![]() Maybe its just me being a member of the Google/ Wikipedia age, but when I read a pop culture reference in a book that I don't know, all it does it make me want to find out what it is. Pop culture isn't just pop - it's our cultural identity at the time, like it or not, and good fiction needs to reflect the temporal setting even if some readers won't get the reference. Someone listening to Simple Minds in 1985 will do it with a cassette Walkman. Film does that with soundtracks and clothing/hair books need to do that as well. If you're writing to any time period, you have to bring the realism. ![]() Even if the main character is a chef, wouldn't his/her 2011 kitchen reflect 2011, just for the necessity of being realistic and accurate? And I guess that's my point. If your main character is a contemporary P.I., he/she would have thousands of dollars of electronic surveillance and computer forensic gear on hand. 38 snubnose, but a tupperware 9mm and a taser. ![]() If you have a 2011 police officer as a character, chances are they're carrying not a. It's also reflected in the hardware any profession uses and you have to get those details right. It's the devices that deliver the medium and make our culture who we are at that time: iPods/Pads/Phones, Kindles, etc. If you're writing a contemporary setting for a contemporary audience, how can you avoid these references? Pop culture isn't just movies, music, and TV. I'm probably in the minority here, but I see all this stuff as necessary and vital in a story. Best to just describe things if you ask me, it saves the reader from a lot of confusion, and stops the reader from just saying "stop being lazy author". And like another commenter said, if you don't like that type of music, or don't think that brand of headphones is expensive at all…you've completely lost your reader. So saying the name of a hip band to explain what type of music a character is into, or a brand of fancy headphones doesn't quite work for me: I don't know if they're a popular band or not. I mean, I'm only exposed to a very small part of pop culture (the part I like), so I wouldn't know about a lot of music that's out right now. I do agree, you shouldn't fill your book with pop culture references. I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks this though! I don't know how many times I've told him to change it because it's not a proper descriptive tool, but he never does. I try to tell them that some people don't know whether those brands are for "well off" people or not, but he always just goes "People will know". They always have brands of fancy electronics and clothes written down, instead of explaining that the things their characters own are expensive because they're a rich character. Thank you so much for this post Jessica! I critique a friends work, and they have a ton of references like this. While I think it’s okay to use some pop culture in your writing, my suggestion is to use it sparingly and only if you absolutely need to. What about a book that’s published, or still in publication, five years from now? At that point your readers weren’t even born when The Sixth Sense was released. Wouldn’t a young adult more likely think of something more recent, more relatable to their world, not a movie they would deem a classic? Now, I’m not saying they haven’t seen the movie, and maybe it’s enough of a classic that they have, but this still sounds like a rather adult comparison to me, and one that definitely dates the book. The Sixth Sense was released in 1998, when most of your YA readers were about four, maybe. I read a YA recently in which the author used The Sixth Sense as an example. The other reason I dislike pop culture references is that they quickly date your book. If your average reader is anything like me, you’re going to lose her with your first reference. In fact, and I hate to admit this, the last time I saw a movie in the theater was more than five years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I live and breathe Top Chef, but I rarely see movies. One of the reasons I don’t like this, besides the fact that I feel it’s lazy writing, is because I’m not a huge pop culture junky. If you ask me, or even if you didn’t, I think this is a very dangerous habit. ![]() For example, it’s a lot easier to compare someone to Tom Cruise or a situation to The Sixth Sense than it is to really take the time and energy to describe that person or situation in your own words. It’s very common for writers to use pop culture references in the fiction they’re writing.
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