Shout-Out: Your Zombie Apocalypse story features a Company called Dixon Medical that is trying to find a cure. Shout out to Daryl Dixon from Walking Dead
Rip-Off: Daryl Dixon himself shows up in your story to save the heroes but you named him Van Helsing instead to avoid lawsuits
Another example of Shout Out from my own story: I have three cyborg's in my story and they are designated as #16, #17 and #18. These three specific numbers are a reference to Dragonball Z and the Androids in particular
edited 11th Feb '15 4:29:13 AM by SmokingBun
One or two twists in a story is fine, Shyamlan-esque even. But please don't turn the poor thing into a Twizzler!
Too old for this
I agree that a shout-out is something not essential to the plot nor the understanding of the situation. Nothing should be changed if you remove it from the story, and someone who did not get the reference would not feel like missing something from the situation.
I'd consider that a rip-off is a retelling of an existing story with serial numbers filed off, while pretending this is fully original with no acknowledgment to the original work in any way. The main difference with an homage is that an homage should make clear what is it about, either with a shoutout to the original work, lampshading the similarity, or some deconstruction or tongue-in-cheek comment happening later. Of course with this definition, a rip-off is undistinguishable from someone coming up with a remarkably similar story from an existing one but failing to do the research.
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.
Another idea I'd run past: two assault victims, Darryl and his girlfriend Dawn. Some may know of television personality Darryl Sommers, Hey Hey it's Sarurday, and from there you can guess the punch line. Clever or a bit of a rip off?
Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours