You can give sites a thumbs-up or -down, which improves the results you see and also increases the accuracy for everyone else with similar preferences.

3.) Twitter (and to a lesser extent, Facebook).  When people find interesting things, they often post about it.  I like Twitter better than Facebook for link hunting.  You have to keep everything short and sweet on Twitter, which means it doesn't take long to read through a lot of tweets.  Also, posting links is far more common on Twitter.  Follow the right people, and you can easily learn 5 new things before breakfast every day. @wired, @doctorow, and @GreatDismal are a few of the accounts I follow that often post great links.

One final warning.  It's great to go out and seek new info, because you never know what will turn into the next story.  Just make sure you don't spend too many hours on wikipedia, or twitter, or stumble...like I did while working on this post...