# In-jokes in your books



## lynnfromthesouth (Jun 21, 2012)

I sometimes put little jokes in my books that would only make sense to some people. Sometimes I write them in while drafting to entertain myself, then edit them out later, but some have stayed in the final version.

For example, there is one little-used word that is in every book I have written. I wrote it in a college story, and my friends who read it all thought that word was funny, so now it goes in everything. Several of them read my books just to find it. (And no, not going to tell what it is!)

There's also a weapon that I tend to write in some way during drafting, but most have been edited back out. I have a collection of them in miniature. 

This morning I wrote in some writer jokes, which I've done before and kept. I think savvy readers would probably pick up on them, but they're more for me than anyone else. The joke I wrote this morning is actually a self publishing reference. Will I keep it? I dunno, we'll see...

Do you write yourself jokes? Keep them? Edit them out? Has any fan find and comment on them?


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

I've sprinkled a couple of Doctor Who in-jokes (though not sure if they're in-jokes, as such) in my Quality Times books.

In _The Grandparent Trap_, I have a woman called Mrs Jago (Tom Baker fans may remember The Talons of Weng Chiang featured Victorian impressario, Henry Gordon Jago), and in the third QT book I'm currently writing, _The Ballad of Rhett Rockett_, I have a.... creature.... that one of the characters names after a Doctor Who actress.

And not Doctor Who-related, I'm featuring characters called Bob in each story - the third book has one called Mouldy Bob - just cos I think Bob is a great name.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I sometimes add in little tiny references to other books in the series, as a sort of 'easter egg' that would be funny to readers who have read the others, but that won't derail anyone that hasn't.
I've had a few messages from readers who've been amused by that.


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## S.A. Mulraney (May 20, 2011)

I think in-jokes are fine so long as it doesn't confuse the reader. It's gotta make sense in the story. I've used catch phrases that my friends and I use in dialogue. I think that's fun if it fits the situation. Like your own personal "Easter eggs."


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## lynnfromthesouth (Jun 21, 2012)

garam81 said:


> And not Doctor Who-related, I'm featuring characters called Bob in each story - the third book has one called Mouldy Bob - just cos I think Bob is a great name.


I've liked pretty much every Bob in every story where there is a Bob. I should write in a Bob sometime.


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

LynnBlackmar said:


> I've liked pretty much every Bob in every story where there is a Bob. I should write in a Bob sometime.


It's a must!


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

I've tossed in a few subtle easter eggs. Some as a tip of the cap to other iconic sci-fi works and others that only a handful of people will get. Nothing that will leave the majority of readers scratching their heads though.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

My in-jokes tend to be things that only my family would recognize.  But I love throwing in nods to things like places in my hometown, actors or movies/tv shows I enjoy, etc.  But I'm pretty sure that 99.99% of readers wouldn't notice the jokes/references, much less "get" them.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

In Fairies ad Fireflies, I have a firefly named Shiny. (I figured calling it Serenity would be too obvious)


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## brendajcarlton (Sep 29, 2012)

I sometimes entertain myself with character names that are acronyms for uncomplimentary characteristics.  I'm sure no one would get them except me.  The Accident at 13th and Jefferson is packed full of references to American history. (Beginning with the title, if you notice).  There are twins named Benjamin and Franklin, a wedding toast that is a parody of the Gettysburg address and so on.  I thought if it became popular it would be fun for readers to see if they could find them all.  I'm still waiting for the popular part though.


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

In my WIP, my protag's name is Jimmy 'Guitar' Velvet, but his real name is James Andrzejewski. That last name is Pat Benatar's maiden name. I did it because it is distinctive and if a real Benatar fan reads it, they'll get a kick out of it. I'm having fun planting little easter eggs like that throughout the book - invisible if you don't get it, fun if you do.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

I'm waiting to see whether anyone spots the Rob Zombie joke in the short story I submitted to an anthology a couple of weeks ago. I also try to fit a hamster in anywhere I can justify it.

