CONTACT!

by Steven Piziks

copyright 2000 by Steven Piziks

(Originally appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, Fall, 2000)

The McNamara Building in downtown Detroit doesn’t look like it’s full of people with guns. It’s a fairly tall, standard gray skyscraper with a really ugly sculpture out front made of smashed-up cars set in a vaguely Stonehengian arrangement. I parked my car and dropped quarters into the meter. For a wonder, I was wearing a shirt with a button-down collar, slacks, and decent shoes instead of my more usual ragged shorts and torn t-shirt. Under my arm I carried a zippered leather folder.

You want to look nice when you’re interviewing the FBI.

When you enter the lobby of the McNamara Building, all your stuff goes through an x-ray machine and you go through a metal detector. The guards are polite, friendly, and watchful. A creaky, shuddering elevator took me up past the Treasury Department and the IRS to the twenty-sixth floor and the FBI.

In the elevator foyer are pictures and descriptions of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted. Bin Laden is still on the list, in case you were curious. You have to pass through another metal detector to get into the reception area. This one doesn’t give you the chance to empty your pockets, so your keys and change set off the alarm. (I rather suspect it’s less for safety and more to alert the receptionists, who are behind bullet glass, to your presence.) I walked up to the bullet glass with a polite smile on my face and my card in my hand.

The things I do for research.

When you say “research,” most people think of a pale person sitting at a table paging through a stack of musty books with one hand and taking frantic notes with the other. Sometimes this is the case. Unfortunately, however, books can’t answer direct questions, and often as I’m paging through some dusty tome trying to find out just when the ground was broken on Ann Arbor’s first cemetery, I find myself saying, “This is the sort of thing I could find out in less than ten seconds if I could just ask someone.”

Talking to people to get information is often faster and more efficient than flipping through a book. Living people can also answer questions and bring up further facts you never knew to ask about. But just how do you find someone to talk to? And how do you ask? Won’t they get mad that you’re bothering them? How much do you pay them? What’s the etiquette at an interview? These are some daunting questions, so let’s take them one at a time.

The first step, obviously, is finding someone to consult. Sometimes you just get lucky. My first book was a science fiction novel about a man with multiple personality disorder (MPD). I read everything I could get my hands on, but there were a lot of things the books didn’t say. As it happened, my wife was taking a psychology class at the time and she mentioned my book to the professor. He was fascinated! MPD, it turned out, was his specialty. When I heard about this, I promptly called the psych department to find out when his office hours were and I went down to talk to him the following day. As I said--lucky.

Luck, of course, doesn’t work all the time. A more reliable way to find contacts is simply to ask all your friends and family if they know anything about the field you’re researching. You’d be surprised at some of the contacts you can find this way. (“Didn’t you know your great-uncle Ben worked as a lumberjack for fifteen years?”) Even if this doesn’t yield a direct contact, it can lead you to the friend-of-a-friend system. When I first expressed interest in contacting the FBI, for example, a friend of mine told me his parents knew an FBI agent assigned to the Kalamazoo Field Office. Contact!

You can also do a cold contacts. This involves getting hold of people you’ve never heard of (and vice-versa), and it often calls for some preliminary research. I was working on a piece involving botannical cloning, and the friend-of-a-friend system was proving a dead end. I live in Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, so obviously the next step was to track down the botannical laboratory.

I called University information to get the location and went down for a quick visit. The receptionist was quite busy and verged on being rude, so I didn’t tell her I was a writer looking for information. Instead I asked for any flyers or booklets about the biology department. The catalog she gave me to look at (she said I couldn’t keep it) listed all the professors and their specialty areas. I copied down several names and phone numbers, thanked her sweetly, and left. Over the next few days, I made phone calls until I located a researcher who was working on a botannical DNA project and was able to make an appointment for an interview.

Do I get nervous calling people I don’t know? You bet! I need the information, though, so I force myself to push those phone buttons. I have a tendency to babble when I’m edgy, so I often write out what I want to say in advance in case I start blithering or stuttering. When my source picks up the phone, I simply say (or read), “My name is Steven Piziks. I’m a novelist, and the book I’m currently working on involves Medieval English cooking methods. I heard you would be a good person to talk to about this. Would you be able to answer a few questions?”

