We Strange and Wonderful Writers
23:17
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So, you’re happily writing away at your book. And then, all of a sudden, your character gets shot. Which is fine. There’s hours of fun research in that. You sit at your computer, start looking things up, and before you know it, you’ve got dozens of tabs open on the treatment of gunshot wounds, different types of guns, where to shoot someone for a non-lethal wound, and how long you’d have to get medical treatment before infection would set in. Awesome fun, right? Until your mum walks in and sees all the weird and frankly concerning (in her opinion) things your reading. Awkward, right?
It’s hard work. On the one hand, there’s a bunch of cool things
to look up and work into your books. All those experiences of being injured to
use. All that cool knowledge on poisons and drugs and criminal activities to
find out and write into a story. And on the other, there are all those ‘normal’
people, who think that it’s a bit disturbing to have such a keen interest in
the secret workings of drug cartels. Which are kind of awesome things to learn
about.
It’s a tough job being a writer. We’ve got to be realistic
in our books. People notice and complain loudly when we get things wrong. And
writers are known to be a bit of a crazy bunch. After all, we’re the people who
voluntarily give up literally hours of our lives to write thousands words that
promptly get thrown out and rewritten, over and over again. We’ve got crazy
habits and obsessions with coffee, chocolate and cats. But still, somehow, people
don’t seem to enjoy our research on the best places to hide a dead body, or us
knowing how a bomb is made.
If you want my advice, try not to get caught checking the
signs of pregnancy, especially if you have a baby name generator open at the
same time. It gets especially suspicious if you hurriedly click off the pages.
And I’d go easy on stalking the CIA’s movements if I were you. I’m afraid the
men in black suits don’t take kindly to having you check their Facebook
profiles, even if it is for your latest spy thriller. Build yourself a blanket
fort, stock up on that chocolate and coffee, do your research from the safety
of a Bat Cave, and prepare yourself for surprise visits from men in sunglasses
in your near future.
We writers are a weird bunch. We look up some strange
things. We’re obsessed with fluffy animals and knowing odd facts. We’re
probably on government watch lists. People think we’re crazy and get very
concerned about our mental health. And we are totally awesome.
Looking for some
interesting resources that probably won’t have secret agents bashing your front
door in? I currently have a series on writing resources over on YoungWriters Treehouse. I’d love it if you
hopped over and checked it out!
12 comments
I feel this way, too! One time my mom and I bought a used baby name book at a thrift store (I was like, 14) and I just felt super judged by the cashier lady as we checked out because what if she thought I was pregnant? Like, that would be beyond awkward. However, on that note, doing research with hardcover books, though perhaps more tedious, does not mean a remotely accessible browser history for anyone to snoop in! (Although, to be fair, learning about the drug cartels, mob bosses, and so on are one of the great funs of writing. So maybe I don't want to miss out on that, after all.)
ReplyDeleteResearching from books is definitely a great way to avoid that awkward browser history, especially if you get to spend a day in the library. I so almost borrowed a book on surgery with all the pictures and everything, just because it looked cool and I could have possibly, somewhere in the far future, used the information. But the internet is definitely the easiest way to research, and honestly, I think I'd risk the history too, just to find out all the cool stuff I can.
DeleteThis is really awesome, really eloquent, and really true. We're very bizarre people, especially with all that re-writing we do, but we're also very hardcore and pretty cool if I do say so myself. It takes guts to keep working at it the way a lot of us do.
ReplyDeleteI swear people would think we're even crazier than they already do if they saw the amount of work we throw away every time we sit down to rewrite. I threw away nearly 60k words of hard work when I rewrote my last book and retyped everything from scratch. But we have the dedicate to our art. Definitely hardcore.
DeleteThis post is most definitely relatable. Out in the store some days ago I was writing and then suddenly, I cheered, "Yay, my character is a gun!" Everyone in the aisle just turned to look at me all weird... Eh, we're a weird bunch, but that's nothing to be ashamed of. Our writing and knowledge pretty much makes up for it, anyways.
ReplyDeletexoxo Morning
Oh the weird things that occur to writers at the wrong places. I am the most unsympthetic person at times. When someone gets injured in a interesting way, I automatically want to put it in a book somewhere. We're pretty awesome people, us writers.
Delete" And then, all of a sudden, your character gets shot" LOL I am not kidding, this exact thing happened this morning. I just love seeing what other authors wind up searching for one google. Mine today - "Is a pulmonary embolism painful" LOL
ReplyDeleteIt's strange how often something like that just crops up out of the blue. I've looked up some pretty weird medical conditions myself, just to see if they would be useful for a book. Definitely seen some weird things in my travels. It's all part of the adventure though, isn't it?
Delete*removes baby name book from shelf and hides it in safe place* What are you talking about? I know of no such thing. Seriously, though, this post is the best because it's so true. Frankly, I don't think it's disturbing for me to research the lives of serial killers and watch interviews with psychopaths and read papers on children who are already cold-blooded murderers. I guess others in my family aren't quite as enthusiastic, though, so I always feel a little weird when I research some of this stuff because I feel like I have to do it secretly. And I'm probably on at least a dozen government watch lists from the time I researched what sort of bomb would have a large enough explosive yield to level a wall but not enough to destroy everything else (which would include the chemical components and the molecular description of said chemical components--yeah, I might have gone a little overboard). But yes, we writers are strange creatures (I accidentally wrote creepers there, but the term does apply). And I look forward to the day when the men in black sunglasses show up, because I could totally interview them and get some great research done that way. :P
ReplyDeleteCreepers probably is the right way to describe most of us writers. Haha, you will have to share your superior knowledge on the men in black sunglasses when they inevitably come round to visit you. I want to hear all about it! I creep my family out sometimes with the weird things I know. Like when I let on that I knew the best places on the body to cut if you wanted to commit suicide quickly. That may have worried them a little bit...
DeleteFantastic post! It made me laugh as well, because I know I've had to look up things that I thought, 'If I died suspiciously and the police for some reason had to check my laptop for clues, they would think I'm SO WEIRD' XD lmao.
ReplyDeleteYou're right when you say readers get really picky about the 'realism' of a novel, even if it's fantasy. Even if most aspects of the book could never even happen! Still, I think they help to give writers guidelines, because if we didn't have those we would probably write any old drivel.
I have to admit, as a writer, I'm even more picky about realism in books and movies nowadays. Though I'm still not the greatest when it comes to being realistic in my own books. But having to follow the rules of logic is really good for helping us writers deliver a book with enough logic and enough world rules to follow and believe. Thanks for stopping to comment!
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