Fifty Shades of Grey

AKA The "erotic" BDSM Twilight Fanfiction that is now a New York Times Bestseller and receiver of a movie deal.

So if anyone needs me, I'll be hanging myself.

I only heard about this book because of today's Cracked article. What bullshit.

My friend passed the news about this information onto me.

Now I haven't read it and if anyone comes into this thread has and wants to talk about that, I'll gladly cede the floor to them but I have a question I've been thinking about that is tangentially connected to this book.

If this book does well and the movie plans really continue to go forward, what impact do you think this will have on fandom in general? Because, really, the thing that, in my humble assessment of the situation, that has been preventing fandoms from getting quashed by the copyright holders is that we're not making any real money off of these things. That, for the most part, if someone wants to buy a print of a fanart off Deviant Art or whatever, it's not really a life-sustainable amount of money.

But if this book picks up a lot of revenue and Stephanie Meyer decides to make it a big deal that it was primarily written as a Twilight fan-fiction (with some people and websites claiming that the new "novellized" text is 88% identical to the fanfiction, most of the changes being in character descriptions and character names), does anyone think it would have a larger effect on the relationship between fandoms and creators in general?

Man, I thought this thread was going to be about Shades Of Grey, the Jasper Fforde novel.

I am disappoint.

^Same here. At least it reminded me to put the book on my to-read shelf in Goodbooks.

How easy is it to tell if a story has been first written as a fanfic?

Depends on the story.

When it comes to this particular one, I'm told that it's very easy to tell, since it's apparently mostly a find-and-replace copy of a fanfic that was apparently very well-known and popular.

But that only works because the fanfic was successful and well-known, surely?

Reasons why I hate this.

1. It's based off of Twilight, the crowner in the most exploitative, schlock filled, poorly written rag ever put to print unironically.

2. It's fanfiction, which both denies the spirit of fanfiction and is borderline plagiarism.

3. James' refusal to admit its fanction, the bitch Orwellian Edited all mention of it as such she could and is ranting on Wendy Williams about how it "inspired" her.

4. It's SUPER exploitative. It takes all the horrendous aspects of Twilight and magnifies them a thousand fold through a bullshit lense of Topless Robot caliber BDSM. It is quit literally Twilight on Drugs and it makes it PAINFUL.

5. It's successful. its a New York Times bestsller and its getting a movie???! To quote Peter Griffin. "That happened, and we let it happen."

I, too, came in expecting Jasper Fforde. His book is quite something, in a great way. Le sigh. But anyway... at the very least, we got a hilarious Cracked article out of it.

May I have a link to said article?

Let's just pretend this is about Jasper Fforde.

^Agreed. So, what's Shades of Grey like compared to the Thursday Next books?

I dunno, haven't read TN, really must though.

You asked for the article on Cracked? Feast your eyes if you dare.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-tips-turning-awful-fan-fiction-into-best-seller/

I liked Shades of Grey. I'm not quite sure why everyone has tiny pupils and barcodes growing out of their fingernails, but eh. It's fine.

I work in a public library, and any book we carry that has a title with the words, "grey" or "shades" in it now has a very long request list. If you don't like like the book, then don't worry, it will fade into obscurity soon enough. Just let the people have their fun. I know many of my co-workers say they want to read the book just for kicks. I guess it's kind of like Jersey Shore, if you're in a critical mood you want something to laugh at.

And at least the fans of 50 Shades aren't as obsessed at Twilight's fans were at their peak.

Yeah but mommy porn as they're calling it has a different fanbase to tween girls who want a sparkly vampire and werewolf hunk to enslave to their whims, the obsessive fangirling comes from the audience... and the monster fetishising.

Can't wait till we see paranormal romance between monsters of the same species... but different eras?

"He was an Egyptian magician aching for love, she was a bonneted Regency gal who died before her time... can love that blossoms between two ghosts last?"

I'd read the shit out of that.

I read 50 Shades just to see if there was ANYTHING redeeming about it.

I'll just leave at this; it's based off of a Twilight fan fiction, so it reads like one.

I heard about it on Tumblr. (Someone posted an excerpt) I read it out of curiosity and...

...

I still have no idea what happened. ._.

edited 26th Jun '12 1:57:09 PM by Masterofchaos

I'm kind of concerned that it's both an example of an even more dysfunctional relationship than Twilight, and will encourage people to try out BDSM play without any safety tips ('cause they sure as hell don't use any precautions here).

Eh, I think the world needs more mainstream erotica for women. It's shittily written, yeah, but I can't really hate the book for it.

I don't know that it'll cause dysfunctional relationships. Anybody who bases their relationship expectations off of a BDSM erotica book has some serious problems already. Isn't erotica known for being kind of out there in terms of relationship expectations? Also, I doubt this is the worst erotica book ever, this one just became popular. On another note, has anyone heard that they're making a movie? I'm trying to figure out how they can make a mainstream theatrical feature about a porno.

edited 27th Jun '12 9:12:52 AM by wuggles

You'd be surprised at what a number Twilight did to a lot of my friends relationships. Now. As in grown friends who are in college and are somewhat mature enough to be in serious relationships. The problem with books like this is that they portray these kinds of relationships in a light that makes it seem achievable.

If you are looking for erotica written for the female of the species there is a publishing house that has been doing it for over 15 years.

http://nt6744.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/

Black Lace Books they are called. I have read a few and I am not a female.