Why Authors Shouldn’t Use Pop References

You can’t help but feel bad for Britney Spears. We’ve been watching her self destruct for over a year now. Is there anything she hasn’t done? Any low the paparazzi haven’t captured? Even her trip to the hospital–how many days ago was that?–is still making headlines. One can’t help but wonder what went so horribly wrong in her life. Was it a nervous breakdown? mental illness? drugs? perhaps the way the paparazzi pursued her like she was the last deer of hunting season?

I don’t know. I just hope she gets better.

But it brings to point why authors shouldn’t use pop references. You see, it takes a long time to write a book, then even longer for it to be edited, printed, and sent to the stores. Revenge of the Cheerleaders has only been out for three months, but it was written almost two years ago.

I have a scene where a bunch of cheerleaders are discussing whether they have what it takes to win an American-Idol like contest, even though they won’t be performing a song that they wrote. Back then when I had a character say, “You don’t think Britney Spears got where she is because she wrote her songs, do you?” Well, the sentence had an entirely different meaning.