What I've Learned: References and Parodies
At first, I tried adding references when I could. I’d see a chance at some reference from Frozen or RWBY and I’d take it because it made me laugh. As time went on, and I started having ideas of my own, I began to notice the problems with making references or doing a parody in general.
Not everyone gets it. This is the biggest problem, since part of the joke is tied to the original. Often times I’ll hear a saying or watch/read a scene in some form of media and think it seems great. Problem is, it’s great in the context of that other story. If someone’s never read/watched the other story, then they won’t get the reference, or feel the same way the original made me feel.
It comes off as lazy writing. This one’s not always true, but references can come off as lazy, i.e. “You’re not good enough to come up with something on your own, so you have to steal from other people”.
It doesn’t always make sense. I realized this one quickly, and scrapped any references I made that didn’t make sense for the time. If I wanted to have Rose quote something, for example, I wanted her to keep it in character. Of course, it can also be interesting to figure out why the character said/did it.
Anyone who does get it will compare it to the original. This is especially true with parodies. If I tried to mimic a scene, I can attempt to mask it, but anyone who has seen/read/watched/whatevered the original will most likely think “I liked the original better”. Why? Well if it’s good enough that I want to copy it, it’s probably better than my own work.
Unfortunately, some references are so tied in that I couldn’t remove them all. I like Rose’s character design, despite taking a lot from Ruby Rose, and I’ll never part with “Salutations!”, because in addition to being Penny’s thing (See my point? If you haven’t seen RWBY, you probably have no idea who that is), it’s also Rose’s thing and I can explain why she says it. Since the Exalted began life as actual D&D characters, most of them have references tied into their characters. Bowie and Carolina have them in their names, although Carolina’s isn’t as obvious.
“It sounds like this used to be a big problem. Why don’t I see more of these in Girl in Red?” Because I went through and cleared out most of them when I proofread each chapter. Sure, there are still some, but they just about disappear in year two. So don’t worry; I promise not to do anymore Frozen references. I’ve outgrown that. The bit in Girl in Red when Snape has a nightmare about Rose singing Do You Want to Build a Snowman? makes me laugh too much, so that got a pass.
There’s actually a scene in Chapter 10 of Scarlet Sociopath (Which, as of the time I’m writing this, hasn’t been posted yet) that made this really sink in. It was a short exchange between Hermione and Rose into which I mixed more references. What stood out was how amused I was by everything else, because the references didn’t entirely fit, and I kept thinking “The original was better”. I left them in when I sent them to my beta reader, who didn’t mind them at all, but they may be removed before I actually post it.
Moral of the Story: Try to keep references to a minimum. Instead of ripping off a scene verbatim, figure out why you wanted to in the first place. For me, it’s usually to do with how it made me feel. I then try to figure out if I can tie something similar into my own work. If I can’t, then I (try to) move on.
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