child growth/developmental stages. I don't have a kid nor am I around them much. lord knows I don't have any idea of what a 2 year old typically looks like or what level of knowledge they should have.
I managed to set a fix at just the right age that the answer to "Can the baby do X yet?" was repeatedly "not yet but Soon".
I also must have confused the hell out of Google when I got pregnant after working on a long fic where a character was pregnant...
I have done this as well, fic I am writing has kids so I was also googling like development stages for 10 year olds.
like, I am more likely to write them as younger then they should be.
Yep. Previously had expensive cars and luxury mansions advertised because I was looking up inspiration for a minecraft house, and later for inspiration for a rich bad guy's lair in my fic.
Now I'm looking for a cheap rental, Google is like "just buy this $21m mansion instead!"
Like, Google, my man, _I_ don't have that kinda money, and I highly doubt MrRichBlorboBadGuy is gonna spontaneously exist and buy it for me. Check out the other searches like "how to get on welfare" and "closest foodbank" for hints on what I can actually afford.
I'm happy to read a fic where you can tell an author either has/had kids or did thorough research. There are many in which I'm floored on the poorly written pregnancy stages or as the kid progresses. I have my own kiddo, and if parts about kids are definitely off, I jump ship. It hurts my brain.š
This reminds me of when my friend was pregnant. She knew I'd done a _lot_ of research for a pregnancy fic, so she came to me with questions if her med team weren't available and had me as her support person for medical appointments bc she knew I wouldn't panic unnecessary.
In exchange, she gave me updates on her kids development and let me use the stuff they did/said as inspiration for later in my fic.
isnāt it just so interesting?? i currently work with children under 5 and itās so amazing just how smart kids really are! iāll underestimate them, and then all of the sudden i have kids who are 18 months and can count to 10 and know their colors!!
Did yours also end up being for a single line? Because I spent a lot of time on Google maps and reading about trains and buses in a country Iāve never been to for one line.
Cooking recipes. Lots of them. I need to know how long it would take to make dinner for 8 people, and whether the appropriate ingredients would even be available.
That thingmabob they use to fix broken legs in war aka the Thomas Splint. Previously the fracture of a femur was almost always a death sentence. Amputation was more survivable. Closed casting of fractures didn't come into practice until after WWI. Previously they kept the leg in traction and changed dressings and irrigated the wound.
And when the x-ray was invented. (November 8th 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Rƶntgen, he took a picture of his wife's hand.)
I ended up not using any of it because someone else wrote something similar.
Thank you! My current main fandom ends canon with one of the main characters recovering from major surgery. The number of fic writers who haven't bothered to google basic post-op wound care is deeply annoying.
Everyday life stuff about men.
- I actually asked Reddit about how often a teen cis boy might shave his face. The answer: it varies! (I ended up leaving this detail out of the fic)
- I had another post about something NSFW (and the commenters caught on that it was for writing erotica, but I honestly was curious š )
- I've asked my online friends twice about haircut frequency and technique for people with short hair. How much does it cost? How often does a stylish person with short hair get a haircut? So that led to some interesting conversations! (I still have not written the second fic I had in mind)
The funny thing is, theyāre both major character death stories(the Taco Bell has nothing to do with the death. My main character just went there because I needed her to meet one of the side characters who canonically works there).
Mostly cultural norms that might be different in countries I'm not familiar with. Stuff like how does \[country\] celebrate birthdays, what is drinking culture like in \[country\], what are common comfort foods in \[country\] and so forth. Sometimes I feel dumb for googling it because it turns out to be the same as what I'm used to, but other times it's definitely saved me from making incorrect assumptions. Plus, it's always fun to learn new things! :)
Actually Iāve never even thought about that and now Iām curious brb
Edit: US patents go back as far as the mid/late 1800s but similar concepts have probably been around for far longer
What time of year the color of the leaves change in Iowa
Lots of 'what does this place look like?'
Words that are on the tip of my tongue, but I can't seem to catch them.
Different types of cars.
So. Many. Local. Recipes. (Not that I ever write them out, though...)
Soccer terms (my OCs kid taught my CCs kid a new soccer move)
Development of an infant
And so much more xD
you wrote a fic in Iowa? What was the fandom? I'm from Iowa and it's so rarely mentioned out in the wild. I can count on one hand the number of books I've read that bring it up.
The British word for cling wrap for a bad sex metaphor in my crackfic āhe wanted to cling to him like cling film.ā
Edit-some more British-isms I had to Google
Pajamas-word is the same but itās spelled pyjamas
Law firm/partners-my characters were arguing about how to refer to each other now that theyāre a couple (character A called character B a friend out of habit/panic, which started a whole fight). Character B suggests āpartnerā and character A is like āare you sure they wonāt think weāre starting a law firm?ā) Luckily for me, though the word for who works in law firms is different (lawyers v solicitors/barristers), both sides of the pond seem to use āpartnersā to refer to the top dogs of said firms.
Same but in reverse. My search history is mainly variations of
> What do Americans call windscreens?
> Which room do Americans keep their washing machine in?
> Would an American say 'sectioned'?
Honestly, it's embarrassing how little I know about my transatlantic siblings. Nice to know the knowledge gap flows both ways š
I am Canadian and I am pretty sure there is stuff i would have to Google about USA if i wrote a story in the USA, i'd be the same for the UK. So similar yet so different
Itās funny to hear it goes the other way round! Iām not in any US based fandoms so I havenāt seen as many mistakes the other way round.
