The 50 Shades of Grey media blitz continues! From The Today Show to the AP to HuffPo and now Good Morning America. I did an interview for GMA that will air this morning. The segment focuses on how word of mouth and reader recommendation – as well as digital availability, I should think – made 50 Shades a bestseller, without any advertising and promotion from the publisher. Word of mouth was everything, online and off.
I am still baffled as to why more media reports aren't mentioning the fanfic origins, and why the publisher and the author aren't more open to acknowledging the foundation that 50 Shades is based on. As Robin from Dear Author said to me, without Twilight, this book wouldn't exist.
Some authors that I've talked to are very upset about the origins of 50 Shades, and are alarmed and outraged that a book based on the character work and development of Stephenie Meyer is achieving so much attention and profit. It raises the question of who, exactly, the characters belong to, especially when recasting them in alternate universes, stepping outside the “canon” of the original. If a publisher is willing to pay 7 figures for a book that began as Bella and Edward in a new location and universe, with the names changed and some additional ending material added, does that open the door for more beloved characters to reappear under new names?
Other readers who have corresponded with me, particularly those who are avid fanfic readers, don't see the conflict and the outrage, since 50 Shades is, to them, so very different from the original.
The entire phenomenon makes me question where the “ok, then” line is, and what this means for publishing in the future. It's ok to do homages. It's ok to rewrite Beauty and the Beast fairy tales sixty different ways (and I will so totally buy them all). It's ok to write parody and satire, and nod to obvious influences and include winking jokes and references to older source material that fans will totally catch. That's all good – and I've enjoyed some of it.
But the debate continues as to whether a book that began as fanfic ever diverged from the original enough to qualify as original work. DearAuthor is running a comparison of both Master of the Universe and 50 Shades of Grey to test Vintage's assertion that 50 Shades is an original work after Vintage “defended '50 Shades' as an original creation with a passionate following:”
“It is widely known that E.L James began to capture a following as a writer shortly after she posted her second fan fiction story,” Vintage said in a statement. “She subsequently took that story and re-wrote the work, with new characters and situations. That was the beginning of the ‘Fifty Shades’ trilogy. The great majority of readers, including fan fiction aficionados, have found ‘Fifty Shades’ deeply immersive and incredibly satisfying.”
It seems to me, as the coverage increases and readers talk to me via social media or via email, that many people who are discovering and loving this book don't really care about the origins, or even the real identity of the author, though it's been revealed by some UK newspapers. Readers who love this book love the story, love the experience of it, and the thrill of experiencing what everyone it seems is talking about. It remains increasingly popular. Even my mother in law has heard of this book – as well as my six year old.
The week before last, I was talking to my older son, known hereabouts as Freebird, about my job, and mentioned that I was writing about a book that I didn't like but that many people did. He said I should write about why people like it, and that it's ok if some people don't.
So when I told him yesterday that I might be on Good Morning America talking about a book, he said, “Mom, is this that book that you didn't like but lots of people did?”
Me: “Yup.”
Freebird: “You're STILL talking about that book? That was last week!”
Heh.
So now that my six year old and my mother in law are both aware of 50 Shades of Grey without having read it, I think we might have reached some sort of maximum saturation point.
This book really has achieved astonishing public consciousness. What do you think of all the coverage and discussion? Does it bother you that 50 Shades began as Twilight fanfic? Is it the book you're reading now? What do you think?
As someone who once wrote some (pretty smashing) fanfics, I do kind of have a problem with it. I mean, in the Harry Potter fanfic circles, there are certainly some very famous stories that a huge number of people have read (not mine, sadly) and I think I’d have a pretty serious beef with an author if they did a hasty name-swap and published it and started making money off of it, especially if it gained best-seller status. I think the “ok then” line, as you call it, is drawn in different places, but for me the writer’s characters should be more than just stand-ins for another author’s, especially an author as recent as S.Meyer. It’s not bad to draw inspiration from characters, to write a book who’s heroine reminds you of Ginny Weasley because she was your favorite, but to write a book that’s ABOUT Ginny Weasley, then change her name to Anna Stand-In, is a problem.
