Hopkins, Lutz, Solomon, & Wight 1

Mary Wight, Kaitlyn Hopkins, Mattie Solomon & James Lutz

Professor Anna Szczepaniec-Bialas
ENGL 297-0101
26 April 2017

Ethnographic Research Report:

What It Means to be a Successful Fiction/Non-fiction Writer

Introduction:

Our research project studied UMD Professor *name omitted* to learn what motivates a
writer to make a compelling story and what kind of techniques writers use in order to engage in
and encourage successful fiction/non-fiction writing. We conducted an in-home interview with
our research subject and learned about the mechanical and creative processes behind fiction/non-
fiction writing. We analyzed the information we gathered using Chapter 15 of Solving Problems
in Technical Communication, where we used the heuristics given to organize our data into
different categories. We studied the amount and quality of writing that is entailed and expected
as a fiction/non-fiction writer, genres and rhetorical strategies, approaches to and processes for
writing, knowledge and skills required, and the personal traits and qualities a writer may possess.
Examining these heuristics will give a powerful insight into the world of fiction/non-fiction
writing through the perspective of Professor *name omitted*. We also hope that by focusing on
the following heuristics, we will be able to gain insight on what it means to be a successful
writer. We will go into detail on the research location and subject, the data collection methods
used in our research, the results of our research, and conclude what there is to take away from
our research on fiction/non-fiction writing.

Research Location & Subject:

Our research subject is Professor *name omitted*, who works in the English department
at the University of Maryland, where she teaches professional writing courses. Professor *name
omitted* originally comes from Poland, where she got her first Master’s in Philology and fell in
love with the English language. After she came to the United States, she became a professor at
the University of Maryland. Two years ago, she obtained her second Master’s of Fine Arts
degree from Bennington College. Professor *name omitted* also writes short stories and essays
for various writing platforms including the Literary Hub, a website that claims to be, “the source
for all news, ideas and richness of contemporary literary life.” *name omitted* mostly writes
literary fiction, along with her teaching career. While attending Bennington College, she
produced some non-fiction work as well, especially during the controversial 2016 presidential
election, where she wrote an essay on Trump.
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In 2011, Professor *name omitted* published her first fictitious novel, To Kill the Other.
This book takes place twenty years before the terrorist attack on September 11th, and focuses on
the spiritual transformation of a young, affluent, Egyptian boy to a ruthless killer. Professor
*name omitted* did three years of extensive research before completing the book, which
included emailing with several people in the middle east to ensure that she made her novel as
accurate as possible.
Professor *name omitted*, while primarily writing fiction, has a certain interest in non-
fiction editorial writing. She mentioned during our meeting that she has lately become more
interested in non-fiction essays. Along with her longer fiction novels and short stories, she has
also written some essays that have been published in The Muse, Litteraria, and the Word Riot.
These essays, while titled as “non-fiction” are not that different from the writing she is used to.
She writes in order to understand the world better, and whether that is in fiction or non-fiction,
one can see her commitment to research and learning in both.
We conducted the face-to-face interview in Professor *name omitted*’s home located in
Ellicott City, as we wanted to observe her in her natural writing environment. Her office was
located on the top floor of her home, and featured a beautiful window with a view of the forest in
her backyard. Her office was small, but very organized, and filled with books.

Data Collection Methods:

As we conducted the in-home interview with Professor *name omitted*, each of us were
assigned a different method of collecting data. One person recorded the entire interview on a
recording application that is automatically installed within every iPhone while another person
recorded important bits of the dialogue into their notebook, and two other people recorded data
into their computer. We all participated in a friendly, flowing conversation of Professor *name
omitted*’s passion for fiction/non-fiction writing. We all agreed on certain questions to pose
during the interview via Google Docs so that we could keep the conversation flowing as well as
answer any necessary questions about the process of fiction/non-fiction writing that guide our
research.

Questions used to guide interview:

-How long did it take you to write your first book, “To Kill the Other”?
-What was the process involved in writing this book and how much of it was research vs. actual
writing?
-Did you have to interview or contact any additional sources to write your book?
-How much of your writing process involved the Tate publishing company that helped publish
your first book?
-Did you ever consider self-publishing?
-What are the steps throughout the process of writing: do you establish purpose first? Audience?
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-How aware did you have to be of your own writing voice and how much did it shape or
influence the way you wrote your book?
-Do you like constraints or guidelines on your writing or do you enjoy freedom in unthemed
writing?
-Any advice for upcoming, prospective fiction writers?