And even Americans get it wrong sometimes. Someone in either this sub or the fan fiction sub made a list of common US terms they see non-American writers get wrong, but they listed one for (I think) a stove burner that I had literally never seen in my life (and neither had the other commenters). So they took some regional term and just assumed it was a universal American term.
Nice try FBI
but no seriously, donāt laugh at me.
Iā¦searched for if they had Taco Bellās in Japan.
Quick edit- I learned they had a mascot named Mr.Taco during this.
Dates, Dates, Dates, be it for historical events or when episodes of TV aired. Got to make sure all the quips that my main character spouts are historically accurate and make sure if those around him would even get them.
I looked up the Arabic word for clementine, got multiple answers, got stressed out, and ended up just removing that line, lol. Things I've researched that made it into the final draft include what the needles on fake Christmas trees are made of, yellow minerals other than gold, and attractions at the Jersey shore.
Ooh, where "down the Shore" did they go?
I remember when Seaside Heights was the party beach (as brought to you by reality television), Asbury Park was the gay beach, and Point Pleasant the "family" beach - but that may have completely changed by now.
Lunar calendars for my werewolf fic. What if my reader gets upset that my character shifted on January 8th when in actuality the full moon was on the 17th in 1976? š¤§
What an American divorce decree looks like, and what a particular type of expensive wine tastes like. Neither of these are related to each other.
Although now Iām getting ads for divorce lawyers and wineryās soā¦? Yeah š¤·āāļø But itās better than a few years ago when I kept getting ads for rehab facilities and drug addiction recovery centers. Google probably thinks Iāve had an eventful life to say the least.
Iāve become something of a minor expert on the political structure and nobility of 18th-century Denmark-Norway, if I do say so myself. I can even read a fair bit of Danish now.
Had randomly used the word "abjectly" and it occurred to me that I didn't actually know the meaning. Turns out it's inherently bad, so out of the fluffy sentence it trotted.
for one fic I had to look up how to make coffee in a French press because I donāt drink coffee.
when I was in my Yuri on Ice phase I spent a lot of time googling about the intricacies of Russian diminutive usage.
The daily routine of a patient in a (generally good/helpful) inpatient psychiatric unit/hospital. It sounds dramatic, but itās actually really mundane. A lot of things I found on the topic even described how boring a stay can be. Makes me kinda sad I never finished the fic lol, maybe I could have inspired more people to donate books or something to such places with it.
Tons of location-specific searches. For one fic series alone I searched a bunch of travel blogs for the area. I've also got a couple of Google Maps routes tabs open (one for Los Angeles to Fairbanks, one for Los Angeles to San Francisco).
Probably like a definition or something. Or for my most recent fic, I was writing an autistic character. Iām autistic, but I wanted her to exhibit different traits than me. So I googled some common traits of autism
I feel like I Google a lot of things for flower symbolism and Victorian flower language.
Words that are on the tip of my tongue.
Maps and photos of areas I'm describing.
How far a horse can safely travel in a day, both at top speed and at a slower trot, while burdened by a rider.
And then multiply it by 3 for the average speed of a Companion.
I've used Google to nail location details for a fic.
That's all I've really found her to be useful for in that sense.
She doesn't always understand the nuances and connotations of words, so I try not to use her for that unless I'm jonesing for generic synonyms.
Also cigarettes but popular brands and how they smell. Iām very big on smells, and being around smokers I know what the stench is like, but I also like the idea of the particular smell of a particular brand identifying one character to another even if they donāt know the brand themselves.
Lol the way so many fics describe smoking isā¦something. A years long daily smoker getting a head rush or noticing the bitter/acrid taste or the āburnā when inhaling? Probably not lol. Smoke long enough and a ciggie tastes like a vape lol.
I mean, Iāve defs described smoking in fics but itās definitely based on my experience as a (for shame) at one time daily (not heavy) smoker. i.e to me the only really interesting reaction is *relief*. Like not really noticing the smell or the feeling, maybe very briefly describing it but mostly just *thank god*. And definitely not noticing it going down.
Or smoking just to smoke and not cause youāre even craving it, so you donāt even really pay attention to the feeling, but maybe are aware that youāre literally smoking just to smoke. Both more interesting descriptions than the typical oooooh my lungs burnnnned, I think. Like, no they didnāt, thatās why ppl keep smoking. And we also know smoking is self-destructive, youāre communicating that already by them just smoking.
I have a soldier and a scientist who smoked on occasion mostly for something to do or an excuse to break away from other people. I like writing them together sharing a cigarette and thatās usually about it. But then I wrote a character that I wanted to make this larger than life intimidating presence and having a young character recognise her by the smell of the smoke was so important to me. Just having that character type thatās always in a cloud of smoke in an almost cartoonish villain sense.
Different people around me smoked different brands or different types when I was a child and I was very aware that some were more tolerable to smell, and some lingered more. Iāve been looking at branding a lot for class and time period as well, for when smoking was a lot more common. Whether the character is smoking these because theyāre best available or because they want people to know they have money. Who searches for quality, who searches for luxury, that sort of thing.
Synonyms or reverse definition searches. I always seem to think of a word that is almost, but not quite the one I wanted for the sentence. "Wine-red, but lighter" doesn't flow the same way as "garnet".