I also think that the fanfiction link isn’t being discussed because, at least to me, Stephanie Meyer isn’t exactly held up as a paragon of great fiction writing. Outside her rabid fan base, her works are dismissed as childish and shitty quick reads without much substance behind them (whoops, am I letting some personal bias in?). Everyone has friends who hate Twilight, is what I’m saying. (And if you don’t you’re probably 12 and you like it.) So no one’s saying “Hey, this is Twilight fanfic,” because they know that Twilight has certain associations, like preteen girls and awful movies, and I think that could pretty seriously affect people’s perceptions. Not to mention, a LOT of people don’t understand what fan fiction is, or how it works.
Also I’m willing to bet this chick is a better writer than S.Meyer.
So those are my thoughts.
I got to watch that segment and was disappointed to see how lame it was. There was a lot of opportunity to really discuss the popularity or disgust with the book, but all it was a lot of really silly comments and behavior and seemed a waste of time. Discussing lack of availability, “Mommy pr0n (grrr!), how it’s supposedly saving marriages added nothing to what has been discussed elsewhere. But it was good to see Smart Bitch Sarah and what little they aired of the interview.
Thanks for the link, Pamelia.
I have to say I’m rather horrified and embarrassed for these ‘professionals’ who are reporting on this ‘phenom’. I haven’t seen one…ONE!…news report by the mainstream media that didn’t involve the tittering, giggles, ‘mommy porn’ tag by adults who should freaking know better. It’s all…heehee, sex, heehee, which reminds me of Beavis and Butthead.
OK, let me say this about that. I had a bit of a crisis after I read the first book. Because I’d heard how SEXY and SPICY and HOT and TABOO the book was. How it was saving marriages. How it was changing lives. How it was Story of O and Fear of Flying and watch out, zipless fuck, you’re going to be replaced!
And I walked away thinking, “Oh my god. This is what people think is kinky.”
Because I dunno. Maybe I’ve only dated pervs and didn’t realize it until now or something, because that’s some vanilla BDSM, yo. And I’m confident I have never, in all my years of the sex-having, had sex on the bottom as many times as Ana did in her first week of being a submissive. Holy Missionary Position, Batman.
I will say this, though. The second book ditches the BDSM “kinky fuckery” nearly completely (Spoiler: Christian spanks Ana too hard and they decide to go “vanilla” for a while. Dude. Seriously. My grandmother spanked me harder when I cursed in church when I was seven. MAN UP, ANA.) and focuses instead on a suspense plot that was the best kind of insane. Smartest move in the book, IMO.
It doesn’t bother me, because an obsessive stalker as a main hero is not Twilight prerogative. I actually drew comparisons with Mickey Rourke in Wild Orchid and 9 & 1/2 weeks when I read Fifty. E.L. might have started with a fanfic, but I don’t think the books as current have anything to do with Meyer’s work.
i love the little aside about your son. Wise fellow…I hadn’t heard of this at all (of course I live in a vacuum) until industry folks mentioned it at PASIC this weekend. I made a note to check it out but haven’t yet. Off to do so now (but if has anything to do with Twilight, I’d take a pass anyhow LOL)
Ok so I just read the 1st review on Amazon and had to laugh. This from a semi-retired gynecologist:
“The book’s protagonist is college student Anastasia, who has never had sex or even “touched herself.” I had to suspend disbelief at the social and sexual naivete of this twenty-one year-old, but I guess this implied vulnerability makes her more attractive as a romantic heroine. Yet it doesn’t take her long to rectify this situation, and soon she is having orgasm after orgasm at the behest of her “dominant” partner, Mr. Grey.
“At my age, my arthritis flared up just reading about Ana’s sexual gymnastics. And for some reason, I kept thinking about her contracting genital warts. Soon, however, Ana’s endless pyrotechnic climaxes resembled repetitively watching porn: after a while, it leaves me bored and yawning. That said, there was a definite infectiousness to the plot; and taking Viagra to stiffen my resolve, I persevered.”
hilarious
You know, speaking as a former publishing professional, publishing the book as fanfiction first isn’t unfortunate, it’s brilliant marketing strategy. She built an audience for her book before it was even published. Those people started the word of mouth ball rolling. If Fifty Shades was just one more piece of erotica on Amazon, it’d probably still be unknown. I bet a ton of her early reviews were from the fan fiction audience that already knew and liked her work.
