I think its no secret that sometimes a writer's search history can be a bit of a ride, or even the way we go about figuring out roadblocks, inconsistencies or rewrites can be a bit of a challenge so tell me about them!
Here are a few things that I would consider weird, or who knows maybe we're all in the same boat and never knew it.
-Bought a chalkboard sheet you could stick on the wall, currently said chalkboard has the entire timeline of knights ages, deaths, scandals for the last 16 years from the main events of the plot. Is is completely relevant? Not technically speaking but the way its organised makes my brain happy.
-Asked a substitute gym teacher how many meters long was the gym, because I thought it would be a good length for a dragon and the wifi was shitty :/
-I had a notebook I carried with me everywhere about 4 years ago, it was basically a rough draft version of my world's lore and ideas before I made a document, a year after that I made a google doc because I was running out pages, editing became too difficult and the notebook was falling apart. To date its a 100 pages exactly and my sister (jokingly) bullies me for it because my plot isn't sorted out yet I have this document.
-I looked into neurotoxins so I could have a reference for what would happen during my vampire characters transformation, apparently its a it more concerning why i was looking into this to my friends than I initially thought.
-Bough a book on witchcraft for research since its where most info is and I wanted to develop it for my gal Pike, now I've been practicing for 2 years as a witch….huh
-So.Many.Literature.And.Media.References.Everywhere….Its not as weird but I like to include little things here and there for those who like to put two and two together.
-Going back to the document, there is a section of it that is purely for how reproduction works with every creature that can reproduce. Its 20 pages long and not done, why make it you ask? Because one character is half angel half demon and it got me thinking about other combinations. It helps sometimes when making characters.
-Cults, so much research on cults and how they work and how they lure you in. Fascinating stuff but again, apparently more concerning than I initially through.
-I made up a whole alphabet for my language, no idea how it sounds but I can write in it pretty good
I'll probably think of more later, but this is off the top of my head.
Hmmm. My lore documents are a bit…weird. I have done a lot of the same things you have ;-;
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I have a full document describing what species can reproduce with each other. There is a basis on common to rare hybrids. It's really short, and I should probably expand on it.
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Speaking of strange documents, this is where the mortality doc comes in. It dives into species hierarchy and genes. Each species has a mortality that separate them from each other. It was difficult to understand if say— a demon and with had children how long will they live? Demons are immortal, witches are semi-immortal— so a semi-immortal kid! Woo yay! It helps to know when a character should die in the long run.
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I constantly look up weird things that google probably doesn't have the answers for, like 'what does a demon eat?' 'do ravens make good familiars?' or 'the healing factors of medicinal herbs' for my witch baby
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Speaking of herbs, I have a whole organized list of where to find them and what they do for my child. It's his herb list and actually is handy
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I once asked my aunt what made someone a warlock and based a whole oath, code, and laws based on the fact that you break it a great deal— you're a warlock now
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I looked up what is the deadliest acid in the world to make something deadlier called demon wine
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I took one look at the white witch moth, did some research on it, and work on integrating it as a symbol for my white witches
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I do this thing where I look up the original lore of the species, take some pieces of it, and throw every other part of it in the trash and make up my own lore for it. It is quite effective
That's all I got for now. Might add some more later
- I do this thing where I look up the original lore of the species, take some pieces of it, and throw every other part of it in the trash and make up my own lore for it. It is quite effective
I can also say its quite effective, if you look at my vampires its very obvious but its my frankenstien mashup species and I get to choose how it is!
I can also say its quite effective, if you look at my vampires its very obvious but its my frankenstien mashup species and I get to choose how it is!
That’s always the best part of taking something that’s been around for awhile. You take some well known stuff and then make it your own (to differentiate from other widely known fictional variants) or my favorite: Taking an obscure species and creating new lore for it (Like my hellhounds. Not much is known about them other than Cerberus)
That’s always the best part of taking something that’s been around for awhile. You take some well known stuff and then make it your own (to differentiate from other widely known fictional variants) or my favorite: Taking an obscure species and creating new lore for it (Like my hellhounds. Not much is known about them other than Cerberus)
SLDFJSD YES BESTIE! When coming up with my creatures, I really wanted to start researching lesser known beings, stories and myths to get a wider range of ideas and knowledge versus going off all the creatures I knew about. Lead me to some really interesting places and creatures I'm much happier with. I ended doing what you did with spriggans, there isn't much known about them online so I just yoinked the vibes and ran with it!
