Guns, Drugs, and Elvis: A Guide to Research for Fiction Writers
A novelist and creative writing teacher revises the injunction
to "write what you know"  A few years ago, a reviewer wrote this
about my second pseudonymous novel: "Kenneth Abel must be either
a cop or a mafioso. He really knows his drugs."  Sadly, "Kenneth
Abel" was nothing so glamorous. What he was at the time that
review was published was an assistant professor of English at
Kenyon College, and what he knew was that he had a Shakespeare
class to prepare for the next morning and a stack of English 1-2
papers to grade waiting in his office in Sunset Cottage. Some
fiction writers wander the world in search of a great story, or
throw themselves into the lives of their characters--hunting
lions in Africa, fighting bulls in Spain, enlisting as a
mercenary in some distant colonial war. The rest of us do
research.  One of the most famous pieces of advice given to
young writers is "Write what you know." And yet, as anyone who
has ever taught fiction w