Monday, February 27, 2012

blood magic and other things writers might google

Writing a fictional novel means you get to make everything up, right? Well, mostly. But research is a big part of writing, bigger than I'd ever expected it to be before I started. You have to get the details right if you want the story and characters to have any credibility. When I open a book, I'm ready to believe the narrator's description of events and the world-building, but it's hard to ignore the blatantly impossible and ridiculous. Of course, if the author gives me a reason to accept the blatantly impossible as actually possible (maybe the story takes place in an alternate world where everyone is born with magical powers), I can accept that too.

DAUGHTER OF THE MOON is urban fantasy and so anything out of the ordinary which happens in the real world needs to be explained. And that's where research comes in - adding in the details which maintain plausibility.

Google and Wikipedia have been my go-to sources for research while writing DAUGHTER OF THE MOON and her sequel and I thought I'd take a look back at some of the more interesting things I've googled. Things like:

alchemy transmutation circle, Persephone mythology, conditions which mimic a vampire attack, committing suicide by drowning, porphyria, stages of death, lunar cycles, bus routes from L.A to Montreal, anticoagulants in mosquitoes, blood magic

Last night I watched an episode of Law and Order where a woman's google search history was used as evidence she'd committed a crime. But what if she was really just a writer? What's the strangest thing you've googled lately?

6 comments:

  1. Wow, Google as evidence? That's crazy stuff!

    I haven't googled anything too weird lately, mostly things related to Los Angeles, because that is where the majority of my WIP is set!

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    1. The woman had been googling things like "chloroform", "body decomposition" and where to buy duct tape and a shovel in the same week that her young daughter "went missing". But really, I can imagine googling those same things too if I was in the middle of writing a murder mystery.

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  2. Hmm... now that makes me worried, since I have recently googled 'body decomposition' and the like for writing research! I'll have to be extra careful not to google 'shovels' for a bit. I think I actually read an article about the case your talking about.

    By the way, your google research sounds absolutely fascinating and fun - alchemy circles? persephone? conditions which mimic a vampire attack - now that's just awesome. I need to google that later!

    That said, I'm fairly terrible about doing the type of research I should, I let myself get side-tracked. But I agree in its importance for sure. ^_^

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    1. Hi K.S. and thanks for the follow :) *waves* I think that's a good idea to spread out the suspicous google searches, just in case, haha.

      And I know what you mean about getting side-tracked. One search seems to lead to another and before I know it I can get completely off track. But, sometimes that leads to a new idea, and a new WIP!

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  3. Gosh, I do enjoy a good episode of L&O.

    I *think* my google history is relatively normal. A lot of the stuff in my book is stuff I read in books. Totally old school ;)

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    1. I love Law and Order too - especially figuring out which real-life cases the episodes are based on :)

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