Observe without interaction

Years ago, before she became a screenwriter and Hollywood director, Nora Ephron was a lowly magazine writer (if Esquire could be considered lowly). Some of her published pieces were anthologized in a wonderful book called Wallflower at the Orgy, so named because this is how Ephron says she felt as she went through her life, both personal and journalistic: a shy observer to the hot action. While most of us writers don’t participate in the stories we write -- we aren’t part of the action -- few of us cultivate the art of shyness. Maybe we should.

Anthropologists know the virtues of silence, of sitting in the corner and watching. Yes, there are questions to be asked. But watching and listening first, rather than exerting one’s presence with questions and queries, means field workers have time to develop a sense of the group, time to listen to the cadence of community life. Being actively, attentively "shy" in this way keeps anthropologists open to possibilities.

Nonfiction writers, especially those of us schooled in the ways of traditional journalism, think we have to talk to be working. Sitting and watching is mere idleness. Silence makes us squirm. After all, we do research to prepare questions. We arrive with questions -- and so we are eager, perhaps too eager, to ask them.

Taking my cues from the anthropologist in the field, I tried to keep my mouth shut and ears open as I worked to become part of the daily life of a group of female athletes. It was important for me to be there, literally on the sidelines, the wallflower, not only for me to observe them but also for them to get used to being observed by me. I wanted to be invisible. I wanted the young women to be unselfconsciously themselves. The more I was there, the less I talked, the more I learned.

Ask "stupid" questions

"What is this?" an anthropologist might ask, pointing to a small bowl. "What are you doing now?" "Why do you do that?" A fieldworker’s questions are often simple and direct, especially at the beginning of the project. They are basic questions that emerge from the experience of watching. They are the questions a child would ask.

We writers sometimes have too much ego to ask the simple questions that need asking. We go out on a story and, while we certainly want to learn, we also want to look smart and be in control. We don’t ask the simple question because we are afraid of looking stupid. Of course, later, we end up writing stupid because we didn’t ask the questions we should have.

I remember one of my first meetings with the coach. I was sitting in her office listening to her thinking out loud about who would be that season’s starting players. A particular young woman, she said, might be able to "play at the two or the three." Another could "post up" but not "box out." I listened understanding nothing. That day in the coach’s office, I allowed my fear of appearing ignorant to silence my questions. Some of the sports lingo I picked up from context later on. But mostly, over the course of researching the book, I had to force myself to ask the stupid question, time and again. The happy consequence of this was not just that I learned something, but that my simple questions empowered my subjects. They became my teachers, and the balance of power shifted nicely.