Shannyn Schroeder | Movie Quotes and Pop Culture References

When I wrote all of the Hot & Nerdy novellas, I wrote my nerds the way I see them. They have nerdy pursuits and that is part of how they think, talk, and live. In the first trilogy, I used quotes from Star Wars (“Do or do not. There is no try.”) and Star Trek. I created an entire world for a fictional video game. The purpose of all of this was to create well-developed characters. However, it did require quite a bit of research. In HIS DREAM ROLE, the hero, Free, is an actor. He loves playing a role because he can pretend to be someone else. Because of his love of acting and his natural tendency to be extremely shy, he uses movie quotes as part of his everyday language.

I’ve always envied people who can pull out movie quotes for any given situation.
While I love movies and TV, I’ve never had a brain for memorizing lines. If I
hear a quote, I’ll usually be able to recognize it as a quote and maybe even
know what movie it’s from. But I’ve never quoted from a movie in my real life –
except Yoda. I do use that quote in my house all the time. And then my kids
throw it right back at me.

When I created Free, I knew that he had to quote movies. He uses those quotes
because as he says, “If I use someone else’s words, I won’t embarrass myself.”
So as he works through his nervousness, I had to find quotes to fit the situation.

My biggest worry with including all of these quotes is that people might get
lost in them. If they’re familiar with the movie or show or character, they’d
get the reference and it would almost be like an inside joke. But what if the
reader wasn’t familiar with the show or character? Would he or she feel left
out? Would not knowing pull a reader out of my book?

As a reader, I’m usually okay without knowing everything. I’ll figure out what I
can from context and leave it at that, but sometimes, I’ll come across something
and I really want to understand the full context, so I’ll go look it up. This
isn’t something I want my readers to have to do though. So when I chose my
quotes for Free, I tried to make them obvious. Words that would fit the
conversation at hand that would make sense even if it wasn’t a movie quote.
Hopefully, I’ve done my job.

In addition to all of this, using pop culture references can date a book. So
again, as I chose quotes, I tended to use classic movies that were really
popular. That way, even if the reader doesn’t recognize the quote, he or she
might know of the movie or TV show. I didn’t worry too much about whether it
would date my book. No matter what I write, unless I leave out all technology
references and all pop culture references, in ten years, my books will be
outdated. That’s just the way life is. I trust that readers are smart enough to
figure that out.

How do you feel about pop culture references in books?