Who else likes Easter Eggs?

cethklein · Dec 27, 2007

Especially with caramel in them. Mmmmmmmmmmm

But seriously, I've developed a fondness for hiding "Easter Eggs" in my writing, like those you see in DVDs. Does anyone else do this?

Example, in Judgment's Hand there is a Haldaran capital ship known as the I.H.C Visaya. The captain's name is Ronda Cebu. For those who don't know, the Visayas are a region in the Philippine island chain, and Cebu is the central province of the region. Ronda is a municipality there.

So does anyone else do this in their writing?

Toothpaste · Dec 27, 2007

Almost all my names and place names have meanings. I suppose Captain Magnanimous is pretty self explanatory. But I do so enjoy my seaside town of Port Cullis. In my latest, all the captains of my pirate fleet are named after different Chinese dynasties.

cethklein · Dec 27, 2007

I like the Port Cullis thing. That is more of a pun, which is something I would like to do more of. Obviously in my current series I can't go overboard as it is a fairly serious series, but I would like to inject a few puns here and there for good measure.

My worry with puns is that I may unwittingly use something that has already been done. I don't want readers to think that I just sat down with a Piers Anthony book and started copy/pasting puns into my story.

James D. Macdonald · Dec 27, 2007

I put inside jokes in my stories all the darned time. It keeps me amused, anyway.

PeeDee · Dec 27, 2007

I do it too. Hell, I just this day named the local town drunk "Jack Kirby," and muttered about his weird ideas and crazy out-there stories. If no one gets 'em, it doesn't hurt the story any, and I have fun.

TrickyFiction · Dec 27, 2007

Yep.

I usually write secret little homages to whatever I'm currently obsessing over.
It makes me giggle when I go back through the story and find them.

Shadow_Ferret · Dec 27, 2007

I use names of people and places from my childhood. I popped both my kids' names into the book just for grins.

Stijn Hommes · Dec 27, 2007

I was more of an easter egger when I wrote fanfic, but in my original work, I have yet to find a suitable place to fit anything like that in....

AndreaGS · Dec 27, 2007

I like making passing reference to important people or historical events that later come up in the story in a major way. Not really an easter egg, I guess, but also only something the most diligent readers would notice.

I do have one character named Aeluras, drawn from the word allure, and with good reason given her nature!

Marian Perera · Dec 27, 2007

I don't know if this is an Easter egg, but in a fantasy novel I wrote, people believe that a dragon-god called Phreos Muet sacrificed herself to give them "the Gift of Fire". Phreos Muet is an anagram of Prometheus.

I don't think anyone will notice that, though.

Stormhawk · Dec 27, 2007

Easter eggs are fun to do, as are references, in-jokes and foreshadowing. ^_^

Zoombie · Dec 27, 2007

I often name incosiquential things after other things, sometimes without even noticing it. It took three readthroughs of an old story to realize the villian had the same name as my band teacher.

A more recent one would be an off hand reference to a book written by Saul Goldman, who is a propaganda minister in the fictional nazi-esque "Freedom" party. Only a Harry Turtledove nut would sniff that one out.

So, yeah, Easter Eggs are fun. Another author that uses them a lot would be Jasper Fforde, who has some of the BEST Easter Eggs, including references to books within books, special features bundled with the books, webpages built around the books, and so on.

DeadlyAccurate · Dec 27, 2007

I named an SUV in my book a Reiziger. That's about the closest I've come to an easter egg.

Shady Lane · Dec 27, 2007

Right now, my MC's dad is drinking a shot of Jack Daniel's. Because he needed to be drinking and that's what my dad always drinks.

Akuma · Dec 27, 2007

I think Literature specializes in Easter Eggs.

Me? Recurring characters.

Probably unhealthy.

KTC · Dec 28, 2007

I always add little personal likes and dislikes. I'll have a character who is nutty for Salinger or Cohen. I'll use a piece of dialogue I found amusing in real life. I use street names and town names from my youth in fictitious settings. I do all sorts of things like this. I had one character who drank Orangina all the time...because I do.

Nakhlasmoke · Dec 28, 2007

Yep, for my own amusement.

donroc · Dec 28, 2007

Feel free to send me some Fabergé Easter eggs and you won't be Tsarry.

www.donaldmichaelplatt.com

AndrewB · Dec 28, 2007

I love to do it. I will take something like a licence plate and have the numbers/letters be like "PL3 2I5" which would be Paradise Lost, book 3, line 215. If you read that part, you get some secret about the character ir a foreshadowing.

JerseyGirl1962 · Dec 28, 2007

cethklein said:
But seriously, I've developed a fondness for hiding "Easter Eggs" in my writing, like those you see in DVDs. Does anyone else do this?

Yuppers.

In my only pub credit (a short story), the female MC's first name was Brielle, which also happens to be the name of a town down the Jersey shore. (I always LOVED that name, so, naturally, I had to throw it into my writing somewhere. :tongue

)

In my current WIP, the part which takes place in 1942 Los Angeles/Hollywood, I have one character working at a fictitious movie studio called Durham Studios. (I just realized this is Easter egg-like, actually.) There actually was, and I believe, still is, a Raleigh Studios located out there. As there's a Raleigh-Durham Airport, I figured I'd have a little fun and call the studio Durham. (Get it, huh, huh?

)

I feel like Wile E. Coyote - gads, I'm SUCH a genius - and modest, too.

~Nancy

ACEnders · Dec 28, 2007

AndrewB said:
I love to do it. I will take something like a licence plate and have the numbers/letters be like "PL3 2I5" which would be Paradise Lost, book 3, line 215. If you read that part, you get some secret about the character ir a foreshadowing.

oooooh, I like it!

Here's how green I am - I've never heard of an easter egg!

cethklein · Dec 28, 2007

Oh you're missing out ACEnders. The Cadbury ones are the best

HeronW · Dec 28, 2007

I've a char named Cienna who gets toasted by a laser, ergo; burnt sienna, a nice brown color no artist can live without. Am I evil?

Dustry Joe · Dec 28, 2007

Constantly. Though since most of mine are names and words that have meaning only to speakers of Spanish, I guess you'd call them "Huevitos Pascuales" or something.

LeeFlower · Dec 28, 2007

haha. I do this all the time--same reason as UJ (because it's amusing). In the world I write a lot of my short stories in, I've got a Cecil Forester Scott, captain of the blockade runner Lady Barbara. His cabin boy's name is Louis Troughton (see that's funny because...). The first person narrator of one of the stories, a medic named Hal Carraway, is not actually the mc.

Really, though, the lord and master of easter eggs is probably J. Michael Strazinsky(sp?). Half the characters in B5 have some kind of in-joke to their names (reference Alfred Bester, telepathic cop, named after the science fiction author who won the first ever Hugo award for best novel (The Demolished Man, which is about (drumroll) a telepathic cop).

Who else likes Easter Eggs?

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