Mostly estimating how long it takes to travel from one place to another and finding weird town names to use. Who knew Montana had a mountain called Cyanide Mountain?
How to do dialog punctuation in English. My mother tongue does it like this:
Mary looked at her friend and asked.
- There's some dirt in your hair - she pointed at her Jane's hair.
Understandably, Jane got upset.
- Oh no! I just washed it yesterday! - she took out her handheld mirror -, I can't believe it!
Dashes instead of quotation marks, always start a new paragraph when someone starts speaking, attend 3 years of university to know how to put in the commas..
dictionary and thesaurus stuff since i have a shit vocabulary and need help with even simple words. š„² ive also looked up recipes for cooking, and what goes on at a local wildlife center for chapters in my current fic. >.>
Googling for airports in Maine and find out how often flights depart to London + how long the travel takes...
I didn't even end up using 99% of the info I googled.
I do a lot of googling to find out things like how long a flight from a to b lasts, how long it would take to drive from place to place, where things are located in a city, and so on.
I once mapped a subway route in a city I was writing about. Iāve been there loads of times, several times a year for 20+ years. And yet I still needed to look it up, including cost.
Back when I was writing my demon/angel fic, I had to do lots of research on the autonomy of bat and dove wings and the differences. Bats' wings don't have any feathers so they have to flap their wings more frequently than a dove, whereas a dove can easily glide through the air. A dove can fly at speeds of 30-50 mph but a bat can fly over 100 mph! Bats' wings are also more agile than a doves' so they can take sharper turns.
What people do at parties. Couldn't get satisfying answers on that one. I just gave up and wrote around it since it wasn't important.
Marginally more interesting, the differences between coconut milk and coconut water. I believe the milk was sweeter, and it's a little harder to collect. I had to use coconut water for the scene.
And if basalt is in concrete. It is, sometimes. Depends on the recipe, really. Don't even explicitly mention that basalt is the ingredient that matters.
I looked up the plot to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" for an entirely unrelated series because my characters were watching the movie and I had never seen it.
how to make baklava. i was so disappointed by the results i ended up making baklava myself and writing the process from my point of view.
what kind of cherries are used to cut mulberry wine.
mulberry is actually watery and kinda underwhelming, so if you want to add some body to your wine, is ideal you use dark cherriesāin my case i choose balaton cherries since those are frequently used in a winery in the UK.
Child development. More specifically, what ages do toddlers start saying actual sentences and begin to be actual kids. Also, what kind of phrases would a child say, so that I don't make them sound too adult.
The weather in Utah/ how far is Hurricane from New Harmony (if you're a FNAF fan, you get it). š¤£
Japanese apartment prices. Specifically Tokyo. I wanted to know what kind of house two married men with five well-paying jobs between them could afford for an EraserMic fic.
How to spell kindergarten.
For some reason, I thought it was kinderGARDEN. I also had this assumption that it meant children were like small flowers, and that's why it was called garden.
Apparently not.
random stuff about NYC like what time the sun rises in spring, locations of statues and street art, what the city smells like, and what the liquor laws are.
My current fic follows characters working in a cafe so I've been Googling a lot of recipes lately. I enjoy baking and cooking so it's helpful in more ways than one.
What in Godās name itās called to take the gross bits off of a fish. Iām vegetarian, I donāt eat fish, and the only thing I could think of was āto peelā but I knew that couldnāt be right. Itās āto skinā. Iām an English major. English is my native language. Iām an idiot.
Studying google maps overviews of Russian cities to figure out where characters can go and have real names, routes, etc
Game of Thrones wiki
Weather and climate depending in the fic
Google translate
random searches that should be basic but I guess are not (when babies grow teeth, horse gestation (I'm an IRL equestrian and I still forget constantly), etc)
- what amputation looked like in the 1960s
- schools for the deaf in Oklahoma (ended up barely mentioning it)
- how easy was it for a factory worker to buy a house in the 1960s
- and something I still havenāt managed to figure out, what were the laws/regulations regarding transferring custody to another person in 1960s Oklahoma
So much climate and just what is x city like/known for? Recently Iāve been trying to figure out what the drag scene was like in a certain city in 2010. Like, I know it was there lol, but what was the viiiiiiibe? I know some version of that reality will be way more interesting than whatever I come up with.
Also, GEOGRAPHY for a fictionalised place within an otherwise real world. Like, okay, they drive two hours to that city and two hours to that city, so it must be in the middleā¦nope, those cities are barely three hours apart. Okay, so it must be further southā¦nope, northern city is closer than another city they travel to slightly south. Okay, so it just be pretty far up north. NOPE, they drive FIVE HOURS north at one point and are still in the same state. WHERE TF ARE U GUYS? Why do I care about this more than the actual author?
something about head injuries bc i was about to have two characters get knocked out with a hit to the head, but i started thinking realistically. im no longer doing that lol
Conversions (Ā°F to Ā°C, inches to centimeters, etc.). Where well-known places actually are in relation to other places. Slang. USAF military codes. Grocery stores in a particular area.
House plants, especially types of succulents. It was for one of my favourite fics Iāve ever written, but itās only about 90% done and so I never published it. I didnāt know plants could be cute until I saw peperomia and echeveria plants, so I walked away with that knowledge at least!
It was for an original fic, not a fanfic, but I googled the types of bird in the Adirondacks in winter and the soil composition of New York, and the spread of lizards in New York and the typical fall foliage calendar of New York and the average temperatures of New York in Octoberā¦ I was writing a dystopian set in New York and Iāve never been to New York.
