Does anybody else think that Google has screwed up modern day thrillers? If the MC googles the clues, the author gets slated and if the MC tries to manually solve the clues, the reader shouts "Why don't you just google it?"
Perhaps writers will just have to come up with more clever clues one could not just Google for the answer. It's not like you can search Google for, 'who was at the crime scene?' Here's another way to twist the plot, the Google search could be misleading. I tried to find a friend's film, "Ghost Bride". All the Google hits were "Corpse Bride", and with Bing I got hits with ghost in them and one even said it was to a DVD called "Ghost Bride". Trouble is the link to the Amazon site was for "Ghost Whisperer", IOW, a sleazy bait and switch. You could do some interesting plot twists around the problem. Sweet baby pic, BTW.
What is funny is this reminds me of Carrie. Carrie is a horror/thriller movie and she does research online about what is happening to her and her kinetic powers. It is more used as a source of information because the situation is a phenomenon. Alot of Ghost genre stories like paranormal activity use internet research, however there is not much explanation of what is currently happening because nobody is there to report it. only the basic information that either the location was believed to be haunted because of A, B and C.
I think the whole Google it thing was meant to be taken as a joke, and don't usually affect the person's view on the plot. But the story shouldn't be so predictable, that the MC could look up solutions on Google. And even if so, Google can be used for somethings in the movie that aren't affecting the plot too hard. Like searching what atoms are. Google is okay to be used as long as it isn't replacing something that could have been explained by a character more diversely and relevant to the plot, or given to the MC in a way that is significant to the story.
