Fifty Shades of Grey - Is It Black & White?

I decided pretty early on that I would never do book reviews on my blog. The simple reason is that books, as with any type of art, are subjective. Whether someone likes them or not depends more on taste rather than the skill of the author.

Also, I’m a writer myself, and I don’t want to come down on other writers in any way since I know how hard it is to finish even the shortest of stories. For that reason, I had decided to stick with the adage “if you can’t find something good to say, don’t say anything at all.”

I also pride myself on not buying books just because they’re trending. Not that grossly popular books are necessarily a bad thing. I like to wait until the hype has died down a bit, check out reviews from what I think are reputable sources, and decide whether I’ll jump in and see what the rest of the world is talking about.

And so it was that last week, when looking for something a little different, I finally relented and decided to see why everyone was making such a fuss about Fifty Shades of Grey. Apart from searching for something to read, I also like to download samples of big sellers to see what they’re doing that I’m not to see if I can learn anything from them.

Anyway, I read some reviews on Amazon for Fifty Shades - a lot of them singing its praises, some of them ho-hum and a lot that were quite scathing. At risk of being unpopular, I’d be in the latter camp.

Since I read most of my books on the kindle now, I took advantage of the sample feature so I could decide whether to plunk down $9 for the full electronic version. I’m pretty glad I did - safe to say, I saved that $9 for a more worthy book.

It’s no real secret that this book (and series) began life as Twilight fan fiction somewhere on the interwebs where people flock to read that stuff for free. It would, after all, be a major copyright headache for people to write about their favourite characters (who they did not create) and make money off them without the original author’s permission. There is a whole other discussion about the ethics and legality of making money from fanfiction on the interwebs as well, but I’ll save that for another post.

Seems there’s not too great a change needed in order to avoid a copyright suit these days. While I also didn’t read any of the Twilight series (at the behest of some good friends, who said not to waste my time), I did get talked into watching the movies. I have no idea whether the movies stayed true to the books or not, but usually the movie versions tend to be more dramatic than the books. If that’s the case with Twilight, I’m glad I didn’t read the series. However, I digress. My thoughts on Twilight are for another post, but my point is I have no idea how much of Fifty Shades (formerly known as “Masters of the Universe”) is similar to the Twilight series.

Anyway, after struggling to get through the sample chapters, I was not happy to go ahead and purchase the full version of Fifty Shades because, for me, the writing was (as Ana would say) “triple crap”.

It came across to me as a fifteen year old writing an erotic fantasy about hooking up with her unattainable crush in the secrecy and safety of her bedroom. Even from the start, the character of Ana seemed naive and not in control of her life.

The dialogue was stilted and overly formal, and the author seemed to have a very limited vocabulary when it came to cursing (crap, double crap, holy cow) and description (lips and eyebrows “quirking up”, Ana biting her lip and rolling her eyes). Apart from that the author is British, and the setting is the US. Nothing usually wrong with that, except that the whole book is really written in British language, despite the American spellings.

Apart from that, the whole thing just didn’t really make sense to me, even in the very little I read of this book. Granted, I never got to read any of the erotic stuff because the sample only ran to two chapters, but I was ready to give up after the first page. The whole scene in chapter two when Christian comes in to the hardware store, where Ana works, to buy rope, cable ties and tape is just a bit weird for me. Having read the reviews and knowing what the whole deal is with the series, I know it’s not a romance, but come on. He just happens to decide that Ana is someone he wants to bring into his seedy world of BDSM after meeting her once?

I must admit though, I was disappointed that the sample ended where it did, and I was tempted for a second to download the full version just to see how bad it got - you know, like seeing a car crash and despite feeling queasy you just can’t tear your eyes away? But I told myself that, in reality, erotic fiction isn’t really my thing anyway, no matter how good it is, so even I would have questioned why I didn't like it in the end.

So, rather than try to discern why it is people are raving about this series so much, I’m going to ask you. If you’ve read Fifty Shades, or Twilight for that matter, what about them made you enjoy them? And if you’ve read both sets of books, are there any major similarities between them? Anything that made you get that de ja vu feeling of having read it before somewhere?

I ask these questions, not to scoff at you for reading tripe, but in order to discern why it's such a phenomenon despite it's short-comings. I am, afterall, still learning my craft, and part of that is finding out what things work in other fiction, and why.

Don't be a Pirate's Wench

Back when you could tell who the real pirates were by their uniforms

I went to Target the other day to buy some new balls for my dogs. As I walked out of the store, a thought occurred to me. I’d just paid five bucks for two small pieces of round rubber that my dogs would more than likely kill by the end of the week. Granted, they did have smiley faces on them, and they were “high bounce” ones, which they love, but still.

That same five dollars could have bought me lunch at one of the many fast-food places in the shopping centre.

It could have bought me two chocolates from the charity box at work, with the added bonus of going to a good cause.

That lazy five bucks could also have bought me five books for my kindle, with a couple of cents change.

Why am I telling you this? Because everything has a value, and value is in the eye of the buyer.

When I want to buy something, I research it. I price-check and compare. If I don’t think it’s worth whatever the asking price is, I don’t buy it. Simple as that really.

Why is digital content any different?

It seems no matter who you talk to, they’ve either downloaded content illegally, or know someone who has. Most times, they often don’t see what the problem is. They might feel a bit “naughty” about it, but that’s it.

Arguments range from “the musicians are rich enough as it is, they’re not missing any money”, to “I wouldn’t have bought it anyway”. Or “I’ve discovered lots of bands/authors by downloading pirated versions of their work, and downloaded the rest of their stuff legally.”

These are excuses. They’re borne from having very little or no connection with the people they hurt. Let’s forget about mega-famous artists like Pink, or Madonna, or Bon Jovi. Let’s also forget about big-name authors like Stephen King, Stephanie Myer and JK Rowling. And let’s forget about Hollywood, Brad Pitt and Steven Spielberg.

Let’s forget about all those famous names for a moment, and think about people like me. Writers whose sole ambition is to publish books for people to read and enjoy. Writers, artists and musicians who work hard for years, even decades, to make enough money to quit their day jobs and work on their passions full-time.

(FYI - only a very minute percentage get to do that)

 

How would they ever be able to contemplate that if people like you don’t see enough value in their hard work to pay 99c for an e-book, $1.69 for a song, or $10 for a movie?

Look, I buy books from the bargain table all the time. I’ve also downloaded a number of free books on the kindle from authors I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. I get the “value to entertainment ratio”, because on top of being a writer, I’m also a consumer.

The thing is, when you download a pirated version, you take the power away from the creator of that music, book or movie to offer it for free in the first place. It’s rare these days for those of us starting out to not offer something for free. It’s a great marketing ploy. But it’s within our own control to do it.

It’s also well within our rights as artists to expect something in return for our efforts.

You know me. You know what this writing gig means to me. You know how hard I work to make this my full time career. Would you have me working for nothing? Would you have me effectively waste all those years, slogging away at a keyboard, trying to learn my craft in order to produce something I think someone might want to read and enjoy?

Do you value me, and my work, so little that you would choose pirated over paying me a small amount of money in appreciation for my efforts at entertaining you?

All those big names I mentioned earlier? They all started in complete obscurity, working hard until they got that one role, produced that one song, or wrote that one book, that broke them away from the millions of others they were competing against. The money, fame and accolades are fair pay for all their struggles to get to where they are.

There’s no such thing as an over night sensation, but it’s what most of us are working our arses off to achieve.

And those little yellow bouncy balls? They’re still going strong - for now - and they’re giving me, and my dogs, a lot more value than a cheeseburger or a couple of chocolates would have.

Photo by ~Sincere Stock~