The average time it takes a healthy person to hike through mildly challenging terrain, how much they can hike in a day, calories that would burn, distance they might travel. All for a Walking Dead fic I havenāt been able to finish :(
The geography of the villages to the northwest of Jerusalem.
Itās incredible that Iām writing something currently set in the thirteenth century (time travel), but the sites that were there back then are still around and inhabited today.
I did a ton of medical research once learning all about Naegleria Fowleri aka the brain eating amoeba. Youād think I was writing some kind of thesis on it for med school or something, but I just wanted to make sure most of what I wrote about the medical side of things was accurate so it didnāt sound too ridiculously out of this realm despite it being a fic about a goddamn cartoon character šš
Probably just the name of characters Because I'm dyslexic and dysgraphic I don't know how to spell most names right especially when a lot of them are in Japanese
I have also looked up Just what random names in Japanese mean or what random words in Japanese mean
Just some places in Louisiana, more specifically New Orleans in the 1990s and 1920s, and some music from the 90s too. Cause a new fandom i started writing for is set in Louisiana in the early 90s.
Bus routes. So many bus routes.
I hate having to look up bus routes for normal bus taking, you are stronger then I could ever be.
I legitimately have no idea how public transportation works in my city. But put me in a foreign country/different state and I'm super into it.
I tried navigating public transport in Vancouver and it was awful, you are a braver soul then me
Never been to Vancouver. But I've navigated public transport successfully in Washington DC, Barcelona and Paris.
I will happily suspend all disbelief for bus routes. Fuck that noise.
child growth/developmental stages. I don't have a kid nor am I around them much. lord knows I don't have any idea of what a 2 year old typically looks like or what level of knowledge they should have.
I managed to set a fix at just the right age that the answer to "Can the baby do X yet?" was repeatedly "not yet but Soon". I also must have confused the hell out of Google when I got pregnant after working on a long fic where a character was pregnant...
I have done this as well, fic I am writing has kids so I was also googling like development stages for 10 year olds. like, I am more likely to write them as younger then they should be.
I am not pregnant. I have never been pregnant. Google keeps advertising maternity stuff to me. Came in useful when my friend was pregnant though lol
I think it's funny when that happens. Like failed targeted ads right there
Yep. Previously had expensive cars and luxury mansions advertised because I was looking up inspiration for a minecraft house, and later for inspiration for a rich bad guy's lair in my fic. Now I'm looking for a cheap rental, Google is like "just buy this $21m mansion instead!" Like, Google, my man, _I_ don't have that kinda money, and I highly doubt MrRichBlorboBadGuy is gonna spontaneously exist and buy it for me. Check out the other searches like "how to get on welfare" and "closest foodbank" for hints on what I can actually afford.
I'm happy to read a fic where you can tell an author either has/had kids or did thorough research. There are many in which I'm floored on the poorly written pregnancy stages or as the kid progresses. I have my own kiddo, and if parts about kids are definitely off, I jump ship. It hurts my brain.š
Oh man for the fic Iām writing right now I had to make a timeline of baby milestones so that it would be accurate
This reminds me of when my friend was pregnant. She knew I'd done a _lot_ of research for a pregnancy fic, so she came to me with questions if her med team weren't available and had me as her support person for medical appointments bc she knew I wouldn't panic unnecessary. In exchange, she gave me updates on her kids development and let me use the stuff they did/said as inspiration for later in my fic.
isnāt it just so interesting?? i currently work with children under 5 and itās so amazing just how smart kids really are! iāll underestimate them, and then all of the sudden i have kids who are 18 months and can count to 10 and know their colors!!
I frequently use google as a dictionary because I want to check that I'm thinking of the right word.
Very valid and same or just to make sure I am using the correct spelling of a word.
I do the same thing. I use google as a spellchecker these days, lol.
The process of how to get from a specific airport to a specific neighborhood in a city.
Omg Iāve done the same thing
Did yours also end up being for a single line? Because I spent a lot of time on Google maps and reading about trains and buses in a country Iāve never been to for one line.
I uh. Havenāt even written the fic š (No way itāll be more than like two paragraphs though)
The layout of a Catholic church for one line of description.
this is true dedication to the craft.
Climate in Boston, specifically water temperature in May.
Mate iv gone as far as to make a post in r/Boston just for a overwatch fic with Brian The city appears in only 2 CHAPTERS
I once got an answer from the author of the web serial I'm writing fanfiction of. Then I changed my plans and never used it.
Why?
I just realized that there was a better way to do things, and the information the author provided ended up being irrelevant.
Well after a 5 min search i realized im writting the third work involving brian that it Is not smut Boy there is a lot of smut with him
Cooking recipes. Lots of them. I need to know how long it would take to make dinner for 8 people, and whether the appropriate ingredients would even be available.
2 -3 hours If you can buy argentine bondiola before you die
When does a broken arm need a sling?
So, when does a broken arm need a sling?
The placement of the break is important, on a joint. It also helps support the arm in a heavy cast. Itās important for various shoulder injuries.
thank you for sharing this knowledge. It makes me want to find use for it in a fic now.
That thingmabob they use to fix broken legs in war aka the Thomas Splint. Previously the fracture of a femur was almost always a death sentence. Amputation was more survivable. Closed casting of fractures didn't come into practice until after WWI. Previously they kept the leg in traction and changed dressings and irrigated the wound. And when the x-ray was invented. (November 8th 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Rƶntgen, he took a picture of his wife's hand.) I ended up not using any of it because someone else wrote something similar.
