In the Name of Research

Writing requires a lot of research. A lot. And some of it's at the library, or interviewing professionals, or reading books. . .but most of it (for me) is online.

​And I hope if someone ever looks through my search history they first know that I am a writer and not a nutjob.

Two years ago, for instance, I was determined to write a book about grief and the media. The protagonist of this (adult) novel was a mother of three, dedicated to her family and her nonprofit work, and facing one utterly overwhelming week. I wanted to examine her overwhelming grief and how the media crucified her. In my initial research, I googled this:

which is all well and good, until my next Google searches were:
--How hot does a car need to be for a baby to die in it?
--How cold would a car need to be for a baby to die in it?
--How long would you need to leave a baby in a hot car for it to die?

You see where I'm going here? My children have aged out of hot-car deaths, but it definitely looks like I was planning something.

And this is just one novel! Here are some gems I've googled recently:
"pig teats"
"where to go when you're having an affair"
"hidden camera detector app"
"computer with pasta on it"
"hot male actors under 20" (not a unique search, by the way)
"how bodies decay"

I research poisons, murders, causes of death, weird sex terms, and court cases--all sorts of things that normal people just don't.

But then, writers aren't normal people, are we?