Quoting: Burned
From Burned by PC Cast and Kirstin Cast
“Yeah, ’cause we think you’re like Rachel on Glee,” Shaunee said. “Super annoying, but she has to be in the show ’cause sometimes she comes up with good stuff and kinda saves the day.”
Alright, this quote jumped out at me for two reasons. The first, most obvious one is that I love Glee and love Rachel.
The second is that it was a pop culture reference. I always wonder if I should put them in my own writing or not. I’m an admited pop culture junky so tend to want to lay them on heavy. It is a risk because if your readers don’t know what you are talking about the majority of the time, you might lose them. It is also kind of like putting a time stamp on your book. When I read The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith, I know no idea that the first part of the series was written nineteens years ago. It seems so modern.
Lately, I’ve been going by what genre I am writing to figure out how much to throw in. For example, my crime book has very few. Off the top of my head, I can only think of a few clothing ones to show that my main characters is a designer kind of girl. It aids to the overall story. For another book, I am having the character work in a club. It is much more light feeling and I think the pop culture stuff is fitting.
I wish I had marked the page in Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris that had the best pop reference ever. It was something about Sookie hearing Jace Everett’s Bad Things. For anyone that watches True Blood, it is the theme song. I thought it was so clever of her to put it in there. An extra treat to all of us that are big fans of both you might say.
