Storytime - "We are smarter than I will ever be"

Okay guys, today we're talking writing, some storytime and how I fix my plots.

Research can be impossible sometimes. Normally for any rough draft, I'll find the information I need by doing a 5-click google search. This is something that was suggested by a Nanowrimo participant at one point. The general idea is as simple as it sounds. When you need to research something, you go to Google and put in your question. The catch is that you're only allowed 5 pages total. If you can't find what you need in those clicks, you put a little question mark on your page, describe what the heck you need to research and that's as good as it gets until you start editing.

Today, I hit a point where my research met my plot though, and I jumped into Google, trusting the 5-click google search to solve it. I needed, specifically, to know how people in the middle ages or Roman era would have tested the purity of water. Unfortunately, a 5-click search told me that they tested the purity of water by using sight, scent, taste, and temperature. However, beyond mentioning those things, they didn't explain it at all. And in my book, the thing they're looking for is tasteless, scentless and clear when dissolved in water.

I'm in a rough draft, which meant that I'd put in the earlier plot point, "test water". Unfortunately, I couldn't leave an entire chapter for editing that says "figure out how to test the water and show them testing it". This had now become a plot point. I needed to know this since it directly affects the plot. Unfortunately, partially because Google is a computer that does not know me and partially because I had a headache that was making it difficult to work (I can be honest) I couldn't find what I needed.

Obviously not a picture of me and my friend, but it works in this context. 

Then, while talking to a friend, it suddenly occurred to me that they might have the answer I needed. They are a chemist, by training and inclination and while I understand the basics of chemistry (that was a science I took in school and did reasonably well in), they naturally understood way more than I did. This all goes back to one of my favourite phrases on writing; "WE are smarter than I will ever be."

Of course, my friend didn't have the information right off the bat. I had to talk him through my problem, tell him why I couldn't use certain easier fixes and other ways to do it. But within about twenty minutes, we'd figured out what I needed and how to solve the mystery of my plot. I love the idea of what's going down, even if I still have to write it to figure out all of the exact ins and outs of how it starts happening.

It may be books away before you get to experience everything I'm working on, of course, but I can already tell that this information is going to make my book way better than what I could have come up with alone. And in the end, you getting the best book you can is the most important part, right?