I Promise I’m Not Trying to Rob a Bank, I Just Need To Know [Blank] || Weird Things Writers Research in the Name of Accuracy, Part 2

Happy (day after) Thanksgiving to all my America readers, and happy Friday to everyone else!

About an a week and a half ago, I did part one of this post. To sum it up: I asked fellow wrimos the weirdest thing they’ve ever researched while writing. They responded. In droves. It’s pretty amazing and somewhat hilarious the things we research to make sure our novels stay accurate.

(I promise I’m not a murderer, I just need to know how to get rid of a body)

—

The symptoms of arsenic poisoning, a more precise location of carotid artery and how many there are (surprised I didn’t know, being a doctor’s son, and also a viewer of a lot of TV and movies). How long it takes to bleed out after having one’s jugular vein sliced, same thing about the carotid artery, and the femoral artery. Also wondered about the effects of the whole throat-slicing thing you see done in the movies. Also looked up a few different poisons, other than arsenic. Looked up symptoms for carbon monoxide poisoning, and approximate length of time for causing death, assuming it was a pretty bad “leak.” Maybe they aren’t weird things, but I bet I’ve been flagged by the FBI a few times, if I wasn’t already. Oh, another thing I looked up, before knowing anything at all about “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”: pukwudgies (they are not the nice creatures J.K. Rowling seems to have made them into). –eeyore9875

—

I drew a picture of a character wearing a snood before I even knew what a snood was called–so I had to do an online search for a description, and look at the images that came up, in order to find out what the heck to call it. –Spiny One

—

I don’t think researching kidnapping tactics is particularly weird for authors, but it did raise some awkward questions with my parents when my brother found the family computer’s search history full of questions about panel vans and amber alerts. I was ten at the time. –rosemary and thyme

—

Either:

Native American armpit hair

Or nudity in catholic doctrine. –Justin Fair

—

-What drugs make you forget events that occur after taking it, but leave you conscious and seeming normal.

-Victorian underwear

-alternatives to corsets in Victorian era

-fertility treatments, implanted embryos, etc…prices for donating sperm, ways of storage, ethics of disposal

-how to get your child removed by CPS…how to permanently lose custody

-how many lashes with a regular whip are fatal

Yeah, pretty crazy.  But I also am in a weekly trivia group, and when we research trivia questions, those can also get wild.

I’ve also thought it would be fun to play up those eccentric searches…then turn a serial killer loose at a writer’s conference or something.  That mystery would be crazy! –HGridley

—

I think I might win it for the dullest search: the history of cattle grids on Dartmoor. –Blue Fury

—

I just googled… “How long does a tampon burn for if you light it on fire?”–Sloppy Scribbles

—

I wrote a story once where a man is slowly starving to death.

Now, looking up the logistics of this is incredibly easy. Just google “process of starving to death” and boom, you have a quick and dirty understanding on the process. However, I wanted to know how it felt. Ah, well, there is one very good way to research something when others can’t do it for you: perform it on yourself. 

So, I followed the same basic diet my main character would . . . but for only two weeks. My wife, who is a physician, did look after me for the two weeks. The first week was mostly non-perishable foods easily stored. I was limited to under 1,000 calories a day. For me, a 6’2″ 240lbs former powerlifter, this was very hard. After this, for roughly two days, I ate under 500 calories. For six more days (I wanted to see how long I could go and went above the two week max) I ate nothing at all. 

It was perhaps the worst experiment I’ve ever had to do and I was a psych. major. Oh, and if by chance you think this is somehow a good way to lose weight, you’re wrong. I gained weight as soon as I began eating again. In fact, six months following this experiment I had gained an extra twenty-ish pounds, despite not changing my exercise routine or eating habits. I can’t say the two week experiment was certainly the reason, but I couldn’t find any other.  –Irish89

—

I’ve researched homemade explosives, personal nanotech weapons, hypothermia remedies, and the floor plan of a famous person’s house. On the same day. I’m sure it made me look like a crazy stalker, but I’m definitely not. –RileyLong

—

I know more about the tuba than I ever wanted to know. –Glitter Pen

—

I was writing a story about a dude, amidst in his own insanity, torturing all his friends to death. (I abandoned it.) and I ran out of torture methods! 

WELP, THERE GOES ALL MY SEARCH HISTORY.

Also, I once looked up the human’s skull’s autonomy and all that jazz because I needed to kill someone in a way that involved their skull in a book I discarded.–AvaKrause037

—

I once had to know if firearms would be ruined if exposed to milk for a lengthy period.– Hoegh

—

All kinds of stuff about radioactive materials and how to make an atomic bomb – like the differences in the different kinds of materials. I’m pretty sure the NSA is watching me now. All because my character wanted to make a breeder reactor.– shesaidsvengali

—

• Tomato soup poison (it from was a Monk episode and I wanted to know if the science was legit in order to help a fellow Nanoer)
• Discovering how child sibling died (probably not a narrow enough search – returned a lot of news stories that were not helpful but really freaky)
• murder-suicide by woman. –Aloisa

—

Now I don’t feel so bad after reading some of these replies.. :). If there was a watch-list for people who look up weird stuff on Google I’m pretty sure half of that list would be made up of authors!

I once researched how an autopsy was performed and how morgues were operated. I especially wanted to know if it was possible for my corpse bride character to get up and walk around after having an autopsy done on her, but it turns out that her guts would just spill out due to stapling of the stomach cavity. I ended up bailing out of that project when I came across a picture off Tupac’s cut up body as well as some other dead celebrity autopsies on Google search.  It also didn’t help that I decided to research on Halloween night while listening to scary ghost stories. I was asking for trouble. –Beanapika

—

So, blogglings, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever researched in the name of writing? Have you ever risked bodily harm like some of this people in the name of research?

How are your novels going? Are you still chugging along or have you all but given up, like a certain someone (me)?

And, how was your Thanksgiving?

Happy Friday,