by
vectormatrix
Posted to
Craft,
Style and Voice on Thu Dec 25, 2003 at 02:29:12 PM PST
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I'm currently writing a story that made use of a pop culture reference (Seinfeld). The story is quite serious and this is the only references I made to pop culture which caused me to realize that it wasn't really needed at all. Perhaps if I were writing a light hearted story about modern life, with snappy dialogue and societal observations, then a pop reference would have made sense.
It is often said that, the best stories are those that retain a timeless quality, they aren't defined by the era they were written in. (even though period affects the sensibilities of the writer and their style) Not many of us will join the ranks of Wells, Twain or Dickens. And even thought it's easier to allow modern culture to slip into our writing, perhaps we can achieve our best when we hold ourselves to a higher standard as if we expect our work to be read by many generations to come.
While reading a Harry Potter book I was surprised to discover a reference to the `Playstation' video console. It was just a throw-a-way line, but it still caught me off guard. I had always considered Harry Potter to be a series of books with the potential to be a timeless classic. The fictional term, Muggles, coined by author J. K. Rowling, has even been added to the Oxford English dictionary, and I don't think they are over-estimating the cultural impact of Rowling's work. Yet I can't help but feel as if Rowling damaged the legacy of her work with that casual reference. Then again, perhaps I am underestimating the cultural impact of Sony's PlayStation platform. I remember an amusing commercial that predicted things to come for PlayStation version ten, a hyper-realistic virtually reality machine interfaced with the human brain. Perhaps, Playstation will remain apart of our lives similar to how Sony's other popular brand, Walkman, has remained a part of our nomenclature after so many years.
Does anyone have a rule or guideline they use for deciding what kind of modern references to use when working on an ambitious writing project?