Over-Research. Seriously: A Practical Guide to Creative Writing Research
It All Begins Here
If you are new to writing historical fiction — or any genre that requires research — welcome to the most underrated part of the craft. Most new writers treat research like a chore to get through before the real writing starts. I used to think that too. Then I wrote a first-century biblical historical fiction story about Lazarus of Bethany, the man Jesus raised from the dead, and research stopped being a chore and became the whole adventure. Philip Gerard calls it exactly that — an adventure. He writes that research is "meant to be rewarding, fulfilling, maybe even — if we do it right — a lot of fun" (203). He is right. Here is what I learned.
How Do I Know What I Need to Research?
Start with your story's needs, not a library catalog. Ask yourself: what does my character know that I do not? What does the world of my story look, smell, and sound like? What would embarrass me if I got it wrong? For biblical historical fiction, I needed three kinds of research: theological, historical, and cultural. Theological research kept my handling of Scripture honest. Historical research gave me the world my characters inhabited. Cultural research gave me the texture — what people ate, how they traveled, what they feared. Narrow your research by scene. I had three scenes and two locations. That gave me a manageable list. Do not try to know everything about first-century Judea before you write a word. Know what your specific scenes require and go deep on those. Gerard also reminds us that research is not just about finding facts — it is about discovery. He describes "active unknowing" as the writer's best posture going into research (206). You do not already know what you will find. That is the point. Go in curious, not just thorough.
Where Do I Find Sources?
For biblical historical fiction, here is where I went:
Scripture first. Read the passages that relate to your story slowly and in a reliable translation. Ask what the text establishes and what it leaves open. The silence is your creative territory.
Academic commentaries are your second stop. I used D. A. Carson's commentary on the Gospel of John and Ernst Haenchen's treatment of John 11. These are available through university library databases like JSTOR. If you have access to a university database, use it. The sources there are vetted in ways that random websites are not.
Primary historical sources give you the world around Scripture. Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews is the single most important secular source for first-century Jewish life and is available free through Project Gutenberg at gutenberg.org. Tacitus's Annals gives you the Roman side of the same world. Both are free and searchable online.
Other works of fiction in your genre are also legitimate sources. Reading other writers who tackled the same territory taught me what narrative choices work and where I wanted to make different ones.
Gerard's advice for new researchers: "Over-research. Seriously over-research" (207). You will use a fraction of what you find, but the rest will give your writing confidence and authenticity that shows on every page, even when the research itself is invisible.
How Do I Know If a Source Is Credible?
Two questions answer this: who wrote it and who published it? For academic sources, look for institutional affiliation — a university press, a seminary, a peer-reviewed journal. Carson is published by Eerdmans. Wright is published by Fortress Press. These are reputable academic theological publishers. That matters. For primary sources like Josephus and Tacitus, credibility is not the question — they are ancient primary documents. The question is which translation you are using and whether it is reliable. For online sources, ask what the organization stands to gain by providing this information. A university site, a museum archive, or a peer-reviewed journal has no commercial interest in misleading you. A random blog does. Wikipedia is a starting point only — follow its footnotes to the real sources. For appropriateness to your specific project, ask one more question: Does this source actually address what my story needs? A source can be credible and still be irrelevant. I had thirteen sources in my bibliography. Not all of them did equal work in the story. That is fine. Research is an investment, and not all investments pay off equally.
How Do I Incorporate Sources Into My Writing?
This is where most new writers get it wrong in one of two directions — either they ignore their research entirely and write from imagination alone, or they load the story with so much historical detail that the narrative suffocates. The goal is saturation, not citation. You read deeply, absorb the world of your story until it becomes a natural atmosphere, and then you write. The research should be invisible in the best sense — the reader should feel that the world is real without being able to point to where you proved it.
In biblical historical fiction, the research shows up in sensory detail. The smell of olive trees in Bethany in the morning. The sound of pilgrims singing the Psalms of Ascent on the road to Jerusalem. The specific weight of the grave clothes on a man who has just walked out of a tomb. None of those details came from imagination. All of them came from research. The research disappears into the story. What remains is simply the world.
Gerard reminds us that research equally serves the human side of the story — "the things that transcend the drudgery of workaday lives with the glint of something finer" (203). Research is not just facts and dates. It is loyalty, friendship, love, and endurance. It is what makes your characters human. For giving credit to sources in creative writing, the author's note is your friend. At the end of your piece, write a brief note explaining where you took creative liberties and which sources you are most indebted to. This is standard practice in historical fiction, and it honors your sources without interrupting the narrative.
Where Can I Find More Information?
Gerard, Philip. The Art of Creative Research. University of Chicago Press, 2017. This is the essential guide to the entire research process for creative writers. Gerard covers everything from using archives and conducting interviews to evaluating online sources and incorporating research into a finished piece. If you read one book about creative writing research, read this one. Available through Liberty University's online bookshelf.
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Eerdmans, 2006. Essential for anyone writing biblical historical fiction. Bauckham argues that the Gospels are grounded in eyewitness testimony and that named figures in the Gospel accounts had ongoing relationships with Jesus. This gives the biblical fiction writer both permission and responsibility — permission to imagine the human experience behind the text, and responsibility to stay faithful to what the witnesses recorded.
Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Longmans, Green, and Co., 1883. Available free at ccel.org. The standard reference for first-century Jewish life. If you are writing anything set in the world of the New Testament, this book belongs on your desk. It is old, but the world it describes is ancient, and ancient worlds do not change.
Eduard von Gebhardt - The Raising of Lazarus - 1896