Calling All Published Authors Help! ???????

[washingtonwriter1968]

Quick Question before I get started!
Right now I am just writing in Brand names and names of celebrities, actual car names and things like that. I find it just helps me to not stumble around and help me to keep the words flowing. But what is going to happen when it gets to editors? Will they feel that I shouldn't do that?

For Instance. MY WIP is set in 2014. So I wrote about my MC having an Andriodd2.0..... Will they say hey you can't call it Android?
Also I have my MC describing the way another character as Looking very much like a young Steven Segal........ Should I be careful to not use a descriptive term like this of a popular celebrity?

Being new to the idea of trying to publish a novel I am not sure where this line is drawn and would love to have it defined for me.

[polymath]

I can't define the line because it's wide open to interpretation. I can provide some guidance based on fundamental principles.

Brand names are problematic, litigiously and craft-wise. Lucas Films holds the trademark on droid, licensing it to commercial concerns. Android 2.0 steps close, but isn't a trademark, per se. Lucas Films is pretty aggressive about protecting their intellectual property rights.

Craft-wise, using brand names risks losing current relevance. Do readers today know the subtexts of an Edsel? Or a Delorean, a Pinto, a Vega, for that matter? Model-T has more traction. Also craft-wise, is a brand name used for static shorthand descriptions through comparison and/or contrast? If so, then the brand name might be used as an artless tell.

Using celebrities for comparison or contrast doesn't, per se, invoke trademark issues, but raises the current relevance concern. Fifteen minutes of fame passes so quickly that today's celebrities are tonight's has-beens fading from the public consciousness. Tomorrow, it's, like, who is that?

No absolutes though, save the one, there are no absolutes. Ultimately, it's a writer's obligation to artfully use what's necessary and relevant.

[Megs6703]

I'm not published, but just wanted to second what polymath said. I recently attended a SCBWI Editors Day, and one of the sessions had two editors (one from Abrams and one from a smaller press) who read the first pages of works submitted by attendees and then commented on them. Any time that someone mentioned something from pop culture (whether it was a brand name or a musical group) both editors stated that it was a problem. It automatically dates the manuscript.

I think you'd be better off to just make up brand names and celebrity names completely. So, if it's easier for you, go ahead and do your first draft with the known names but then just know that you'll have to spend some time editing it later.

[washingtonwriter1968]

So, if it's easier for you, go ahead and do your first draft with the known names but then just know that you'll have to spend some time editing it later.

Yeah! I think I will use it like a short hand to help me be able to allot a space for descriptions. Which is what I am doing anyway.

Craft-wise, using brand names risks losing current relevance. Do readers today know the subtexts of an Edsel? Or a Delorean, a Pinto, a Vega, for that matter? Model-T has more traction. Also craft-wise, is a brand name used for static shorthand descriptions through comparison and/or contrast? If so, then the brand name might be used as an artless tell.

Using celebrities for comparison or contrast doesn't, per se, invoke trademark issues, but raises the current relevance concern. Fifteen minutes of fame passes so quickly that today's celebrities are tonight's has-beens fading from the public consciousness. Tomorrow, it's, like, who is that?

Yes, In essence my crafting instincts were right. It is almost as if my Character was saying just pasting Segal's name is a cop out! Tell them what I really look like not what that guy looks like. I write letters from my charterers and that was exactly what he wrote through me last night! He is a real honest Character so he just said it like it was. I never really thought about it too about the fact that I could date this book so badly that it would become irrelevant. I am reminded of the movies I see with the twin towers in the background. I always know that movie was made before 2001.

Thanks for the info!