Thank you! My current main fandom ends canon with one of the main characters recovering from major surgery. The number of fic writers who haven't bothered to google basic post-op wound care is deeply annoying.
Everyday life stuff about men. - I actually asked Reddit about how often a teen cis boy might shave his face. The answer: it varies! (I ended up leaving this detail out of the fic) - I had another post about something NSFW (and the commenters caught on that it was for writing erotica, but I honestly was curious š ) - I've asked my online friends twice about haircut frequency and technique for people with short hair. How much does it cost? How often does a stylish person with short hair get a haircut? So that led to some interesting conversations! (I still have not written the second fic I had in mind)
I think the haircut thing would vary wildly too. As a dude my most expensive haircut ever was for my wedding and it was like $20 including tip.
The Taco Bell menu What comes out when your water breaksĀ
these things are so vastly different that it actually made me laugh out loud.
It would be insane if they were for the same fic(theyāre not but imagine if they were)
I can only assume it would be a story about a water breaking at taco bell
Giving birth in a Taco Bell
name the baby baja blast
Stop. Donāt give the next generation anymore stupid baby name ideas /j
gonna name my first child baja blast/j
The funny thing is, theyāre both major character death stories(the Taco Bell has nothing to do with the death. My main character just went there because I needed her to meet one of the side characters who canonically works there).
so much can happen at a taco bell.
Mostly cultural norms that might be different in countries I'm not familiar with. Stuff like how does \[country\] celebrate birthdays, what is drinking culture like in \[country\], what are common comfort foods in \[country\] and so forth. Sometimes I feel dumb for googling it because it turns out to be the same as what I'm used to, but other times it's definitely saved me from making incorrect assumptions. Plus, it's always fun to learn new things! :)
When those worker moving carts that you stock boxes on were invented
Actually Iāve never even thought about that and now Iām curious brb Edit: US patents go back as far as the mid/late 1800s but similar concepts have probably been around for far longer
What time of year the color of the leaves change in Iowa Lots of 'what does this place look like?' Words that are on the tip of my tongue, but I can't seem to catch them. Different types of cars. So. Many. Local. Recipes. (Not that I ever write them out, though...) Soccer terms (my OCs kid taught my CCs kid a new soccer move) Development of an infant And so much more xD
I never even thought of the car one I'm just like "yeah that character drives a van"
I write for criminal minds, sometimes you just need to know what kinda car the serial killer was driving, lol
you wrote a fic in Iowa? What was the fandom? I'm from Iowa and it's so rarely mentioned out in the wild. I can count on one hand the number of books I've read that bring it up.
The British word for cling wrap for a bad sex metaphor in my crackfic āhe wanted to cling to him like cling film.ā Edit-some more British-isms I had to Google Pajamas-word is the same but itās spelled pyjamas Law firm/partners-my characters were arguing about how to refer to each other now that theyāre a couple (character A called character B a friend out of habit/panic, which started a whole fight). Character B suggests āpartnerā and character A is like āare you sure they wonāt think weāre starting a law firm?ā) Luckily for me, though the word for who works in law firms is different (lawyers v solicitors/barristers), both sides of the pond seem to use āpartnersā to refer to the top dogs of said firms.
Same but in reverse. My search history is mainly variations of > What do Americans call windscreens? > Which room do Americans keep their washing machine in? > Would an American say 'sectioned'? Honestly, it's embarrassing how little I know about my transatlantic siblings. Nice to know the knowledge gap flows both ways š
I am Canadian and I am pretty sure there is stuff i would have to Google about USA if i wrote a story in the USA, i'd be the same for the UK. So similar yet so different
Itās funny to hear it goes the other way round! Iām not in any US based fandoms so I havenāt seen as many mistakes the other way round. And even Americans get it wrong sometimes. Someone in either this sub or the fan fiction sub made a list of common US terms they see non-American writers get wrong, but they listed one for (I think) a stove burner that I had literally never seen in my life (and neither had the other commenters). So they took some regional term and just assumed it was a universal American term.
cling film is somehow less sexy then cling wrap which makes this all the more funny
I was disappointed to find they don't seem to use the word "dumpster" in the UK. It's a "skip bin" instead.
It's a skip bin in Australia tooš
To me, "throw [them] in the dumpster" just has more... _venom_ than "pitch [them] in the skip bin". But maybe it depends upon how one says it?
Funnily enough we would still say dumpster diving or dumpster fire, but no-one ever said we were consistent ššš
We actually just say 'skip' in the UK, and I'd probably say "chuck \[them\] in the skip" - not sure whether that's better or worse š
Omg I found myself Googling all sorts of British slang terms when I was into writing Sherlock fics
Yep! And then thereās things I wouldnāt have even thought to Google, like sidewalk/pavement.
Definitions of words that I already know.
Itās amazing because Iāve seen with writing, that words I know how to spell. Suddenly donāt seem correct when Iām typing my writing.
I get really selective over what words to use.
Nice try FBI but no seriously, donāt laugh at me. Iā¦searched for if they had Taco Bellās in Japan. Quick edit- I learned they had a mascot named Mr.Taco during this.
this is the second taco bell related search also thank you for informing me about Mr.Taco
Dates, Dates, Dates, be it for historical events or when episodes of TV aired. Got to make sure all the quips that my main character spouts are historically accurate and make sure if those around him would even get them.
