Have you ever left Easter Eggs in your writing?

I used a part of a line from a Stepen Leacock story and a line from a famous Procul Harum song in my novel.

Might be too damn cute and an editor will probably kill them.

Hublocker said:

I used a part of a line from a Stepen Leacock story and a line from a famous Procul Harum song in my novel.

Might be too damn cute and an editor will probably kill them.

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Those aren't Easter Eggs; they're copyright issues.

Then she at first just ghostly turned a whiter shade of pale.

I'm going to offer a prize to the first reader to tweet at me with every single "Mad Max: Fury Road" reference I put into STAR WARS: BLOODLINE. Oh, there are plenty.

Yes, I have a few "easter egg" inside jokes and shout-outs to people in my WIP. It's fun.

I named two of my protagonist's friends after people I know in real life. There was also a man in my dad's old neighborhood who fascinated me so much that I had to figure out how to base a character off of him. I'm waiting for my dad to read my story eventually and call me on it: "I know where you got that idea from..."

I used to think I was this sort of clever person, and maybe I used to actually be, but now I'm happy if I can just finish the damn story.

flarue said:

I'm waiting for my dad to read my story eventually and call me on it

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I actually called my publisher in a panic on Minister of Justice, asking them to do a quick search and replace on the MC's father, whose name was a nickname people used to use for my dad.

Since the MC's father was a dick, I didn't want my dad reading it and calling me to gripe about it.

Turns out, it wasn't even an issue, because he never read the book.

Oh, of course!

In the novel I have just finished there are barrels full of them. Whether it's someone's name jumbled up, or a description that someone I know might pick up, or a friend who uses a particular phrase.

I can't leave easter eggs between stand-alone books because I haven't written anything else before and this is going to be a series, but there will be references to various real world people, events and places throughout my work, as long as it doesn't break the story or stop its flow.

I don't know if I've actually done this. Although the evil part of has always wanted to insert some traces of my romance characters into my horror/apocalyptic stories. Like finding the shell of their burnt-down home or something like that. I just don't want to anger the romance readers.

I have. Both in-jokes or references that only family or friends would notice (especially on the based-on-a-true-story of my parents' 30-year search for love), but also nods to other characters or stories. For instance, naming a horse Donas for a horse in Outlander. And, since my one series so far is out for book one, and books two and three are prequels (and already written before the first was published) I put in plenty of references to people you would later find out more about.

For instance, book one (Legacy of Hunger) is about Valentia, searching for her grandmother's family. Book two is about her grandmother as a young girl, and her sisters. They are visited by Eamonn, their grandfather. Book three is about Eamonn's life as a young man.

I love doing this, but all the readers of my stories tell me it's a bad idea and not to do it. In their view, anything that's not story, even if it's part of the story without the in-connection, needs to go.

LeifWright and flarue remind me of a time, quite by accident, I gave a character a name similar to someone my dad knew. He was all excited until this person turned out to be one of the story's unsavory types.

I love scattering bizarre little references just to see who gets them. Figure if they aren't too obvious and don't distract from the story, why not? The example coming to mind is one where a character thinks about someone he loves and decides that he'd love her "whether her name was Foxglove or Emily or Sadie Mae Glutz." Wanted to see if anyone would catch said reference, because that's the kind of person I am.

Don't know about easter eggs but I do like to smudge some of my real world references.

A character might eat a banana flavoured Aero, yellow chocolate inside, while watching a sequel to a movie that bombed. Purely for my own amusement of course.

Writing a novel is such a long, grinding, process that you have to find fun where you can.

My own works are full of inside jokes and private references ... which will remain inside and private.

Chris P said:

I love doing this, but all the readers of my stories tell me it's a bad idea and not to do it. In their view, anything that's not story, even if it's part of the story without the in-connection, needs to go.

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I'd agree that if your Easter Egg is obviously an Easter Egg--and not slipped invisibly into your story--it's probably too self-indulgent. Ideally your Easter Egg should fit into your story organically enough that someone who doesn't get the reference would never question why that detail/line/whatever is there.

In the case of BLOODLINE, I needed to name so many aliens and planets that using anagrams and fragments from MM:FR was as good a way of generating them as any.

I love planting easter eggs in different stories. Sort of like a cinematic universe within my own writing. Nothing like an avengers level, but small things here and there.

Stephen King has a vast universe in his writing, which is what inspired me to do this

It sprung into my awareness last night that naked mole rats might make a good AW easter egg.

I had a favorite dialogue exchange
I put in the first draft of all three of my published novels, which went something like:
"Well, that was a fruitless venture."
"Any more of these fruitless ventures and we'll both come down with Scurvy."

Not sure if it survived the final edits on any or all of them. I'd have to check. I retired it on my last three (unpublished) novels. Maybe I ought to toss it back into one of them for luck.

Yus!! I've inserted the last names of the playable characters from my favourite game, Final Fantasy VII, as locations throughout my second book (the only appropriate place for that). They live in The Burroughs in Gains... on Wallace St... taking the sky train at Kisaragi Station... going to a bar on Lockhart Ave (where 7th Heaven may be too much of a stretch who knows).

Also, as a throwback to my girl Audrey Hepburn, while my two MC's are in said bar, the male comes up and says
"Lux, you're drunk."
To which she responds, "True."

Chris P said:

I love doing this, but all the readers of my stories tell me it's a bad idea and not to do it. In their view, anything that's not story, even if it's part of the story without the in-connection, needs to go.

LeifWright and flarue remind me of a time, quite by accident, I gave a character a name similar to someone my dad knew. He was all excited until this person turned out to be one of the story's unsavory types.

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When I'm initially writing, I always name characters after the people I use as mental references to frame their characters. It's a simple matter of find-and-replace to avoid lawsuits after the manuscript is done.

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Silva said:

It sprung into my awareness last night that naked mole rats might make a good AW easter egg.

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I'm not hating this.

Anyone here read Stephen King? And anyone who does, are you doing that type of 'universe' where all your books take place in the same world?

I read Stephen King, and I'm not doing a shared universe per se.

Most of my books are set in the same geographical area, and they share fictional cities, but the crimes and villains of one story don't necessarily cross over to the others.

When he first put Randall Flagg in the Gunslinger series, I think I wrinkled my nose a bit. I liked Randall Flagg where he was at the end of The Stand - completely undefined. He could easily pop up anywhere else.

Then, when he had the Gunslinger characters actually appear in The Stand storyline, I almost quit reading. I get what he's doing there, and by God, he's a much better writer than me, but I don't have to like it.