What do you include that readers probably don't notice?

[VallesMarineris]

It got me thinking, how much do we as writers put into our stories that most readers will probably never notice.

I don't know if they count as Easter eggs, but I've name-dropped women scientists who should be better known:

Rosalind Franklin, who actually did the X-ray diffraction experiment and figured out that DNA is a helix, but got screwed out of her Nobel prize.

Vera Rubin, the astronomer who produced the first evidence for dark matter. Nobel-worthy work, but the Royal Swedish Academy wasn't giving out prizes to astronomers back then.

I also can't help jargon-dropping in the hope that my readers will use the references to delve a bit deeper into the fields:

fMRI

bullae and tokens

magnetar

backpropagation and GANs

Oh, and I always use Oxford commas. It's just science. And it's been backed up by the courts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma#Maine_labor_dispute

 

[RetroFan]

I often mention things in my stories set in the past that aren't there any more. For example in my story 'Cindy's Close Encounter' which is set in 1959 titular narrator Cindy, her two friends and their boyfriends pay a flying visit to New York City right the end and Cindy notes that she sees the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and the Singer Tower. The third of these tall buildings was demolished around 1970 (to the dismay of many New Yorkers), so by including the Singer Tower it shows my story is set in this era.

More obviously, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center always appear in my New York-set pieces set in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and very early 2000s.

 

[HectorBidon]

In one of my stories, set in a forest in eastern Europe into which one of the last aurochs has just been born, a traveler elucidates a new philosophy about the movement of the heavenly spheres, dancing across the room like a top to illustrate one particular aspect of the theory. The MC is not able to follow much more than the gist of the argument, but what is being expounded, of course, is the heliocentric model of Copernicus.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Rosalind Franklin, who actually did the X-ray diffraction experiment and figured out that DNA is a helix, but got screwed out of her Nobel prize.

Female ex-scientist and feminist here.

This is an often-cited but untrue statement. Franklin was dead (she died in 1958) at the time of the award (1962) and there is no posthumous award. If she had lived, I would have liked to have seen her be the third laureate instead of Wilkins, but she was a post doctoral fellow at the time and the Group Leader (or PI here), Wilkins, might still have got the credit.

Two things. When she took the role with Wilkins, it has been stated by her friends that she had been promised it being a bigger and more independent one. But shit happens in science. Particularly to women. It still does.

The other is the claim that Crick and Watson stole her data. Or that Wilkins gave it to them without her permission. All were funded by the UK Medical Research Council and a condition of such grants was the free sharing of data with other MRC groups. They all signed up to this.

Neither Crick (now dead) nor Watson were / are paragons. Watson in particular has articulated bat-shit crazy and racist views on multiple occasions. Both had a rep for arrogance, that’s not uncommon in science sadly. But they didn’t steal anything.

I have never met either, but I know people at the institute that Crick and Watson worked at the time who knew both.

They were all working in my old field of research, so I’m pretty sure I’m right on this.

Emily

 

[Seadog777]

If you talk about it, then it will get noticed.

Where's the fun in that???

 

[VallesMarineris]

Female ex-scientist and feminist here.

This is an often-cited but untrue statement. Franklin was dead (she died in 1958) at the time of the award (1962) and there is no posthumous award. If she had lived, I would have liked to have seen her be the third laureate instead of Wilkins, but she was a post doctoral fellow at the time and the Group Leader (or PI here), Wilkins, might still have got the credit.

Two things. When she took the role with Wilkins, it has been stated by her friends that she had been promised it being a bigger and more independent one. But shit happens in science. Particularly to women. It still does.

The other is the claim that Crick and Watson stole her data. Or that Wilkins gave it to them without her permission. All were funded by the UK Medical Research Council and a condition of such grants was the free sharing of data with other MRC groups. They all signed up to this.

Neither Crick (now dead) nor Watson were / are paragons. Watson in particular has articulated bat-shit crazy and racist views on multiple occasions. Both had a rep for arrogance, that’s not uncommon in science sadly. But they didn’t steal anything.