The interview started at 6:30 pm and went on until 8:30 pm. This interview also served as
a primary point for our research. The results we gathered for this report developed from our
observations of Professor *name omitted*’s work space (her home), works she has published,
and the information gained from our interview. Due to some of the difficulty we had finding and
contacting an informant, we feel as though we were extremely lucky to get into contact with
Professor *name omitted*. She gave us a lot of great insight into the field of fiction/non-fiction
writing, and what follows is a set of findings based on three of the heuristics mentioned in
Chapter 15 of Solving Problems in Technical Communication.

Results:

Genres and Rhetorical Strategies

The field of technical writing encompasses various types of interests, styles and forms,
which ultimately are reflected in the body of work that a technical writer produces. Covering all
the different types of technical writing is difficult when considering how broad the field is, and
how many different professional writers work to define their own specific brand of writing. One
of the main distinctions we were interested in our research was the differences and similarities
between fiction and non-fiction writing and reporting. While seemingly two very different
genres, we found that the two are actually a lot more related than one may think. While
interviewing Professor *name omitted* in her home/work space, our questions about the
distinctions between fiction and non-fiction were challenged in a way that reversed our
preconceptions of the writing styles. While attempting to gain a concrete definition of what
fiction is compared to non-fiction, this series of questions and comments spurred from Professor
*name omitted*’s interpretation of our question. This is one point of our interview that was
particularly interesting in that its worked to break down the barrier between the two genres of
writing. The conversation went as follows:

Mary: “What is the difference between fiction and non-fiction?

*name omitted*: “I think i am predominantly a fiction writer, who also writes non-
fiction...I think fiction writing is seeing connections in the world that other people don’t
see, or are not obvious. I see stories and I always have stories.”
Kaitlyn: “Do you find that as a writer you kind of view events in a different way… do
you watch the world differently in any way?”
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*name omitted*: “I am very much interested in people… in history, and questions about
why people are the way they are and what influences them... I am interested in
understanding.”
Kaitlyn: “Do you find that your books are kind of like a lense? Do you write them in
order to understand?”
*name omitted*: “Yes I think this is a good observation, because I think I also write
stories to understand more about myself. Writing helps me make sense of the world
around me”
Mattie: “Yeah, because I think a lot of people think there is this clear distinction between
fiction and non-fiction, where non-fiction is more analytical and historical, while fiction
is more interpretive and artistic. But do you feel like you can apply all of these qualities
to both?”
*name omitted*: “You know, there is an author whose name is Karl Ove Knausgaard,
who writes fiction, but it’s actually exactly his life. He admits that it is about his life.”
Mary: “What makes it fiction?”
*name omitted*: “Because he says it’s fiction. He believes that he is expanding the
meaning of a novel, which means that his life is a story. ‘I am writing it , and I will call it
a novel.’”
Mary: “But it's not an autobiography?”
*name omitted*: “But it's not an autobiography. I’ll tell you, he differs from an
autobiography...although it depends on how you write it, it is not chronological, not
everything is there, what is there is what he wants to write about. But if you didn't know
that that is his life, you would think that this is a novel written in first person and it is a
novel. And this is all true. Then there is another writer, Elena Ferrante, who writes as if
she is writing about her life, but it's all fiction. And Elena Ferrante is not even her real
name.”

Chapter 15 of Solving Problems in Technical Communication states that “Technical

communicators need, in essence, to know how versatile and flexible they will need to be, both in
regards to the kinds of documents they will be asked to write and in regards to the rhetorical
strategies they will need” (Johnson-Eilola, 369). The style in which a person writes all depends
upon their own understanding of what their text is and how it relates to the wider scope of
writing that already exists. Professor *name omitted* mentions some examples of writers who
question the definition of fiction and non-fiction writing, and this helped us to understand the
creative and ever changing nature of writing genres. In order to create a successful text, one
needs to be able to adhere to their own brand of either fiction or non-fiction writing.
While we primarily focused on genre, as opposed to rhetorical situation, we found that
this discussion shed a lot of light on how a writer's intention can determine his or her rhetorical
situation. In other words, by personally defining one's own work as either fiction or non-fiction,
that writer is therefore able to create a text that gains its significance and purpose from its
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authorial intent. Writers like Karl Ove Knausgaard and Elena Ferrante are successful writers due
to their ability to control the genre they write in and create meaning from that definition of genre.