I remember putting jokes in other stories, but can't remember what they were now .

Edit: oh yeah, I often have fun looking up obscure saints to use for place and school names. St Dymphna turns up a lot, since many of my characters are 'nervous, emotionally-disturbed, mentally ill, or suffer neurological disorders' and could do with the help.


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## Joshua Dalzelle (Jun 12, 2013)

beccaprice said:


> In Fairies ad Fireflies, I have a firefly named Shiny. (I figured calling it Serenity would be too obvious)


Ha! Love that.


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## Scott Pixello (May 4, 2013)

All of my books feature someone who hates Chris de Burgh- I think that's the barest minimum you can expect from a supposedly-intelligent character.


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

Scott Pixello said:


> All of my books feature someone who hates Chris de Burgh- I think that's the barest minimum you can expect from a supposedly-intelligent character.


Chris is one of my favorite singers - loved him since the late seventies. I guess I know what that says about me.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I use the last names of my friends for characters.


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## Scott Pixello (May 4, 2013)

Maybe I'll put a new character called Shawn in my next book who likes Chris de Burgh. He may have to die though.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Yeah, I've done it. For instance, in book 4 all of a sudden a character became Angus, but only for 1 mention. I saw it when reading over it and wondered, WTF? Then a beta sent it back to me, with Angus circled and a "WHF? Who is this? Have I missed a character?" by it.

So, in the 5th book I simply had to name a character Angus.

Also, I hate the word "throbbing" for a guys c*ck with as much passion as Vaalingrade hates orbs. So do most of my friends. So, of course, I put it in one of my books. I knew it would make them laugh, while other people are quite used to seeing it in other books.


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## Nicholas Andrews (Sep 8, 2011)

In my next book, the characters are trying to reach one destination, but have to stop over in another city. That was where I got stuck in the plot when I was writing the first draft back in 2006. After that, I wasn't writing for a number of years and didn't finish the book until 2013. When the characters finally reach their destination, one of them says something to the effect of "Finally. It seems like we've been trying to reach this wretched city for years!"


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

Scott Pixello said:


> Maybe I'll put a new character called Shawn in my next book who likes Chris de Burgh. He may have to die though.


You know I would buy it!


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Caddy said:


> So, of course, I put it in one of my books.


So you put a throbbing c**k in? Interesting. Was it near the climax? I bet you had a good time doing it.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.  )


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## Scottish Lass (Oct 10, 2013)

I'm loving this thread!  

I'm a huge Deacon Blue fan (a Scottish band who were big in the 80s/90s) so in book one I made 'Deacon' a make of Snowboard. Can't remember if I did anything else like that - but I will now!!


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## AndreSanThomas (Jan 31, 2012)

I do.  In Ielle, she does a very sexy dance.  If you break it down and ignore the writhing nakkidness, she's really doing the hokey pokey.  And I name characters after people who annoy me.  There are two in one of my books named after 2 people in my writing group that tick me off.  I do horrible things to them bwahahahahaha.

Yes, I'm easily amused.


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## lynnfromthesouth (Jun 21, 2012)

Nicholas Andrews said:


> In my next book, the characters are trying to reach one destination, but have to stop over in another city. That was where I got stuck in the plot when I was writing the first draft back in 2006. After that, I wasn't writing for a number of years and didn't finish the book until 2013. When the characters finally reach their destination, one of them says something to the effect of "Finally. It seems like we've been trying to reach this wretched city for years!"


That's really funny! 

All of these are good. Really like the firefly named Shiny. And I like Chris de Burgh too, even for a geeky, gothy girl like me. I don't do many pop culture references, even though I'd like to do more.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> So you put a throbbing c**k in? Interesting. Was it near the climax? I bet you had a good time doing it.


Yup. And you know from other posts how much I hate that description. It makes me laugh every time I see it, it's just so stupid. (I get that it can feel like it's throbbing to the man, of course, which is much different than it actually visually throbbing.)