A note here: I introduce myself as a novelist, never a writer. The reason for this is that the word “writer” is often associated with “starving” or “wannabe” or “failing.” The word “novelist,” however, has a more brisk, down-to-earth connotation. It boils down to the pre-conception that writers are artists (and therefore slightly suspect) while novelists are businesspeople. If you’re not a novelist and are doing research for a short story, say instead, “I’m working on a short story for submission to -----.” And name the magazine you intend to submit the story to. Again, this makes you sound more business-like--you already have a market in mind.

So you’ve done the preliminary research and are making the call. What if the contact is rude or unwilling to talk to you? The situation can still be salvaged: “No problem. Sorry to have bothered you. Can you, perhaps, recommend someone else I could talk to? I’d really appreciate it.”

Let’s assume, however, that your contact is willing to talk to you. Most of them will be. You are a writer--er, novelist, something many people find endlessly fascinating. You’re also giving them a chance to lecture about their fields of expertise. People love talking about themselves and their work, especially if what they say has a chance of ending up in print.

If you only have a few quick questions, a phone consultation will often do. (“It’ll only take about five minutes. Is now a good time or should I call you back?”) If you need something a little more elaborate, ask if you can make an appointment. You need to be flexible and operate at their convenience, of course. Remember, they are doing you a favor.

Some people will offer to consult via e-mail. This can work well if your contact is far away, making telephone calls expensive and personal interviews impossible. The problem you may run into, however, is that people often give too little detail in e-mail. They may be willing to go on for several minutes in person, but only give a terse, one-sentence answer if they have to write it down. Be prepared to reply with a polite request for more detail.

Now let’s assume you’ve set up an interview. That brings up the question of mechanics--what to wear, what to bring, and so on. If you’re talking to a total stranger in an office-like setting or in a private home, you’ll want to dress up a bit. I normally never wear slacks, but you can bet I did when I talked to the FBI! On the other hand, if you’re going to be in a barn talking to a farmer about the care and feeding of horses, your best bet is blue jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt. If you aren’t sure, err on the side of dressiness.

Bring whatever method of taking notes you prefer. I take a miniature tape recorder, but I always ask permission to use it. I also have a notebook and two pens in case one runs out of ink. (Asking to borrow a writing implement looks unprofessional.) Lastly, I bring my card. If you don’t have one, I really recommend getting some printed. Many computer programs will also let you print your own. Overall, cards are quite inexpensive, and handing one out adds a business-like touch. If you don’t have a card, write your name, address, and phone number on two or three sticky-notes and bring them instead.

You’ll also want to write out a list of questions in advance. You don’t want to waste your contact’s time while you hem and haw over what else you want to ask. Besides, pre-writing the questions is a more professional approach, and you are a professional.

What do you offer to pay a contact? As a rule, nothing. Instead, you tell them that you’ll put their name and title on the “Acknowledgements” page and send them an autographed copy of the book when it comes out. For a short story, you send an autographed copy of the magazine. And always, always, always send a thank-you note after the interview: “Dear Ms. Smith, I just wanted to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with me. Your help was invaluable and will make the book [story] far more accurate than I could on my own. If you think of any other information to add, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

By the way, if you interview your contact over dinner or drinks, you are expected to pick up the tab, even if the contact was the one who suggested the idea. It’s a tax deduction, so save the receipt!

One last thing. If you deal with a government agency, be ready for red tape, and be persistent. Most government agencies have a specific person who deals with writers and reporters, and that may be the only person you’re allowed to talk to.

When I first contacted the friend-of-a-friend FBI agent, for example, he told me I had to talk to the Special Agent who dealt with the press. This Special Agent referred me to the main press office in the Washington, D.C. headquarters. I contacted the office there and was told to fax them a copy of the questions I wanted to ask and that someone there would call me back to answer the ones whose answers weren’t classified. I did this and got quite a lot of information over the phone. But I still wanted to see inside the Detroit Field Office. I made several phone calls to the McNamara Federal Building, but none of them were returned. I finally drove down there, zippered folder in hand, to see if showing up in person would net me a better response.

It did, though only a little better. I briefly met with a Special Agent, who told me I would have to clear a visit with Washington, D.C. first. So back home I went for another round of faxing and telephoning. As of this writing, I’m still working on getting that interview. Frustrating? Definitely.

But writing is an exercise in persistence.