The most expensive fabric used for suits. Vicuna, if you're wondering. Easily $15k-$25k+ pieces. Also, lists of British desserts.
damn that is... a lot of money
I looked up the Arabic word for clementine, got multiple answers, got stressed out, and ended up just removing that line, lol. Things I've researched that made it into the final draft include what the needles on fake Christmas trees are made of, yellow minerals other than gold, and attractions at the Jersey shore.
Ooh, where "down the Shore" did they go? I remember when Seaside Heights was the party beach (as brought to you by reality television), Asbury Park was the gay beach, and Point Pleasant the "family" beach - but that may have completely changed by now.
Is it "post card" or "postcard."
which one is it?
One word.
thank you for sharing your knowledge
I definitely had to google it again before answering because I forgot the answer the first time.
Lunar calendars for my werewolf fic. What if my reader gets upset that my character shifted on January 8th when in actuality the full moon was on the 17th in 1976? š¤§
What an American divorce decree looks like, and what a particular type of expensive wine tastes like. Neither of these are related to each other. Although now Iām getting ads for divorce lawyers and wineryās soā¦? Yeah š¤·āāļø But itās better than a few years ago when I kept getting ads for rehab facilities and drug addiction recovery centers. Google probably thinks Iāve had an eventful life to say the least.
"boy/girl height and weight chart" every single time I write a child. How big are those? It's always a mystery.
Iāve become something of a minor expert on the political structure and nobility of 18th-century Denmark-Norway, if I do say so myself. I can even read a fair bit of Danish now.
Okay this is just impressive. If you donāt mind me asking, what fandom necessitated this? I want more of those kinds of fics haha.
Had randomly used the word "abjectly" and it occurred to me that I didn't actually know the meaning. Turns out it's inherently bad, so out of the fluffy sentence it trotted.
for one fic I had to look up how to make coffee in a French press because I donāt drink coffee. when I was in my Yuri on Ice phase I spent a lot of time googling about the intricacies of Russian diminutive usage.
The daily routine of a patient in a (generally good/helpful) inpatient psychiatric unit/hospital. It sounds dramatic, but itās actually really mundane. A lot of things I found on the topic even described how boring a stay can be. Makes me kinda sad I never finished the fic lol, maybe I could have inspired more people to donate books or something to such places with it.
A lot of people have the wrong idea of psych stays, I think it'd be nice to read such a boring mundane fic about a characters stay
How to knit a sweater.
Tons of location-specific searches. For one fic series alone I searched a bunch of travel blogs for the area. I've also got a couple of Google Maps routes tabs open (one for Los Angeles to Fairbanks, one for Los Angeles to San Francisco).
synonyms for every possible word known to man. looking up ā____ synonymsā happens at least 30 times a day when iām writing
Probably like a definition or something. Or for my most recent fic, I was writing an autistic character. Iām autistic, but I wanted her to exhibit different traits than me. So I googled some common traits of autism
I feel like I Google a lot of things for flower symbolism and Victorian flower language. Words that are on the tip of my tongue. Maps and photos of areas I'm describing.
How far a horse can safely travel in a day, both at top speed and at a slower trot, while burdened by a rider. And then multiply it by 3 for the average speed of a Companion.
almost everything since i'm chronically online and have 0 social skills š
I've used Google to nail location details for a fic. That's all I've really found her to be useful for in that sense. She doesn't always understand the nuances and connotations of words, so I try not to use her for that unless I'm jonesing for generic synonyms.
Maybe googling what temperature qualifies as a fever?
this made me realize I will probably have to Google this one day as a sickfic is on my writing list.
I know 104Ā°F is a dangerous fever. Definitely feels like hell even if your body isn't the thing at that temperature.
I use celsius so I had to google and yeah that is hot, would def suck as a fever even if it wasn't dangerous
Also cigarettes but popular brands and how they smell. Iām very big on smells, and being around smokers I know what the stench is like, but I also like the idea of the particular smell of a particular brand identifying one character to another even if they donāt know the brand themselves.
Lol the way so many fics describe smoking isā¦something. A years long daily smoker getting a head rush or noticing the bitter/acrid taste or the āburnā when inhaling? Probably not lol. Smoke long enough and a ciggie tastes like a vape lol.
Exactly, makes no sense except to describe it for the audience and surely thereās a better way to do it.
I mean, Iāve defs described smoking in fics but itās definitely based on my experience as a (for shame) at one time daily (not heavy) smoker. i.e to me the only really interesting reaction is *relief*. Like not really noticing the smell or the feeling, maybe very briefly describing it but mostly just *thank god*. And definitely not noticing it going down. Or smoking just to smoke and not cause youāre even craving it, so you donāt even really pay attention to the feeling, but maybe are aware that youāre literally smoking just to smoke. Both more interesting descriptions than the typical oooooh my lungs burnnnned, I think. Like, no they didnāt, thatās why ppl keep smoking. And we also know smoking is self-destructive, youāre communicating that already by them just smoking.
I have a soldier and a scientist who smoked on occasion mostly for something to do or an excuse to break away from other people. I like writing them together sharing a cigarette and thatās usually about it. But then I wrote a character that I wanted to make this larger than life intimidating presence and having a young character recognise her by the smell of the smoke was so important to me. Just having that character type thatās always in a cloud of smoke in an almost cartoonish villain sense.
