The 'Backwards' Research Guide for Writers - Using your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration - Sonya Huber
12. Twists and Turns in the Research Story
The 'Backwards' Research Guide for Writers - Using your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration - Sonya Huber
Sonya Huber [+]
Fairfield University
Description
A research project might begin and end within a few weeks, and when you are done it might be out of your life forever. Some topics, however, might have such a personal resonance or evoke such deep interest that you find yourself haunted, touched, or changed by the act of research. Maybe you begin researching a topic – tornadoes, for example. As soon as you become immersed, the topic also seems to crop up in your non-research life. You meet someone at the Laundromat whose house was destroyed by a tornado. Then the following week three tornadoes sweep across the areas where you live. You flip through a magazine in a doctor’s office and find the perfect tornado article. What is going on? In the search for a true research obsession, you are opening yourself up to change. It’s like opening a window – there’s no telling what will fly in and make itself at home. In a way, the openness of curiosity creates vulnerability, and this vulnerability begins a story with an unpredictable ending.