1. Your Google search history looks like it might get you arrested.
“What is the statute of limitations on bank robbery?” “What are symptoms of cyanide poisoning?” “How can people beat lie detectors?” Doing research for novels, especially murder mysteries, tends to entail asking those slightly bizarre questions. I mean, really, you have to try to save your character if he or she just got trapped by their worst enemy in a blind alley. So looking up “Best improvised weapons” totally makes sense.
2. The Writing Bug can bite at any time. ANY TIME.
Chances are, you’ve taken to carrying a notebook and pencil around with you in a pocket, because you never know when you’re going to come up with the next great American novel, and if you wait until you can get to your computer to write it down, it just won’t sound as good. Possibly the most annoying thing is those nights when you know you have an eight a.m. class, and just as you’re drifting off to sleep at whatever unearthly hour you pulled yourself out of your latest writing craze and into bed, inspiration strikes. That passage you were agonizing over for three hours earlier is suddenly crystal clear. Why couldn’t that have happened two hours ago?
3. You talk out loud to your characters while you write.
The characters you create are totally real people to you. It’s sort of like having a little family of people you invented, and the nice thing is you get to choose what they are like and what they do, and they can never disobey you or get mad at you…WRONG. Characters tend to take on a life of their own and get into all kinds of mischief, and some days the only thing you can do is sit there and stare at your paper or computer screen while someone goes off and does some stupid thing, and someone else let them get away with it, and mutter angrily at them. At six a.m. With your roommate tossing pillows at you because you woke her up. Maybe you shouldn’t write this early in the morning. Oh, who am I kidding…
4. You talk out loud to your characters anytime.
Doesn’t matter if you’re eating working, or even hanging out with friends; when the voices in your head start talking, sometimes you’re obligated to reply. People may look at you like you’ve gone a little bit off the deep end when you talk and there’s no one around, but who cares? Besides, they haven’t seen you on a writing binge, so they don’t know anything about crazy.
5. You warn interesting acquaintances that they are fair game for character inspiration.
It’s always a rather strange start to a conversation when you have to tell your roommate or your cool new friend “Don’t take this the wrong way but you might end up in one of my books.” Just be sure you’re letting them know that you’re going to do them justice. And let them read what you’re writing so they can give feedback, since they will know that character a lot better than you will!
6. You act out your plots-even the really intense ones.
There’s no way to get the nuances of a conversation or action scene if you can’t recreate it yourself. Some days that means having a very animated two-sided argument with yourself, in very loud voices with lots of waving hands and stomping. Other days it’s running around the room and pretending to fight three people at the same time just so you can see if it’s even possible-or borrowing some friends to try it with you if they aren’t too worried about getting hit by accident.
7. You could totally win Jeopardy with all the random facts you know from research.
This is legitimately the only time you actually WANT to sit down and do five hours of research on random topics like lobster fishing or the life of nobility in 16th century France. All those random facts will be floating around in your brain long after you write the story, and you’re able to beat almost anyone at trivia games. And chances are, if there’s a question you don’t know the answer to, you start thinking “That would make a good story!” Here we go again…