SLDFJSD YES BESTIE! When coming up with my creatures, I really wanted to start researching lesser known beings, stories and myths to get a wider range of ideas and knowledge versus going off all the creatures I knew about. Lead me to some really interesting places and creatures I'm much happier with. I ended doing what you did with spriggans, there isn't much known about them online so I just yoinked the vibes and ran with it!
I used a wide range of lesser known Greek myths, Norse myths, and random mythologies. I also do research on (But not limited to) Demonology and Witchcraft for ideas. I am on nonstop hunts for something interesting to use from established ideas (Myths, fokelore, religions, etc) to be inspired by and make something new!
Another thing I do is bring creatures back to their original lore to makes something fresh because of how far they're deviated from it. That also helps me create creatures I love. But I did just yoinked hellhounds and made them into an—interesting creature. And other's I just gave them a backbone to work with. And there's my witches— they're a mix of fantasy and (Real-life) modern practitioners @~@
I used a wide range of lesser known Greek myths, Norse myths, and random mythologies. I also do research on (But not limited to) Demonology and Witchcraft for ideas. I am on nonstop hunts for something interesting to use from established ideas (Myths, fokelore, religions, etc) to be inspired by and make something new!
Another thing I do is bring creatures back to their original lore to makes something fresh because of how far they're deviated from it. That also helps me create creatures I love. But I did just yoinked hellhounds and made them into an—interesting creature. And other's I just gave them a backbone to work with. And there's my witches— they're a mix of fantasy and (Real-life) modern practitioners @~@
I've defiantly taken a lot of inspo from irl witchcraft and a mix of multiple mythologies and beliefs! Its such a fun way to rather information and it has amazing material to work with. Its helped create creatures that I absolutely love, faeries especially I adore the concept for them. It also provided a fun challenge since fair folk in fantasy stories have become much more common so I wanted to figure out a way to change it up even more! Love it 🥰
I've defiantly taken a lot of inspo from irl witchcraft and a mix of multiple mythologies and beliefs! Its such a fun way to rather information and it has amazing material to work with. Its helped create creatures that I absolutely love, faeries especially I adore the concept for them. It also provided a fun challenge since fair folk in fantasy stories have become much more common so I wanted to figure out a way to change it up even more! Love it 🥰
I feel like little stoat when running around gathering information. I keep it collected in a little document until I transfer it into species lore something.
I agree with the fae. Although my fae do what is described in changeling lore. They kidnap sickly kids (Exchanging their kid for it) for the devil to transform into demons. Then it’s off raising demon babies (Lilith does that).
I mostly messed with demons and angels, trying to make them something different. I just stole a bunch of interesting concepts from books and mythologies to make my favorite creatures into something new.
I feel like little stoat when running around gathering information. I keep it collected in a little document until I transfer it into species lore something.
Same…I have my lil stash of information and no one to take it from me hehehe
I agree with the fae. Although my fae do what is described in changeling lore. They kidnap sickly kids (Exchanging their kid for it) for the devil to transform into demons. Then it’s off raising demon babies (Lilith does that).
Mine are a tad different! Spriggans only take kids from families who's parents won't treat them right off into the Faery realm. The kids eventually turn into faeries, but this provids an interesting point where parents just see "take kids fro families" and refuse to think why.
I mostly messed with demons and angels, trying to make them something different. I just stole a bunch of interesting concepts from books and mythologies to make my favorite creatures into something new.
I need more angel concepts…they're really basic and missing that extra oof y'know? I've looked into angels in Christianity already but damn are they hard to research and spin around
Once stayed up all night reading about Sikhism. Rn ima look up what's a slow burning gas
I need more angel concepts…they're really basic and missing that extra oof y'know? I've looked into angels in Christianity already but damn are they hard to research and spin around
Oh dear, not the Christianity angels. They are scary and have no substance to them. My angels just come from random ideas and ripping off governments. What's the extra tid bit you're lookin' for?
Once stayed up all night reading about Sikhism. Rn ima look up what's a slow burning gas
I get you. I stay up many nights studying other religions and cultures. They're always something good you can find
Just a recent one, but basically research on whether or not forensic investigators can get a rough estimate of time of water and/or electricity usage to estimate when a killer was at the scene.