Approaches to and Processes For Writing

Most of Professor *name omitted*’s writing is based off of historical and personal
events. For example, her stories may be inspired by real events like 9/11, which was the
historical context for her novel, To Kill The Other. She is also inspired by her personal life,
which is the case for her current novel that she is working on about her grandfather's experience
during World War II called Angels in the Forest. Both of these, while fictional, still require a
large amount of research in order to tell her story as accurately and realistic as possible.
We found that for Professor *name omitted*’s writing, the research process is just as
important as the writing process. Before even beginning to write a novel, one must be able to
understand whatever culture or subgroup they are hoping to write about. Similar to one doing
field research, a fiction/non-fiction writer must be able to be open and willing to discover new
cultures, environments, and histories. For Professor *name omitted*, we found that research is
one of the most intensive aspects of fiction writing. She specifically writes in the genre of
“historical fiction,” which again seems to blur this line between fiction and non-fiction writing.
One interesting thing that Professor *name omitted* said in regards to her writing process
and how she finishes her work is that she simply “cannot explain the process.” During our
interview we were interested in how she organizes her writing schedule with her professional
career as a college professor. She noted that she is dedicated to her writing and tries to set
deadlines for a certain amount of pages per month. For the two novels she is currently writing,
she has set page requirement for each month for both texts. Another thing she does in order to
aid in her writing process, along with her adherence to a schedule, is a visual outline of the
events in the novel. Although she stated that she does not really use an outline in her writing, she
did show us one that she has up in her work space. This was a timeline of events written out on a
large poster, which she believes this helps her to think about the events in the novel and how
they will all fit together chronologically.
For every writer, the research and writing process will be different, however, one thing
that seems to be consistent in Professor *name omitted*’s writing, and her success with writing,
is her ability to stay organized. No matter what plan a writer devises, it is important to keep a
schedule of your work in order to make the most of your time and efforts.

Qualities of a Writer
The final heuristic that we focused on is the certain qualities and personality traits that a
writer needs to have in order to be successful. There qualities and traits are important because it
determines one's ability to write, his or her passion for the practice, and how they will make the
most of their writing. We asked Professor *name omitted* about these qualities towards the end
of our interview with her. We thought that by closing our interview this way, we introduced
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ourselves to Professor *name omitted* as not just students researching her work, but also as
students genuinely interested in pursuing professional writing careers.
In response to this question, Professor *name omitted* emphasized the importance of
genuinely loving writing, reading, and researching. In order to be a great writer, one needs to be
a great reader as well. By taking a special interest in others writing, you are therefore able to
effectively cultivate your own style and voice. Not do these interests strengthen the actual
content of your writing, but it also improves your work ethic, problem solving abilities, and
collaborative skills.
Professor *name omitted*’s advice, while seemingly and simple straightforward, really
tackles many of the different traits necessary to be a writer. This passion will lend itself to other
qualities that are necessary for being a professional writer. By genuinely loving what you do, you
not only build upon your own skills, but you effect the people you are around, which can make
for positive and collaborative work environments.

Conclusion:

To conclude our ethnography, Professor *name omitted* turned out to be an amazing

insight into the world of fiction and non-fiction writing. Her passion for writing gave us an
exciting overview of the creative and mechanical processes involved in her profession. We came
into the research with a few of our own biases, but came out learning information that we never
would have expected to find if we hadn’t conducted the in-home interview. We found that by
focusing our analysis of our research on some of the heuristics mentioned in Chapter 15 of
Solving Problems in Technical Communication, we were able to extract some key aspects of
successful fiction/non-fiction writing. Our main takeaways from our informant was on the
importance of identifying one's own genre, staying organized, and being passionate about the
writing process. In Professor *name omitted*’s words, “To be a good fiction writer, you have to
love it.” We appreciated the time and steady flow of conversation that Professor *name omitted*,
a member of the writing community, offered as we learned all about what motivates, inspires,
and moves a writer to start their process and finish a product that shares a piece of their life with
everyone.
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Works Cited
Johnson-Eilola, J., & Selber, S. A. (2013). Solving problems in technical communication.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.