If you’re like most writers, you spend much of your time with your nose in a book. Writers are always learning, always curious, always searching for new information that will enliven and surprise readers. As a result, writers tend to know things that extend past the realm of common knowledge. Here’s a list of some of the weird things writers know. Feel free to add your own esoteric tidbits!
Writers know:
- How to remove bloodstains from the trunk of a car.
- Twenty different ways to express love.
- How to make a radio from a toothpick, a staple gun, and a crew neck sweater.
- The meanings of words such as variegated, ululation, and consanguine.
- The difference between altered states and parallel universes.
- How to survive being buried in an avalanche.
- What people in the 17th century do (and do not) say, eat, drink, and wear.
- What drugs will stop a heart but not show up in an autopsy.
- How to invent a brand-new language for an alien species.
- Murphy Oil Soap works wonders when washing elephants.
- “Facetious” uses all the vowels in the correct order.
- Why plump red tomatoes are more fun to use in poetry than the lowly turnip.
- How to sum up a novel in twelve words or less.
- One must have a license to keep a bear in Ohio.
- Urban slang, teen-speak, and 18th-century idioms.
- How to survive on Top Ramen and Kool-Aid for two weeks.
- The United Nations University is located in Tokyo.
- The most common word in the English language is “the.”
- Writer’s block is not a myth.
- The joy of eight simple words: “Not bad. I think we can use this!”
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A primitive, yet functional, crystal radio can be made with an old pencil, razor blade, Slinky, and a little bit of luck.
If I were stranded on a desert island, I’d rather it be with a scientist than a writer!
More about the mind of a serial killer than a woman who’s home alone a lot ought to…
I don’t know, this kind of information seems like it’s essential for an introverted writer trying to make small talk… bad small talk perhaps, but small talk nonetheless.