The answer is generally no because both electricity and water tend to use a metered system.
Across various WIPs, here's a few of my more interesting writing related google searches
- When was shampoo invented?
- history of wrapping paper
- French Canadian swear words
- multiple image searches for Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
- Difference between a plain and a steppe (My question wasn't really answered, so following this was a series of google searches about the differences between different types of grasslands)
- What is the front part of a train called?
- Starbucks downtown Vancouver
I'm currently trying to turn a new concept into a story and so right now my search history looks something like this (with most of these searches coming up more than once):
- Glam rock
- Glam metal
- Glam metal bands
- When was glam metal most popular?
- Difference between glam rock and glam metal
- When was Talk Dirty to Me by Poison released?
- What was Guns n Roses first album?
- Twisted Sister
Tfw you're writing a dystopia and search up sus stuff like:
- Where do terrorist organizations hide, how are they organized?
- Drug trading in gangs, drug sourcing
- How do rebellions start/how are they stopped
- Force of a bullet in Newtons
- Does fire cause bullets to explode
I'm not trying to be a criminal I swear lol. And then I'm also scrolling through lists of mythological creatures to come up with my own monsters, but I struggle to be creative in that department because I'm too focused on whether the morphology makes sense even though it's literally supposed to be a fantasy creature.
Easily some of the weirder ones:
- Homicidal sleepwalking (Fun fact, you cannot be legally held accountable for killing someone in your sleep)
- How many potatoes would you need to grow to counteract the potato blight?
- How many potatoes feeds 10 million people
- how many potatoes can grow in 17.3 acres of land
- how many acres of land are in 114 square feet
…Yeah
(What is with potatoes?)
(I was writing a trilogy where each book was the same set of events from 3 different povs, and the main plotline was the one character who was an immortal time traveler who was personally slighted by Hitler, and knew that if he undid the potato blight, Hitler would never have been born. Now he farms potatoes across 7 different timelines, all on the same land, with the soul purpose of going back with his hundreds of millions of potatoes and counteracting the potato blight.)
(That is a very odd plot but I would toatally read it and recommend it to my friend cause her nickname is potato :)
Ok, this seems fun and I do have a couple ones :D
- 4 letter palindrome male baby names in norwegian (I didn't find any :( The character is an elf (hence the norwegian), male, and I wanted all names to be palindrome because the story is about how history repeats itself if we don't learn with it, so back-and-forth. And 4 letters because most other names were 4 lettered so I wanted to keep the a e s t h e t i c )
- How does [insert several drug names in different searches] affect a person's body
- Is it possible to die from a ruptured stomach
- What happens if you take both a depressant drug and a stimulant drug at the same time
- Periodic table sorted by atomic radius in ångströms (I created a formula to determine character heights, but the only result of this search was outdated so I had to switch to:
- Periodic table sorted by atomic radius in picometers
- Drugcore/stonercore
- What's the difference between a crocodile and an alligator
- Can you be both Bipolar and borderline at the same time and how does it differ
- Can you prevent a heroin overdose
- Medical Toxicology
- How much caffeine can you take a day
- What is a non-binary AMAB person who loves women called (most results were like "lesbian/sapphic" but like…… they don't identify as a female at all. Like, at all. Not even close. I'm still unsure but I went with gynosexual since it's just someone who loves women, I think? Correct me if I'm wrong tho!)
- 1950's cameras and microphones
These actually follow an order for 1 specific story so bear with me, follow the thought process:
- Industry plants and how they affect the music industry
- Hardest plant to keep alive
- Hardest orchid species to take care of
- Rhizanthella Gardneri how to take care of
- Richard Sanders Rogers orchids
Now for some flower ones:
- Blue flowers with negative meanings
- Flowers with bad symbolism
- Are orange petunias lab-engineered
- Are blue chrisanthemums natural
- Flower combinations in bouquets with meanings
Conclusions: I'm pretty sure my FBI agent thinks I'm a drug addict. Or a florist. Perhaps both, but- UH, I SWEAR JEREMY, I DON'T DO DRUGS, STOP TURNING OFF MY WI-FI, DUDE
(Building on the flower thing. One time I searched how to say fuck you in flowers. I ma get that for my sister.)
(Building on the flower thing. One time I searched how to say fuck you in flowers. I ma get that for my sister.)
(I wanna know the reason why you would search that lol)
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