| I tend to put Easter eggs in my novels--small items, phrases or themes that carry from novel to novel. In the Nocturne City series it's food--my heroine has a werewolf metabolism and she eats constantly. I've been able to invent a whole series of fictional restaurants and have her eat everything from burritos to gourmet sushi. It's great for world-building on a detail level and it's something fun that series readers can pick out. In the Black London books, it's music. My hero is an ex-punk who still clings to the musical tastes of his youth, and so I got to dive into my MP3s and extract such gems as the Supersuckers and the Anti-Nowhere League so I could reference their songs in the text. More character-building here...you can tell a lot about someone by what kind of music they listen to. What are some of your favorite Easter eggs in novels? What are some you put in your own writing? |
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Cool idea for a post. Easter Eggs in our writing - I like it!
I include references to works of classic English literature. Even if I'm setting my stuff in the US, I make sure to have pet cats called Bronte or Austen, or have my teenage protag reading something suitably gothic like Jane Eyre or Frankenstein. In my current ms, a copy of Hamlet is seen on an important character's bedside table... Subtle. ;)
In Staked, I got to make neat references to old movies and Americana (Casablanca... Eric's 1964 1/2 Mustang convertible, etc).
Eric was born in the 1920's and didn't become a vampire until the 1960's, so when he thinks of a beautiful brunette, he thinks Cyd Charisse, rather than a more modern actress, which makes things fun.
There's one obvious old movie nod in a character name, too. Even though Talbot isn't a wolfman, his name is reference to Lawrence Talbot.
I throw in Easter Eggs that lead to evens in the history of my series' Fraternal Order of Goodness. Constant nods to either short stories that tie into finer details of the main series or part of the secret history of paranormal events in America.
Although in my current WIP, I am giving a nod to Neuromancer by naming this one building the Gibson-Case Center.
I expect credit for introducing you to the Supersuckers, btw.
Um, oh gosh. Music. Names--almost everyone has a name that means something or came from somewhere.
Books. My characters read my favorite books, or, in Personal Demons, Megan was reading a December Quinn book in bed. I didn't give the title, but I had a couple of people notice it and email me about it. Hee.
I refer to obscure psychiatric and developmental disorders all the time.
The funeral home in Happy Hour of the Damned, Prader-Willy is actually a bizarre chromosonal syndrome that causes uncontrollable eating of which there's seemingly no cure except a padlock.
I'm new to the thought of "easter eggs" but have included names that refer back to my idols in music and movies. I love the food references and restaurant chains: it throws my imagination (and appetite) into overdrive.
Mark-
Taking a nod from you, I can't wait to unveil my new detective Turretts McGhee in book three!
And I'm betting his catch phrase will be, "Jesus H. Christ on a god damned popsickle stick!"
My Easter Egg varies from story to story, and it's usually a running theme, a pop culture reference that the main character, given his secluded background, doesn't get. In Second Chance, it was Star Wars and a veiled reference to a certain English boy who is a wizard.