I have always liked hiding little references in my novels. Mostly, I do it as a private joke to keep myself amused during the writing process, but I also hope people will spot them.
Hidden references in the Ruslan Shanidza novels
I only hid a couple in my trilogy of thrillers. In my first novel The Price of Dreams, I included a totally dishonest witness statement about ethnic violence in Azerbaijan. I planned to name the witness Tofik Bakhramov, after the linesman who helped award a dubious goal to England in the 1966 World Cup final. My protagonist Ruslan would say, “This Tofik Bakhramov must be the worst eyewitness in history, but I bet there are some morons who are so bigoted they still believe him even though they’ve seen what happened with their own eyes.”
But then I went to Azerbaijan on business and discovered that the national stadium there is named after Tofik Bakhramov. I kept the incident but ditched his first name and just used his surname.
In the third volume, Day of the Long Knives, we learn that, under torture, Ruslan’s father denounced three former military comrades as co-participants in an imaginary conspiracy invented by his interrogators. I adapted their names from the names of former classmates who Stalin had arrested and executed.
I think that one was a bit too obscure for anyone to spot!
The Omega Course
In The Omega Course, my penchant for hiding private jokes in the text has gone into overdrive. This started when I was half-way through my second complete rewrite. I was telling someone about it and they said, “Oh, so it’s a bit like Crime and Punishment then?”
I had never read Crime and Punishment, so I read it, loved it and noticed a lot of parallels. I decided to accentuate them and use Dostoyevsky’s novel as a framework for some of my characters. This involved renaming and changing most of my characters, changing their backstories (especially Sofie), inventing new characters (among them Dani, Natalie and Sid) and adding new scenes.
Parallels with Crime and Punishment
Ross Collins = Raskolnikov, the protagonist, who murders two women and is overwhelmed by self-loathing afterwards.
Sofie = Sofya/Sonya, who falls in love with Raskolnikov. She is the daughter of a drunk and is forced into prostitution to save her step-siblings from starvation. (I originally planned to call her Sonia but changed to Sofie as a tribute to Sophie’s World.)
Raj = Razumikhin, Raskolnikov’s friend who looks after him and eventually marries his sister Dunya. The only name I could think of that matched Razumikhin was Raj, which is why Ross’s best friend gained his Indian heritage. The scene where Raj comes to help Ross revise despite Ross previously rejecting him is lifted straight from Crime and Punishment.
Dani = Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya.
Natalie = Nastasya, the servant who is kind to Raskolnikov. (Before I decided to use Crime and Punishment as a framework, Natalie and Sofie were a single character called Sara.)
Lizzie Johnson = Lizaveta Ivanovna. I used Lizaveta rather than her sister Alyona because Raskolnikov never planned to kill Lizaveta.
Sid = Svidrigailov, who is a threat to Raskolnikov throughout and ends up committing suicide.
Several minor characters are also named after or loosely based on minor characters in Crime and Punishment, among them Martha, Kate and her children Paula, Lydia and Carl, Sofie’s father Simon Manning, Sergeant Perry Peters, Constable Sandra Samuels and Nicholas Demant, the driver of the Transit van.
Parallels with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Sophie’s World.
I also decided to bury three more jokes in the text, little tributes to the two books that inspired me to write The Omega Course in the first place: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Sophie’s World.
Thus, Bee’s boyfriend Robbie Prisick is named after Zen author Robert M Pirsig. Sofie is named after the protagonist of Sophie’s World , and Bee (Alberta Knoxley Ormerod) is named after Alberto Knox, Sophie’s mentor. This caused quite a few changes: Bee’s family had to become Presbyterians and her boyfriend had to become Scottish.
I doubt many readers will spot any of them, but they kept me amused.
Paul Clark 