I have never met either, but I know people at the institute that Crick and Watson worked at the time who knew both.

They were all working in my old field of research, so I’m pretty sure I’m right on this.

Emily

In re-reading her bio in Wikipedia, I have to agree with you. Thanks for the correction. And your personal corroboration.

 

[EmilyMiller]

In re-reading her bio in Wikipedia, I have to agree with you. Thanks for the correction. And your personal corroboration.

Not being bitchy. Plenty of mistreatment of women in science. And she was an excellent researcher and and a fine example to young women.

She died of a variety of gynecological cancers, including ovarian. It’s been suggested that this might have been to do with radiation exposure at work, but she also had a familial history. Familial history plus early cancer tends to suggest BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. Something her work helped us to later understand.

Her life and work is to be celebrated and I in no way wanted to take away from that.

Emily

 

[AchtungNight]

One of my stories that features the central couple of my fictional universe is Ruleskirter (https://www.literotica.com/s/ruleskirter). It’s called that because the Female Main Character’s mom gave her the nickname. The FMC is a sex addict working to manage her condition by holding off on sex with the Male Main Character to test his patience and make sure he doesn’t set off her red flags for a long term relationship- which she wants. He passes the test, but there is a long breakup before the wedding. The MMC is also a ruleskirter- he gets through the FMC’s game with the power of love.

The inspiration for this kind of relationship testing is the long complicated process of securing a romance in modern role playing video games- life often seems similar. You can also see references to a few famous video games in the story. For example, the MMC and FMC wield a shovel and a shield against the bad guy they beat up. Shovel Knight and his lover Shield Knight are the central couple in one of the greatest video games of all time.

 

[YDB95]

A lot of my stories are set at a college. At first I made no mention of what college it was, but eventually I settled on a name, Claxton College, and many of my more recent stories identify that as the setting. There are a few mentions of a building endowed by a character who appeared in an earlier story, that sort of thing.

I'm also a fairly serious student of rock and roll history in real life, and several of my stories feature real-life tidbits of it, notably Matching Hearts (everything I have to say there about "All Mine" by the Five Satins is true, including the fact that I have never been able to hear the truck in hundreds of listens) and The Jimmy Soul Memorial Party (featuring a mention of the holy grail of doo-wop record collecting, "Story Weather" by The Five Sharps, which you can read all about here). A subtler music allusion, but one I'm particularly proud of, is in February 1978 in the Bible Belt, where it's mentioned that the protagonist's very homophobic and chauvinistic father plays his favorite Anita Bryant 8-track (for those of you who don't know, she was/is a notorious homophobe, and was very prominent in the news for it at the time the story takes place).

A fairly obvious one - I thought - was in Dirty Old Town, with its cameo by Susan of the Chronicles of Narnia a few years after the train wreck. I didn't think anyone would miss that, but one reviewer did tell me this Susan character sounded very interesting and I should write a story about her. Maybe someday I will, although there's a lot of fanfic already out there!

 

[StillStunned]

In my sword & sorcery series The Rivals, the character Sligh (a disgraced scholar) sometimes quotes sayings from other cultures or time periods. They're actually sayings from other languages that I speak, translated literally into English.

 

[lovecraft68]

Song lyrics I've included as dialogue, but I don't reference the song so I wonder how many people have noticed any of them

You look cuter with something in your mouth.
You probably think this song is about you.
I turn my head until my darkness goes.
I have one life left in a nine live cat.
They all laughed until the witch said, burn.
They say you got to stay hungry? Well, baby, I'm just about starving tonight. This last one, I did start with, "Well, like the Boss says,"

 

[lovecraft68]

In my sword & sorcery series The Rivals, the character Sligh (a disgraced scholar) sometimes quotes sayings from other cultures or time periods. They're actually sayings from other languages that I speak, translated literally into English.

Do they translate well enough to have the same meaning? As the saying goes, a lot can be lost in translation.

