The question of whether to include pop culture references in fiction can be a sticky one, especially for YA authors, whose target audience is often hyper-aware of pop culture trends. But it’s also a problem for anyone writing in the contemporary world, whether the genre is thriller, middle grade, or chick lit. Let’s look at the pros and cons, as well as a few suggestions for using pop culture references in fiction.

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What are the Pros?

There are a lot of advantages to including pop culture references in fiction. Those references immediately ground the reader in time and place. They world-build, adding authenticity and richness to the world of the novel. And the world-building is a shortcut if the author can count on the reader knowing the reference. It can immediately evoke feelings, mood, and tone. Besides, does it make sense for us to read about a bunch of teenagers who never reference movies, TV shows, or songs?

Sometimes a reference seems so perfect—when there’s a Top 10 pop song that exactly expresses the main character’s feelings, or when a popular movie is of course perfect for the sidekick to obsess over—that it feels criminal not to use it.

What are the Cons?

Unfortunately, there are counter-arguments to all those advantages. They do ground the reader in time and place—for one year. And then every reader who picks it up knows immediately that it’s dated. Anyone else picked up a book that relies on MySpace or Ask Jeeves to evoke cutting-edge technology? That shortcut to evoking mood and tone evaporates if the reader doesn’t know the reference. There is also the certainty that traditional publishing is a slow beast, so even if the references are current when the writer drafts the story, it’s likely to be two to three years before that book hits the shelves. For an eighth or ninth grader, a reference to a movie that came out three years ago might as well be thirty.

A few suggestions for Using Pop Culture References in Fiction…

There are ways around this, of course! One is to draw on references that have stood the test of time so that they’re part of general cultural knowledge rather than contemporary pop culture. There’s a reason so many YA love stories refer to Romeo and Juliet, Jane Austen, or fairy tales instead of the latest rom-coms. Other pop culture references haven’t been around for hundreds of years, but they’ve had such an outsized influence on our culture that they are safer references. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. Hunger Games. Harry Potter. The Beatles. Elvis Presley. Marilyn Monroe. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Gone with the Wind. Classic movies. Other authors choose to make up songs or name their own social media sites, rather than referring to media that might be soon forgotten.

One caution I would give is that it’s very tempting for authors writing in the contemporary world to circumvent this problem by using pop culture references from a different decade, especially the ‘80s and ‘90s. They often explain it by crafting a main character—often a teen—who is obsessed with that era (a good example is Something More by Jackie Khalilieh). Okay. It can work. But that’s not really as common as authors think, and I see a lot of this quirk in manuscripts. I would encourage authors to either embrace an ‘80s or ‘90s setting and write a historical manuscript set in those decades or to find another way to use pop culture references in fiction.

Ultimately, the arguments for and against center around whether the author is trying to write something firmly pinned in one time and place, or whether she is working toward a more timeless feel. Sometimes, an author needs to lean in to pop culture references in fiction. Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple is crammed full of pop culture, and it is perfect for that book, which centers on the frenetic pace of life for a forty-something working mother these days. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas explodes with cultural references. And it not only works—it’s necessary. That book tackles issues that are grounded in contemporary American society, so rooting the reader in that time and place with pop culture references enhances it rather than dates it. The Shopaholic books by Sophie Kinsella just wouldn’t be the same without specific brand names and celebrity sightings, so even if it dates the book, it’s necessary to include it.

There is no sweeping rule or right answer here, but there are a lot of opinions! Mine is that pop culture references in fiction should be used sparingly and with purpose. Ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish and whether including pop culture references in your fiction will help you achieve that. Does it work? The answer to that question is all the permission you need.

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