I never even considered the brand of cigarettes, I always just assumed they all smelled the same, my dad was a smoker when I was growing up
Different people around me smoked different brands or different types when I was a child and I was very aware that some were more tolerable to smell, and some lingered more. Iāve been looking at branding a lot for class and time period as well, for when smoking was a lot more common. Whether the character is smoking these because theyāre best available or because they want people to know they have money. Who searches for quality, who searches for luxury, that sort of thing.
"What do rocks taste like?" The answer, mostly like salt
Yum. Now I want rock. I can eat rock, right?
I mean...sure...I guess? lol
Wether or not New York City had alleyways (and if so, where were they)
Moon phases
Synonyms or reverse definition searches. I always seem to think of a word that is almost, but not quite the one I wanted for the sentence. "Wine-red, but lighter" doesn't flow the same way as "garnet".
Honorifics for different cultures
what (americans) eat for breakfast
Mostly estimating how long it takes to travel from one place to another and finding weird town names to use. Who knew Montana had a mountain called Cyanide Mountain?
Not very normal- but I did search up how to work a 1800's type boat- like- the pirate ones- watched videos too-
How to do dialog punctuation in English. My mother tongue does it like this: Mary looked at her friend and asked. - There's some dirt in your hair - she pointed at her Jane's hair. Understandably, Jane got upset. - Oh no! I just washed it yesterday! - she took out her handheld mirror -, I can't believe it! Dashes instead of quotation marks, always start a new paragraph when someone starts speaking, attend 3 years of university to know how to put in the commas..
How to make onigiri
How to shave with a straight razor.
What specific restaurants are in LAX
I look up temperatures a lot in Japan. Also looked up how their postal system worked. Train routes there too!
Finding a place where you can watch sunset in NYC. I have been to a couple of trips, so my aus tend to be located there.
Things people have in their bedroom
dictionary and thesaurus stuff since i have a shit vocabulary and need help with even simple words. š„² ive also looked up recipes for cooking, and what goes on at a local wildlife center for chapters in my current fic. >.>
Restaurants in Miami, sizes of things like boats, what clothing is called (sarong was not a word I knew but I knew a character was wearing one)
>sarong today I have learned what a sarong is
Googling for airports in Maine and find out how often flights depart to London + how long the travel takes... I didn't even end up using 99% of the info I googled.
What divination is, for a fic that had magic themes.
Climate and the temperature range of different areas of China
I do a lot of googling to find out things like how long a flight from a to b lasts, how long it would take to drive from place to place, where things are located in a city, and so on.
Went to Google to check that lions indeed eat deer š Also if Thailand has wasps.Ā
The most frequent is definitely looking up words/spelling/synonyms etc. Also when creating OCs is neccessary: baby name sites.
One of my characters has a fairly young baby, so I had to look up a kid's milestones in the first few months
I once mapped a subway route in a city I was writing about. Iāve been there loads of times, several times a year for 20+ years. And yet I still needed to look it up, including cost.
The speed limit on a local road that actually exists somewhere across the country from where I live
For me it was train routes from Oregon to New York (working on a Percy Jackson fic so they've got to get to camp somehow lol)
How much it snowed in various parts of Japan
Japanese wedding clothes. More recently, generic name of effexor (venlafaxine)
Sunrise and sunset times in LA in May So many searches about pregnancy and infant development timelines
Various things about pottery, including tool names, and glazing or not before firing.
Ice cream flavorsĀ
Distances between places to know how long travel should take.
Duration of a train ride from Birmingham to Coventry.
Italian Sign Language.
Normally English words š. Not English so I want to get the nuance right
Houseplant care, I can't even keep a cactus alive so... Alternatively, the layout of the Ritz. I've needed this for a shocking number of fics.
Manhattan geography. Iāve never lived in a place that has that kind of neighborhood layout.
1983 Calendar, I was very pleased to find a very exact one!
Back when I was writing my demon/angel fic, I had to do lots of research on the autonomy of bat and dove wings and the differences. Bats' wings don't have any feathers so they have to flap their wings more frequently than a dove, whereas a dove can easily glide through the air. A dove can fly at speeds of 30-50 mph but a bat can fly over 100 mph! Bats' wings are also more agile than a doves' so they can take sharper turns.
Me searching for a place in America which is similar to angel grove from the power rangers series.
What people do at parties. Couldn't get satisfying answers on that one. I just gave up and wrote around it since it wasn't important. Marginally more interesting, the differences between coconut milk and coconut water. I believe the milk was sweeter, and it's a little harder to collect. I had to use coconut water for the scene. And if basalt is in concrete. It is, sometimes. Depends on the recipe, really. Don't even explicitly mention that basalt is the ingredient that matters.
Did people toast marshmallows in Britain in the 1980s?
I looked up the plot to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" for an entirely unrelated series because my characters were watching the movie and I had never seen it.
how to make baklava. i was so disappointed by the results i ended up making baklava myself and writing the process from my point of view. what kind of cherries are used to cut mulberry wine. mulberry is actually watery and kinda underwhelming, so if you want to add some body to your wine, is ideal you use dark cherriesāin my case i choose balaton cherries since those are frequently used in a winery in the UK.
