If It's On The Internet It Must Be True...Right?

Research…Or See How Smart I Am.

I love the Internet.  I hate the Internet.  Sound confusing, but think about it.  As writer’s we probably spend a fair bit of time on the Internet.  We want to know something, we don’t have to go to the library like we did, or in my case, said we did, years ago.  Hit the keyboard, do a few keystrokes, make a couple of false starts and we find what we are looking for.  That’s the part of the Internet that I love.  It’s the false starts that I hate.

Need some information on how many acres were in the original Disneyland?  Look it up and choose from probably a million places that offer everything you ever wanted to know about Disneyland, Disney World, Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Steamboat Willy…or is it Willie?  I now know what kind of car Donald Duck drives and his tag number.  Does that make me a good researcher, smarter, a person who wastes time when he should be writing or a compendium of worthless information?

Want to know the city in the United States that sees the sunrise first every morning?  Just ask me.  I found it when I was looking for something entirely different.  I write mysteries and If the FBI ever, for any reason comes to my house and asks to see my computer, I will never get out of jail.  I have searches buried someplace in the memory bank of my desk top that will lead them to directions for making an atomic bomb, the kind of poison that is not found in a routine autopsy and the penalty for all sorts of horrible crimes.

It’s useful information and I make no excuses for having it on my computer but it’s the other stuff that pops up that I worry about.  I did a search for a comedian who was popular in the early 1950’s.  That led me to a site for some clips from the old Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  I remember watching the show with my parents, I checked out a couple.  The last one created a link that (I’m holding my hand in the air) I honestly did not realize led to a hard-core porn site.  It took a call to tech support to get rid of it.

But let’s talk about legitimate research.  In my latest mystery, I needed to know how to kill a person in a specific manner.  I had the way, I did not know how or if it would be detected by a medical examiner.  I looked on the Internet to no avail, so I called the medical examiner in the county where I had the murder take place.  I asked some general questions and was told to contact a professor at a major university who specialized in poison research.  We had a great conversation and I was led to a website that I would have never found otherwise.  I did not go into great detail on how the poison was detected, but I could have.  I needed to know but I didn’t think my readers did.

Give your readers enough to let them know you know what you’re talking about.  Don’t get them bogged down in details unless you write techno-thrillers.  If you do then you can go into great details.  That’s what they expect.

Remember, they can’t put it on the Internet unless it’s true.  BTW...Donald drives a 1934 Belch Fire Runabout and his tag number is 313.

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