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Everyone thinks my characters come from people I know and life stories I've heard. Telling them it's not so doesn't convince them. So, what did I do? I wrote about an author who keeps notes on people she meets and writes them into her next book as unsavory characters.


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## Seanathin23 (Jul 24, 2011)

I probably pepper in more little in-jokes than I probably should. Off the top of my head in my WIP, I've got a grumpy one-eyed soldier named Captain Hogan, who is named for the actor that plays Colonel Tigh on Battlestar. 

My treasure hunter remembers going to the tomb of a mage who was the ninth lord of Galf (ie it was the Doctor, and I'm a fan of number 9). 

And lastly I took a cult leader's first name from the prequel novel and turned it into a title, that people think is a name, which is a reference to how all over the interwebs, Daenerys has lost her name and just become Khaleesi. 

I'm guessing most people won't get the first, some will chuckle at the second, the story he is recounting is humeris so it isn't out of left field and the third I don't see people picking up on as a pet peeve.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Caddy said:


> Yup. And you know from other posts how much I hate that description. It makes me laugh every time I see it, it's just so stupid. (I get that it can feel like it's throbbing to the man, of course, which is much different than it actually visually throbbing.)


You have a point, however, when it comes to sex in erotica, we're dealing in fantasy. Everything is exaggerated. Fireworks are going off, waves are crashing on the beach, fingernails and teeth are digging into flesh, muscles are straining, and bodies are sticking together from sweat. There's quivering, quavering, pulsing, shuddering, tingling, spasming, trembling, rippling, shivering, pulsating, convulsing, and yes, even some throbbing going on.

If readers wanted real-life sex, they'd put down their Kindles and wake their snoring husbands.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

I have a character named Stelena in my vampire series. Vampire Diaries fans should be able to get that.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I have lots of in-jokes, hidden references and Easter eggs.

The Silencer stories frequently contain references to other Silencer adventures, both those I've written about and those I haven't. The fantasy short _Cartoony Justice_ is full of references to various cartoons and children's programs, plus I get to turn a thinly disguised stand-in for Fredric Wertham, author of _Seduction of the Innocent_, into a singing, dancing cartoon banana. In _The Other Side of the Curtain_, a spy story set in 1960s East Germany, I mention several places I visited before the fall of the Wall and even have my characters stop for dinner at the town where my great-aunt used to live. _Love in the Times of the Macrobiotic Müsli_ pokes fun at the peace and environmental movement of the early 1980s and is chock full of references to real life events as well as music, fashion, etc... of the time (including one mistake I made by having my characters attend an event that happened two years before the story is set - which no one has noticed so far). In my _Shattered Empire_ space opera series, the villainous Emperor is based on a real life politician I don't like very much (though for the record, I don't think he is a murderous psychopath), while an officer of the Imperial Army is named for a former student of mine, who wanted to be tuckerized, even if it was as a villain. And my post-apocalyptic novelette _The Hybrids_ includes references to the _X-Men_, _The X-Files_, _Groundhog Day_, _Northern Exposure_, _Game of Thrones_ and Nevil Shute's post-apocalyptic novel _On the Beach_.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> You have a point, however, when it comes to sex in erotica, we're dealing in fantasy. Everything is exaggerated. Fireworks are going off, waves are crashing on the beach, fingernails and teeth are digging into flesh, muscles are straining, and bodies are sticking together from sweat. There's quivering, quavering, pulsing, shuddering, tingling, spasming, trembling, rippling, shivering, pulsating, convulsing, and yes, even some throbbing going on.
> 
> If readers wanted real-life sex, they'd put down their Kindles and wake their snoring husbands.


