Don't feed the plants!
Quote any part of the story that has not undergone extreme Memetic Mutation.
I'm feeling strangely happy now, contented and serene. Oh don't you see, finally I'll be, somewhere that's green...
But what's the point of making a Shout-Out if no one will get it?
Eye'm the cutest!
Bury a minor detail from in the prose.
Alternatively, use a "Colonel Cernal".
Half-Life: Dual Nature, a crossover story of reasonably sized proportions.
Swords are for wimps
Dunno. Wish I knew how to make subtle shout outs.
I'm combing through my manuscript and trying to subtle-ise any i find, or remove them. about the only ones i haven't touched are the fact that the naval pilots are all named after economists. it only gets obvious when you get to their nicknames, which are ideas coined or proposed by said namesakes. For example, pilot Joseph Alois, aka "Creative Destruction"
The terrible downside to multiple identities: multiple tax returns
E is for Extinction!
Just out of curiosity, the exact point of such an exercise would be...?
I mean, isn't the motivation for a Shout-Out literally just so it can be recognized, potentially by the creator of the work you're referencing, as a tribute?
Grr. Argh.
This foreboding is fa...
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
& - Not obvious =/= nobody gets it (the thread title is a bit misleading, at least based on the OP)
I dunno, since it's impossible for you to "un-see" the reference, i.e. erase your knowledge of it to gain a readers perspective (short of radical brain surgery), your best bet to gauge subtlety once you have something is to have someone else familiar with the work read it, then ask em if it's too subtle/too obvious.
edited 6th Dec '10 10:01:44 PM by deathjavu
Look, you can't make me speak in a logical, coherent, intelligent bananna.
So, I'm writing the second chapter of my story, MMM, but I'm stuck. I want to make a Shout-Out to Doom Repercussions Of Evil, but I don't want it to be obvious. Any ideas?
Ironic, huh?