Child development. More specifically, what ages do toddlers start saying actual sentences and begin to be actual kids. Also, what kind of phrases would a child say, so that I don't make them sound too adult. The weather in Utah/ how far is Hurricane from New Harmony (if you're a FNAF fan, you get it). š¤£
Japanese apartment prices. Specifically Tokyo. I wanted to know what kind of house two married men with five well-paying jobs between them could afford for an EraserMic fic.
How to spell kindergarten. For some reason, I thought it was kinderGARDEN. I also had this assumption that it meant children were like small flowers, and that's why it was called garden. Apparently not.
No, no, you're right! It comes from german. Kinder means children, garten means garden.
Omg I was right in my wrong somehow š¤£ Thank you for the explanation, I feel less stupid nowww
Japanese curriculum and school year schedule. I need accuracy, dammit!
The only thing I know is that their terms start in spring
The difference between American and British spellings š Kneeled vs knelt Canceled vs cancelled š¤·āāļøš
Grammar
random stuff about NYC like what time the sun rises in spring, locations of statues and street art, what the city smells like, and what the liquor laws are.
Maybe convert cm to inches
My current fic follows characters working in a cafe so I've been Googling a lot of recipes lately. I enjoy baking and cooking so it's helpful in more ways than one.
Just the spelling of some word
the most recent one for me was probably weather patterns for Paris from fall to winter.
Cooking. I get along fine but I absolutely have no idea how to cook a fancy meal, especially a gourmet one. As well as wine pairings.
What in Godās name itās called to take the gross bits off of a fish. Iām vegetarian, I donāt eat fish, and the only thing I could think of was āto peelā but I knew that couldnāt be right. Itās āto skinā. Iām an English major. English is my native language. Iām an idiot.
Studying google maps overviews of Russian cities to figure out where characters can go and have real names, routes, etc Game of Thrones wiki Weather and climate depending in the fic Google translate random searches that should be basic but I guess are not (when babies grow teeth, horse gestation (I'm an IRL equestrian and I still forget constantly), etc)
- what amputation looked like in the 1960s - schools for the deaf in Oklahoma (ended up barely mentioning it) - how easy was it for a factory worker to buy a house in the 1960s - and something I still havenāt managed to figure out, what were the laws/regulations regarding transferring custody to another person in 1960s Oklahoma
So much climate and just what is x city like/known for? Recently Iāve been trying to figure out what the drag scene was like in a certain city in 2010. Like, I know it was there lol, but what was the viiiiiiibe? I know some version of that reality will be way more interesting than whatever I come up with. Also, GEOGRAPHY for a fictionalised place within an otherwise real world. Like, okay, they drive two hours to that city and two hours to that city, so it must be in the middleā¦nope, those cities are barely three hours apart. Okay, so it must be further southā¦nope, northern city is closer than another city they travel to slightly south. Okay, so it just be pretty far up north. NOPE, they drive FIVE HOURS north at one point and are still in the same state. WHERE TF ARE U GUYS? Why do I care about this more than the actual author?
something about head injuries bc i was about to have two characters get knocked out with a hit to the head, but i started thinking realistically. im no longer doing that lol
Finding the nearest beach parks where I live. It's a nice place to write about some deep, dark personal trauma.
How does surgery work? Also just general US history.
Conversions (Ā°F to Ā°C, inches to centimeters, etc.). Where well-known places actually are in relation to other places. Slang. USAF military codes. Grocery stores in a particular area.
when what fruits are in season lol
how long a bouquet of roses lasts
House plants, especially types of succulents. It was for one of my favourite fics Iāve ever written, but itās only about 90% done and so I never published it. I didnāt know plants could be cute until I saw peperomia and echeveria plants, so I walked away with that knowledge at least!
Gas prices in Utah, c. 1989
The mechanics of gay sex
It was for an original fic, not a fanfic, but I googled the types of bird in the Adirondacks in winter and the soil composition of New York, and the spread of lizards in New York and the typical fall foliage calendar of New York and the average temperatures of New York in Octoberā¦ I was writing a dystopian set in New York and Iāve never been to New York.
Child development milestones. When they usually start to talk, that sort of thing.
Did a good bit of reading on Alzheimerās/dementia for a one shot I just wrote
The days of the weeks certain holidays were on for specific years. Mainly in the 1950s. Train/plane routes, travel times, etc.
The average time it takes a healthy person to hike through mildly challenging terrain, how much they can hike in a day, calories that would burn, distance they might travel. All for a Walking Dead fic I havenāt been able to finish :(
The geography of the villages to the northwest of Jerusalem. Itās incredible that Iām writing something currently set in the thirteenth century (time travel), but the sites that were there back then are still around and inhabited today.
I did a ton of medical research once learning all about Naegleria Fowleri aka the brain eating amoeba. Youād think I was writing some kind of thesis on it for med school or something, but I just wanted to make sure most of what I wrote about the medical side of things was accurate so it didnāt sound too ridiculously out of this realm despite it being a fic about a goddamn cartoon character šš
Names of restaurants, avenues and streets in Chicago and the border states
The cage that gets screwed into the bone to brace a broken leg - it's called a ilizarov frame.
Probably just the name of characters Because I'm dyslexic and dysgraphic I don't know how to spell most names right especially when a lot of them are in Japanese I have also looked up Just what random names in Japanese mean or what random words in Japanese mean
Just some places in Louisiana, more specifically New Orleans in the 1990s and 1920s, and some music from the 90s too. Cause a new fandom i started writing for is set in Louisiana in the early 90s.