Questions

Sorry for the lateness of the post (again) but I completely forgot to write one up on Tuesday, like I normally do. I have a whole variety of reasons, but it boils down to I forgot the day of the week again. My bad.

As for topics, I can't help but think of the weird questions authors often have. See, to be an author you have to know what you're writing about, or else it doesn't make any sense. For instance, if you've never seen a gun, held a gun, or fired a gun, what would you know about guns? Not enough to write about them in detail, to be sure.

Before I wrote my novel on the Wild Hunt I spent a long time and a lot of hours researching the Good Neighbors and all about them. There are so many different types that I have about 50 pages printed out about them, all in a neat little format. I needed to know more before I could use them.

However, I've also looked up a lot of odd questions. I'm in the middle of co-writing a story in which there is a serial killer. I suppose it's a paranormal murder mystery. The paranormal part I looked up when I was much longer, but I admit I don't know all that much about murder, or how murderers think, or patterns in all of that.

My google history this month includes: Vampire skeletons, what happens in a probation meeting, more about probation, even more about probation (There is surprisingly little about what happens in probation meeting. I couldn't find an ounce.), stages of grief, necromancy symbols, how long does rigor mortis last, scary children, and sociopaths.

I've had worse. Once I searched 'bomb ingredients', simply to discover it for a story. I think most authors are on a government watch list of some sort, if only because of our search history. All of that has to do with a single story about a vampire serial killer who's spree is caused largely by grief. Or at least exacerbated by it.

I also spent a lot of time watching Criminal Minds, as that deals largely with serial killers. Purely for research of course. I'm sure.

But it occurs to me that authors all have really odd questions, and it can lead to very awkward moments. After all, where does one find such things, when the internet fails? You ask someone who would know. Experts are wonderful people.

But how exactly do you ask someone what happens in a probation meeting without offending them? I mean, I don't know anyone on probation, so I don't know who I'd ask. These leads me to having to ask a probation officer, which leads to the always awkward response of:

"Why do you need to know that?"

Well, because I am a writer. Why else would I need to know?

One Final Byte: Mass murderer, serial killer, what's the difference anyway?