 

[StillStunned]

Do they translate well enough to have the same meaning? As the saying goes, a lot can be lost in translation.

They should be evident from the context. For example, "There are more days than weeks" when urging someone not to be impatient. But the strangeness is what adds the flavour. After all, the sayings are supposed to sound foreign.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Song lyrics I've included as dialogue, but I don't reference the song so I wonder how many people have noticed any of them

You look cuter with something in your mouth.
You probably think this song is about you.
I turn my head until my darkness goes.
I have one life left in a nine live cat.
They all laughed until the witch said, burn.
They say you got to stay hungry? Well, baby, I'm just about starving tonight. This last one, I did start with, "Well, like the Boss says,"

Ones I knew: You're so vain. There's G'n'R Nightrain, with one chance left in a nine-live cat - is that the reference?

'My darkness goes' I'd recognise but had to look up - 'I have to turn my head' is the Stones' Paint it Black lyric.

Never heard the Nickelback one - seems a bit risque for a boyband!

Google doesn't know the witch one.

 

[STrent]

Song titles or lyrical references. I am frequently using Fleetwood Mac throughout every story.

 

[lovecraft68]

Ones I knew: You're so vain. There's G'n'R Nightrain, with one chance left in a nine-live cat - is that the reference?

'My darkness goes' I'd recognise but had to look up - 'I have to turn my head' is the Stones' Paint it Black lyric.

Never heard the Nickelback one - seems a bit risque for a boyband!

Google doesn't know the witch one.

The last one is from Deep Purple's Burn.
I drop or swap a word to not be exact. Not that anyone can sue over a line, but seeing I'm not referencing/crediting the song I like to be careful.

I wouldn't consider Nickelback a boy band. More like a bunch of drunk asshole overgrown frat boys

The GNR line about having one life left has been a personal mantra of mine for a long time. I've been involved in three near death experiences in my life, so its become a joke of sorts

 

[Naughtylit81]

I have little jokes and literary references in my stories. One I am working on right now has a character with the last name Upton and he is asked if they are in a slaughterhouse. That kind of thing.

 

[Priscilla_June]

All of my stories are set in the same fictional world and there is always background events that are happening that are shared between them.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

All of my stories are set in the same fictional world and there is always background events that are happening that are shared between them.

... Really? May rising and seed of the void and that princess and the barbarian story are all set in the same world?!

 

[Priscilla_June]

... Really? May rising and seed of the void and that princess and the barbarian story are all set in the same world?!

Ok, May Rising can be counted out of all of that, thanks for the reminder. I actually kinda canned that series and will be redoing it (in universe). But yes the others are links will appear more and more as we go!

 

[yowser]

I suspect most of my allusions are invisible to readers, often character names from Nabokov, Pynchon, Fielding, often anagrams or otherwise mangled, or obscure references to literary works, but every once in a while I get a sense that some of them landed (comment below.)

I think as a writer it is good to have fun with your words and tangents, for your own enjoyment if nothing else, and if someone else gets them, it's extra sweet.

On 'An Infernal Folio': ...I loved the intellectual references and in-jokes...

 

[Astrotrain]

I put in a Red Dwarf reference by saying a guy was harder than a quadratic equation. Don't know if anyone picked up on that.

 

[Azuldrgon]

Many of my stories have some parts of me in it.
The recent series (Marcie and Leo) contains plenty of things I put in that Marcie would get.
I always have her read the stories first.
Even thought the stories are fabricated, there are certain details in there she always gets.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Ok, May Rising can be counted out of all of that, thanks for the reminder. I actually kinda canned that series and will be redoing it (in universe). But yes the others are links will appear more and more as we go!

Well now I'm excited

 

[karina_jayde]

I write fantasy series in different settings, and a common element are songs/music. Several of these songs mention a clever/tricksy fox. All of the fox-related songs (even across different settings) are all about the same fox, and will gradually form a semi-coherent epic narrative about the adventures of a troublesome magic fox. Just a fun little silly thing I added for my own amusement.