It's for a Book: Difference between revisions

 

A subtrope of the [[Bavarian Fire Drill]], compare [[I Have This Friend]]. Comes up a lot because [[Most Writers Are Writers]]. See also [[Film Felons]].

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'', Syaoran uses this excuse in one of the worlds to gather information of legends. He got the idea from his father, an archeologist, who used it all the time.

* In [[Agatha Christie]]'s ''[[Five Little Pigs]]'', Hercule Poirot is asked to reinvestigate a murder that had happened sixteen years earlier. When speaking with some of the witnesses, he claims he is writing a book about famous murders in order to get them to provide written accounts of what they remember.

** In ''[[Third Girl]]'', author surrogate Ariadne Oliver claims to be researching how easy it is to follow someone, when following a suspect on behalf of Poirot. She tells the suspect she's concluded it's quite difficult.

** Of course, it's pretty clear that {{spoiler|Slughorn knows on some level that Riddle's story is complete bull: asking for info on Horcruxes for "a project" would be akin to a 6th grader asking for information about anal broomstick rape "for homework"... but he plays along anyway because he doesn't want to think badly of or disappoint his star pupil}}.

** And several books earlier, in ''Chamber of Secrets'', Hermione pulled the same trick to get [[The Ditz|Professor Lockhart's]] permission to get the book with the directions on how to make Polyjuice Potion from the Restricted Section.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* A typical [[Hand Wave]] for aspiring graffiti artists at a hardware store is "It's for a school art project"/"We're renovating".

* Some people have noted that you can get away with anything on the LiveJournal community ''little_details'' by prefacing your query with: "I'm writing a story where..."

** Another thread had someone asking how much jello it would take to fill up the White House. It quickly devolved into a discussion of which flavor would be best.

** There was also, famously, another discussion on how many koalas it would take to fill a Tokyo subway car. That one got revamped a couple of years running and was more for fun than for real. There was, however, quite a bit of serious discussion about whether the koalas were flattened, crated, alive, dead, and male or female, and if the subway car had seats in it or not. If female, an interesting tangent developed about whether or not they were pregnant, since pregnant koalas are more likely to need their personal space, and what might happen if one (or all) of said pregnant koalas gave birth on the train. The answer was something like 1500 koalas, based on the volume of the car and the average volume of a koala.

* [[Mortal Instruments|Cassandra Clare]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK8y8borPZ8 has had an opportunity to do this].

* The reference desk on [[The Other Wiki]] sees "it's for a book"-type questions from time to time. Some are more believable than others.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Social Engineering]]

[[Category:The Plan]]

[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]