/research

Interviews and Site Visits

People and places answer questions no book can: what a job smells like, what a nurse says under her breath, how long the walk from the car park really takes. Record them as research notes with method: interview, method: site-visit, or method: expert-review.

story add research "Night shift on a cardiac ward" --method interview \
  --accuracy must-be-accurate --risk medical --used-in chapter-07

Preparing an interview

1. Write the note's ## Question first: what the chapters need.
2. Draft 8 to 12 open questions under ## Interview Plan. Start broad ("Walk me through a typical night"), then specific ("What happens in the first five minutes of a cardiac arrest call?"). Ask for sensory detail, routine, jargon, and what outsiders get wrong.
3. Avoid leading questions that confirm the plot ("Would a nurse ever hide a death?"). Ask how things work and let the story fit the answers.
4. Agree the terms before the conversation:
   • Consent to take notes or record, and how the recording is stored
   • Attribution: named in the acknowledgements, named by role only, or anonymous
   • Review: whether they want to see the passages that draw on them
   • Nothing confidential about patients, clients, or cases they could not share publicly
5. Record the agreed terms in the note body under ## Consent.

The agent can draft questions and consent wording; the user holds the conversation. Never contact people on the user's behalf without explicit instruction.

Recording an interview

## Interview Notes

- 2026-04-12, video call, 45 min. Recorded with consent; audio kept
  locally, not in the repo.
- Interviewee: charge nurse, 14 years cardiac (anonymous by request).
- > "You hear the arrest bell before you think. Your feet are already
  >  moving." (00:12:40)
- Handover at 07:30 takes about 40 minutes; night staff rarely leave on
  time.
- Would not say what drugs are given first; follow up with a published
  protocol instead.

Give each quote a timestamp or page of notes. Mark paraphrase as paraphrase. Keep private details (names, contact details, anything they asked to keep out) out of the repository.

Planning a site visit

List what the chapters need from the place under ## Visit Plan:

• Distances and walking times between the places scenes use
• Sightlines: what can be seen from where a character stands
• Sound, smell, light at the time of day and season the scene is set
• Signs, surfaces, textures, and small details only a visitor notices
• Access: what is public, what needs permission, what has changed since the story's era

Check opening hours and permission before going, and photograph only where allowed.

Recording a site visit

## Visit Notes

- 2026-05-03, 06:10-08:00, spring tide, overcast.
- Minsterworth bank to the church lych-gate: 7 minutes' walk.
- The bore is heard about 90 seconds before it is seen.
- Photos: 14, kept in the user's archive (not the repo).

Record walking or travel times on the location's routes as well, so story continuity can check travel between scenes (see the worldbuilding skill).

Expert review

An expert review is a reading of drafted passages, not an interview. Use method: expert-review for the note, list the chapter ids read in used-in (it takes chapter ids only, such as chapter-07; name the specific passages under ## Findings), record the reviewer in the reviewed-by list, and log their corrections under ## Findings. Triage the notes with the feedback-triage skill. Notes with a risk need this review before the chapters are final.

After adding or updating interview, visit, or review notes, run story reindex ., story links ., and story validate ..