Fifty Shades

[ernestgreene]

Well, for professional reasons I had to read the thing, as did Nina, and we both really, really didn't like it at all. The writing is so overwrought it should have been called Fifty Shades of Purple. Christian's motives are standard-issue "childhood-abuse=kinky-orientation" meme and the attempts at describing BDSM sex are, at best, hilarious. The whole thing is treated with such grim, joyless solemnity you'd think they were leading up toward something from the worst of Sade's stuff, when it's really just a light-weight spank-fest.

I'll avoid further spoilers just to be polite, but I really think the whole enterprise is so predictable, it's as spoil-proof as a case of MREs from the M.O.D.

Now the version I'm writing, well, that's quite a different thing ....

Leave you guessing about that for now.

[bellamyspiano]

PRECISELY, darling!!!

I wrote a better version myself 5 years ago. I have been writing the same sort of thing ever SINCE. And now everyone is jumping on the bloody bandwagon and getting published, which is very frustrating for the likes of me as the last thing I want to be is a copycat writer.

[ernestgreene]

Tan, you're a one-of-a-kind and nothing you did could possibly be construed as a copy of anything.

[petkajira]

PRECISELY, darling!!!

I wrote a better version myself 5 years ago. I have been writing the same sort of thing ever SINCE. And now everyone is jumping on the bloody bandwagon and getting published, which is very frustrating for the likes of me as the last thing I want to be is a copycat writer.

Copy cat isn't the issue I think. In order to get mainstream published, AND more important, to get the thing made into a movie, you can't be very graphic, and you can't upset the Church Ladies (or the politicians).

[ernestgreene]

Actually, the genre has gotten a lot more explicit than it used to be, but the characters are as two-dimensional as ever.

They can get away with doing naughtier things, but most of them seem too timid to take advantage of the opportunity.

Well, having worked in one type of genre fiction or another, both on paper and on video, I've got my own tricks for getting around the rules. We'll see if they work this time.

[PhallenFoenix]

IMO, its written TERRIBLY.

Purpose prose to oblivion.

[Jordan-o]

What I do know is that it started out as Twilight Fan Fiction, using the characters of Edward and Bella in the author's own "universe". It's pretty funny how popular its become since she changed the names of the characters.

[PhallenFoenix]

What I do know is that it started out as Twilight Fan Fiction, using the characters of Edward and Bella in the author's own "universe". It's pretty funny how popular its become since she changed the names of the characters.

Honestly, I don't think that's funny. I think the reason why its popular in the first place is that it's publicized as having started off as Twilight fanfiction, and is feeding off of that book series' hype and popularity.

[bellamyspiano]

Disagree.

The book became hugely popular before it was common knowledge that it was a Twilight fan-fiction.

The papers in America made a point of it being a brilliant book because 'all the women in the Upper East Side' were reading it, when in fact there were about three. Everyone went out, thinking that it was suddenly okay to read such a taboo topic (so very fickle) if 'they' were, and so bought it. It was then it hit the NY Times Best Seller List, then the rest is history.

Surprising what a bit of false publicity can do.

[ernestgreene]

And I'm sure the fact that the author is married to a successful TV producer had nothing at all to do with the kind of play these books received in the the media.