# Authors having characters name check themselves **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 20, 2025, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221 "2025-09-20T10:42:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/21 "2025-09-20T17:54:40Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Heller did a bit of this in _Closing Time._ He also mentions other people, some of whom were still alive at the time, like Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut put himself in _Breakfast of Champions_ as a minor character. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/22 "2025-09-20T20:04:33Z")
It’s more than a name check, and it’s a movie, but Charlie Kaufman is all over this in **Adaptation**. And William Goldman is all over **The Princess Bride** in the abridgements. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/23 "2025-09-20T20:25:56Z")
> [@dirtball](#): > > Vonnegut put himself in _Breakfast of Champions_ as a minor character. And in _Slaughterhouse 5_. ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/24 "2025-09-20T20:43:52Z")
Ah, yes, I forgot about that one. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/25 "2025-09-20T20:59:31Z")
> [@dirtball](#): > > Vonnegut put himself in _Breakfast of Champions_ as a minor character. > [@Telemark](#): > > And William Goldman is all over **The Princess Bride** in the abridgements. Maybe I’m taking the thread title too literally, but I thought the OP was looking for examples where _characters_ in a book (who are the author’s creations but not the author himself) make reference to the author (in the third person). Are those examples of that? ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/26 "2025-09-20T21:19:54Z")
Yes, thanks. But it’s the SDMB and I enjoy the examples of other similar situations. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/27 "2025-09-20T22:13:11Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > In the second part of _El Quijote_ (a.k.a. _Don Quixote_), the characters complain that this guy Cervantes got some things wrong about them when he wrote the first part. IIRC, a Don Quixote’s character in the first novel made references to their creator when describing [the Battle of Lepanto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto) (Cervantes was proud to be a participant, as his nickname was “the one-handed man of Lepanto”. However, I think you are referring here to Avellaneda, who did make a fake second part of Don Quixote (what we would call nowadays a fan fiction) Cervantes, in the real second book, did demolish Avellaneda’s fake second book of Don Quixote by pointing out how wrong Avellaneda got it from the first book. > **[How Don Quixote Handled an Unauthorized Sequel](https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2015/05/18/how-don-quixote-handled-an-unauthorized-sequel/)** > > Before the 2nd volume of Don Quixote was released, an unofficial sequel was published. However, the original author had a few words for the faker. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/28 "2025-09-20T22:15:21Z")
Right! I knew I didn’t have it quite right – thanks for the correction. I read it all 25 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/29 "2025-09-20T23:00:44Z")
There’s a subtle one in J.R.R. Tolkien’s _The Notion Club Papers_, unpublished in his lifetime and existing in several drafts. The setting is complicated: it is feigned to be a 21st century compilation of the minutes of a club, taken down in the late 20th century. In one passage, some characters are discussing the works of C. S. Lewis and other 20th century writers: > The other minor lights were only known by the few who read old C. R. Tolkien’s little books of memoirs: _In the Roaring Forties_, and _The Inns and Outs of Oxford_. But Jeremy had made most of our club read some of those people…, though beside Jeremy only Ramer and Dolbear bothered with Tolkien père and all the elvish stuff. “C. R. Tolkien” is Christopher Reuel Tolkien, J.R.R.'s real life son (who never wrote the named “books of memoirs”), and “Tolkien père” is of course J. R. R. Tolkien himself. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/30 "2025-09-20T23:15:27Z")
Mark Twain, in the start of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has Huck mentioning the first book, and saying that Mr. Twain got it right, mostly. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/31 "2025-09-20T23:34:31Z")
When he did it there was always some bit about Dirk Pitt looking at him strangely and asking something to the effect of “Have we met before?”, and it usually involved Pitt obtaining his classic car, plane, or other historical trinket that he got in every book. Jack Higgins didn’t name-check himself, but based on the idea that not everyone would read all of his books he tended to include the same background information about his characters in every book. Cussler did that also, both as an inside joke and to make sure that everyone understood that Dirk Pitt was a semi-autobiographical character. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/32 "2025-09-20T23:59:58Z")
Quentin Tarantino does this in his novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/33 "2025-09-21T11:52:55Z")
Whit Stillman wrote and directed the movie _The Last Days of Disco._ He later wrote a novelization of it. The main character is a character from the movie, who points out what the writer/director got wrong. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/34 "2025-09-24T16:56:12Z")
> [@Southern\_Yankee](#): > > I’m reading _Badlands_, the latest release from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. They have written many books together, most of which deal with recurring characters. In this book, one of the characters mentions listening to audiobooks, including “a couple of good thrillers from Preston and Child.” Heh, I had skimmed this thread when I first noticed it days ago, couldn’t think of a good example off the top of my head, and forgot about it. Then purely out of coincidence I downloaded ‘Badlands’ from the ‘Just Added’ section of my online library to my Kindle., read the “a couple of good thrillers from Preston and Child.” part, and thought, hey, now I have an example for that thread about name-checking authors!" Glad I re-read the OP. So how does _that_ work? If she’s a ‘Preston and Child’ character, how do ‘Preston and Child’ fictional books exist in her world? Could one of those audiobooks she was listening to have been ‘Badlands’? That’d be a shock, to hear a fictional novel about yourself being read. But, if you were having trouble figuring something out, I guess you could just fast-forward to the last chapter 😏 ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/35 "2025-09-24T17:09:10Z")
That’s what I was thinking. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/36 "2025-09-25T00:15:00Z")
> [@solost](#): > > That’d be a shock, to hear a fictional novel about yourself being read. But, if you were having trouble figuring something out, I guess you could just fast-forward to the last chapter 😏 That’s what “Dark Helmet” (Rick Moranis) did in _Spaceballs…_ ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/37 "2025-09-25T02:10:47Z")
And the Electric Mayhem did in _The Muppet Movie_. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/38 "2025-09-25T02:13:22Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Stephen King did it for Stephen King while writing as Richard Bachman, which seems worth a quick mention. And in the Gunslinger series, mostly to throw more shade on the guy that ran him over. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/39 "2025-09-25T03:21:49Z")
Philip K. Dick’s VALIS has “Horselover Fat” which is a literal translation of the Greek-German origin of his name. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221/40 "2025-09-25T12:14:53Z")
I wonder how much input Cary Grant had in getting his real name (Archie Leach) used in **His Girl Friday**? Ralph Bellamy gets a name check as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-having-characters-name-check-themselves/1023221.md?page=3)