Weird google searches for your novel research

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Saavedra

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Well. Apart from innocuous searches like how Egyptian pyramids were built and the landscapes of certain Mexican states, I have jewels like how much gasoline can you drink without dying.
 

Wilde_at_heart

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How fast pure cotton catches fire, especially if it's soaked with an accelerant.

Pure cotton wool? Extremely fast.
 

LBlankenship

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Medieval sheep husbandry
Jacobs, Soays and Whiteface Dartmoors (very old sheep breeds)
Foot and mouth disease
Anthrax
Collies and those Hungarian sheepdogs with the dreadlocks
and a photo search for period/replica seaxes
 

Hugh

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Not so much a weird search, but a surprising result. My current work in progress is a fictional Jane Doe cold case from 1977 in rural Appalachia. I searched google for any actual missing person reports for women from that time and place and indeed there was one; and it's still open to this day.
 

Sister Ray

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Minimum sentencing requirements for possession of child pornography (that took a long time to word in a way that I hoped wouldn't summon the police...)
Whether a person is capable of surviving in the cargo hold of an airplane on a transatlantic journey
How many fires would be needed to keep a large cave warm, and how many vent holes for smoke would be required
Welsh paramilitary groups
Greenhouses constructed so that they can hold tropical plants in the upper midwest of the US
The nutritional value of bear meat and elk meat

All of these but the first were for the same book, weirdly enough.
 

Sister Ray

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Not so much a weird search, but a surprising result. My current work in progress is a fictional Jane Doe cold case from 1977 in rural Appalachia. I searched google for any actual missing person reports for women from that time and place and indeed there was one; and it's still open to this day.

Margret Dodd? Melanie Flynn? Elizabeth Brown? Trenny Gibson?
 

MrFrankenstein

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some of my latest searches: Nazi officer rank structures, terminal cancer symptoms, radiation poisoning...
 

muravyets

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I love research. I frequently pause in mid-sentence to google-check whatever I'm about to write. I spend hours wandering the labyrinth of search results, and I maintain a library of printed research materials. Joy.

To me, the weirdness comes with the mix of topics. I sure hope it will all support a seamless and believable whole in the final story, but my research topics lists do sort of raise the question of what the hell I'm doing.

For my WIP alone, I've researched (extensive study and quick checks combined):

Slavic folklore
New England vampire history
Fashions and daily life in New England in the 1840s, Vermont and Massachusetts
Images of 1840s Massachusetts towns and waterfront districts
Luxury car rentals
Vermont hotels
Rural police forces in Vermont - inter-departmental cooperation, hiring/staffing, emergency response procedures
What happens when a person gets arrested in a small town in Vermont
Maps of regions around Amherst and Cape Cod, MA
Maps/plans of selected towns in Vermont (setting models)
Cults, books, and monsters from HP Lovecraft's works
Common 19th century New England given names and surnames, by county
Modern New England demographics, by surnames
Symptoms of TB as reported in 19th century outbreaks
Plant poisons that cause similar symptoms, especially bleeding
Styles of occultism
19th century rag dolls
Utilitarian tunnel systems under Vermont towns, history of
How hydroelectric power plants work
19th century letter writing styles
Mediumship and ghost phenomena
Acquiring historic documents via an estate sale
Academic rivalries
Child Protective Services and foster care systems, NY and VT
NYPD Academy training
Modern police equipment and uniforms (I so need the pink for breast cancer awareness pepper spray/cuffs/baton set)

Next up:

Plant poisons that could have been used to keep a person docile and disoriented in the 1840s
What happens when a person falls off a bridge into a river
How to rob graves discreetly in a modern cemetery
 

buz

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alchemy
australian elapid blood coagulation
dandelion medicinal uses
definition apple-john
egyptian headrest
haruspex
mandragora
merkin
millipede cyanide
mulsum
parthian headdress
synonym geezer

...all this makes my writing sound much more interesting than it is. And more historical. (The Parthian headdress is for a hallucinated walrus to wear, for example; I just wanted it to be wearing a very specific hat for no reason at all.)
 

Varthikes

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None of my researches have been all that weird. Mostly medical matters like what health problems could baby reptiles/birds have and how to treat them and reptilian/avian eggs.

For a short story a few years ago, I researched the possibility of killing someone with a taser.

When I was a senior in high school, I started researching drugs to find one that was highly addictive and produces violent tendencies if one was to miss a dose. I never got around to writing that particular story, yet.

The latest research I did involved tail movements in dragon flight, rather difficult considering no such flight-capable creatures exist with similarly shaped tail.
 

Gaia Revane

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I was doing an outline for my second novel today, which meant I got up to more creepy Google searches. A few minutes ago, I queried "if you bury a body in the snow does it take longer to decompose?" and "best ways to preserve corpses".

Geez, I hope the FBI isn't monitoring my internet history or something.
 

rwm4768

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I was doing an outline for my second novel today, which meant I got up to more creepy Google searches. A few minutes ago, I queried "if you bury a body in the snow does it take longer to decompose?" and "best ways to preserve corpses".

Geez, I hope the FBI isn't monitoring my internet history or something.

They're on their way. Better move to Canada. ;)


In other news, my thread has lasted a whole month. That gives me a strange sense of accomplishment.
 

ebbrown

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Funny you should ask. I recently told my husband that if he ever died and they searched my computer for clues, I'd be going to jail. ;)

Today's searches involved such gems as:
"common herbs or plants that can kill in Virginia"
"how to kill a person slowly with poison"
and my personal favorite:
"how to pull out a person's lungs"
 

Rhubix

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not for a book, but for an animation I had to do:

Hippo mucus - apparently they are covered in goo!
 

JustinlDew

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Is it possible to treat a gunshot wound with nail polish.(no)
Incest between adopted siblings(squicky, and exercised from the MS)
Various body parts being stabbed(you'd be amazed at the damage a sword can do)
how to make a bomb of rock salt, nails, fertilizer and gas(those tricky fae!)
what are the effects of valium on the nervous system.
Oh, and my all time favorite:
Bio labs and their security systems.
 
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slhuang

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I know this thread is a few months old now, but I just found it after writing a blog entry about this same subject today, and I saw that several people in the first few pages (including the OP) were looking for information about crushing a human skull.

. . . and as it happens, I just linked to an article about this the other day. So, in case it's helpful.

Please now return to your regularly scheduled madness.
 

wolfking

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I searched for ancient torture techniques and also the dangers of cutting a person's tongue out...

It is horrifying to see some of the ways people were tortured, especially those poor souls caught in the Spanish Inquisition.
 

Lady Cat

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best treatment for a poisonous snake bite
sanitary facilities in a 10th century castle
specs on various military weapons
the use of leeches in healing
women's shoes in the middle ages
best method for making human skin leather
how much water can you breath in before reaching the point of no return
scary bugs (some of which were really scary!)
Marjor Arcana of the Tarot
how to raise a zombie

The most interesting, so far, methods for curing human skin to make leather. It led me to a website where you can actually buy products made from human skin. :D
 

LHGalloway

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cost of hiring prostitute in 1750 Venice
(as compared to)
cost of buying a gondola

Couldn't find the answer, unsurprisingly.
 

rwm4768

practical experience, FTW
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My thread is now a zombie thread!
 
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