How do you get organized to write?

Featuring a window into David Grann's research process

Hi all! This week I wanted to share a quick post about how I organize my research in preparation for writing. I’d love to hear what you all do! Do you use index cards? Caro-esque wall maps? John McPhee’s incomprehensible text editing software that “explodes” and “implodes” his notes? Lay it on me.

But first, a quick story:

Earlier this year, my husband and I went to hear David Grann give a talk at Portland’s Arts and Lectures series. We’re both big fans of his work. And as a writer, I’m awed by his meticulous research process. (His latest book, The Wager, is a thrilling maritime tale brought to life from musty ship logs and officer journals, and he spent hours sifting through forgotten boxes at the National Archives while working on his blockbuster Killers of the Flower Moon.)

Afterward, there was a little wine-and-cheese reception, where I spied Grann standing in a corner not yet thronged by admirers. I apologized to my husband, told him to hold my (decaf) coffee, and bee-lined over. I hovered awkwardly until Grann wrapped up a conversation. Then I introduced myself.

I have to assume that strangers usually corner Grann to tell him much they love his work. Or, as in the case of the guy waiting behind me, to share a hot tip for his next book. So my question understandably took him by surprise: “How do you organize your research?” I blurted out after mumbling something about being a big fan, working on my first book, blah, blah blah.

“You want to know my system?” he said uncertainly.

“Yes!” I almost begged.

Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash

Grann gamely agreed. He explained that he compiles his research—notes, quotes, facts, and figures—into a big database that allows him to search and sort his material. “Like Scrivener?” I asked. No, he said, nothing that fancy. More like a giant text file. (In a follow-up email, Grann graciously clarified that he uses Word and sometimes breaks the database into several files if the first one gets too big.) He then pulls everything he needs for a single chapter into its own document and uses that to write.

I thanked him profusely and stepped out of what had become a crushing crowd of adorers. Then I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Because that’s basically the same approach I’ve devised for myself.

It’s been a huge pain the rear, but before I sit down to write each chapter, I’ve made an enormous spreadsheet of all the primary material I’ve collected: names and dates, summaries and excerpts, and of course, the bibliographic information of the original source and where I stumbled across it. These documents take days to compile and I’ve struggled to shake the fear that it’s all a colossal waste of time. Maybe other people have better systems (or maybe they don’t need a system because their brains work better than mine). But Grann does more or less what I do, and that’s good enough for me.

So, without further ado, here’s a generalized version of my research spreadsheet. It’s nothing fancy, but it works:

Just to clarify, the spreadsheet is just for organizing primary text sources. In Scrivener, I also compile a simplified timeline of key events (on the advice of Madeline Ostrander) and a list of the best quotes from my interviews (although as Michelle Nijhuis noted a few weeks back, I rely on these far less in the book than for a magazine article, where they serve as the main source of character and color¹).

These documents are the only things I’m allowed to look at while I’m writing my the first draft. And it’s worked pretty well for me. But I’d love to know: how do you all compile your notes and quotes? What works and what doesn’t?

Just for fun, I made a chat thread to encourage discussion. Or comment here. Anything goes!

1. Side note, in case it’s useful: my strategy for organizing interview material is to go through my transcript soon after the call and highlight all of the useful passages. Then, when I get ready to write, I go back through and skim only these highlighted sections, plucking only the best lines—the ones I have a reasonable chance of using—for my master quote list.