Too true. I also have to confess I have used it in my erotica under a pen name, but I try avoid it because "throbbing" is so overused in romance it's become a cliche. On a humorous note, I was reading one of my erotica books out loud to my husband, as it's a great way to find mistakes. I had a guy pivoting inside someone! Now THAT takes talent! We both laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. Obviously I meant to use another word. I'm still waiting for my husband to pivot.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

I have used code names of people who annoy me for the villains -- just to amuse myself. Nothing anyone else would know.

I also like to put differing levels of clues in my mysteries -- easy things to figure out and hard things, so that different kinds of readers will get something out of it. I particularly like to put movie reference "Easter eggs" in _The Man Who Did Too Much_ series, as the heroine is an extreme classic movie buff. One of the references, if you spot it, will give you the solution to the crime early -- so I'm not going to tell you about that one.

The opening scene, though, begins with a slightly goofy reference to Casino Royale (where the guy comes to his office and finds Bond there waiting -- and he knows that M sent Bond to kill him): In this case, the hero is an obsessive compulsive secret agent. His girlfriend suffers from ptsd, and he is an overprotective enabler. She didn't want to go to her therapy session, so.... The story begins with the therapist arriving in her office to find this lurking guy in a trenchcoat waiting for her. As with the beginning of Casino Royal, she knows who he is and what he's there for without being told, and she says "_She_ sent you."

Camille


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## Scott Pixello (May 4, 2013)

The trickiest CBD reference so far was in a series I'm about to release in the New Year, set in AD 60. Still managed it though- gotta keep those standards up.

I think if I start juxtaposing 'throbbing' or 'pivoting' with Chris de Burgh, I'm just going get myself banned from Amazon forever. And give myself some serious sleep problems.


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## Lummox JR (Jul 1, 2012)

My first book is full of little Easter eggs. One character is described as a cross between Popeye and a comedian with a shtick about a duck. A classic screwball comedy with a mix-up between two leopards is described but not named. Little things like that pop up from time to time.

In my second book I did this mostly out of necessity. Twice in the book I had characters quoting lines from the Ghostbusters theme, to tweak another character who calls herself a ghost hunter, and I had to change those to oblique references.

The world in which my WIP is set is medieval, but with an altered history owing to the presence of magic and of rare "rifts" crossing into other worlds and times. At one point some coins that came from such a rift are discovered, whose description would be recognizable to some readers. Rifts don't tie into the story in any serious way except for the sake of setting, but I'm considering writing a sequel set decades later where one of the characters is riftborn and could identify those coins.


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## Lindy Moone (Oct 19, 2012)

Drat. This thread has done more to convince me to buy and read all your books than any other!

How am I supposed to get any work done, now, huh? Or afford food?  

(Hyperlink has so many in-jokes... out-jokes... out-takes... Too many to mention. But I hope they don't get in the way.)


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

Never used an in-joke, not that I remember. But I do use local place names sometimes, especially from around small towns I've lived in or near. I've also made use of names from a few of my ancestors. And I've been known to use what I consider a solid piece of dialogue when I hear someone say it ... one of the reasons I try to keep my ears open when I'm out in public.


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## GearPress Steve (Feb 4, 2012)

My brother and I have a "thing" about language and being particularly bothered when people mess up common idioms. My brother died of a massive heart attack three years ago at age 43, but when he was alive I would write my character speaking these mis-stated idioms that annoyed him and I so much. All of these mistakes are ones we'd actually heard other people say, incorrectly, IRL. So I'd have characters saying stuff like:

"I could care less" (instead of "I couldn't care less")
"It was feast or phantom" (instead of "it was feast or famine")
"For all intensive purposes" (instead of "for all intents and purposes")
"Irregardless" (instead of "regardless")
"He gave me the fifth degree" (instead of "He gave me the third degree")
"Six of one, a dozen of the other" (instead of "six of one, a half-dozen of the other")
"It's a doggie dog world" (instead of "it's a dog-eat-dog world")
"Every one worse than the next" (instead of "every one worse than the last")

To the average reader, they'd simply think that the character was ignorant, or I was. But invariably my brother would laugh his head off when reading a draft of my story.


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