In a publishing world where reality television stars get million dollar contracts because they’ve proven they have an audience base, she did the same thing—developed an audience base first and then published. From a business perspective, it’s really, really smart. I’m not sure I’d be willing to write Twilight fanfic to do it, but picking out a popular fandom and developing fans of your own within it is probably an excellent strategy for authors. Long-term, the issue for authors might not be about derivative work but about publishers demanding you prove you have an audience before they’ll take a chance on you.
I should begin this by saying that i haven’t read this book and I haven’t read much fanfic. in fact I’ve only read one fanfic and it traumatized me so much I refuse to read any others. It was about Liam Neeson’s character in Star Wars and a bad guy, possibly boba fett, but I don’t remember. In any case, there was sexual torture and that was, as they say, that. NEVER AGAIN.
Of course, that has nothing to do with 50 shades, but I thought I’d share my trauma with you. Now about 50 shades, if its different enough, i don’t care. As has been mentioned before Shakespeare ripped off all the ideas for his plays, so whatever.
My issue isn’t that the idea came from Twilight characters, it’s that it was posted as fanfiction. Sure, like Laurel said above, “Everything is derivative.” But those stories weren’t posted as fanfiction first, gaining all kinds of feedback from an audience who thought it was not-for-profit. There are lots of books out there that have parallel Twilight storylines, and while that’s annoying, I don’t find it unethical. What happened to proper grammar and a solid editing process? I’m seriously concerned about the publishing industry if word-of-mouth and fan-frenzy is enough to get something published without proper edits being done.
I’d like to make a distinction:
I wrote fanfiction for a long time. One day, I wrote an AU. Partway through, I realized I’d rather spend my time writing original fiction – but I didn’t want to waste a good story. So I re-wrote it.
Initially, I changed only character names. Then some genders changed, as did all of the character’s personalities and motivations. The premise of the story remained the same, as did the basic plot, but how the characters interacted and what it led them to do was completely different – *because they were no longer the same characters*.
But 50 Shades of Grey is not original fiction that started out as fanfiction. It’s fanfiction with the names changed and minor editing differences.
And there is a difference.
I don’t think that the author should be persecuted, or that this should be against the law. But I do think it’s dishonest.
I can only add my two cents in thusly: 1) I’m happy for any writer who manages to get published and 2) I’ve read plenty of books in my life before I ever knew about fanfics that were so abysmally awful, I couldn’t understand how they got published in the first place and wondered if I could sue to get my money AND my time back!
I started 50 Shades and couldn’t finish it. Just like I couldn’t finish any of Stephanie Meyer’s four books. I did know that 50 Shades did have its origins in a Twilight fanfic, which likely poisoned me against it from the start. I didn’t have a problem with the fact that it started as a fanfic though, just that it was a Twilight fanfic 😛 In both stories, the hero’s power over the heroine both physically and emotionally frankly disturbed me.
As for the questions about fanfiction and original fiction…
I recently went to a reading by a science fiction author who said the inspiration for his newest novel was “What if Gandalf lived in space?”. He lifted the character of Gandalf out of Middle Earth and put him on spaceship and then explored how this character got to be the same wise old man under such wildly different circumstances. I think E.L. James did essentially the same thing with Bella and Edward, although unlike other published authors, she wrote her idea as a fanfic first, shared that story online, and then went on to modify it into an original story. I don’t think what she did was wise, but I don’t find anything ethically wrong with it. I hope other fanfiction authors don’t follow James’ path because I think authors grow when they work on new challenges. Reworking old fanfiction doesn’t offer the same potential for growth as starting a new project with the skills you honed writing that previous story.
Personally, I did what James did for about three years. I wrote a Harry Potter next generation fanfic and then tried to rework it as an original trilogy. I finally moved on to new, original stories and my skills developed much faster than they had when I was stuck in the same place for so long. I plan to go back to my fanfic, after three years of not touching it, for NaNoWriMo this year (yeah, its kind of against the rules, I know :P)
I’ve read the first two books in this series, and they were actually pretty good. I will probably read the third book eventually. I haven’t read the Twilight books, so I have no comparison to decide if these books are knockoffs, fanfic, or whatever. They certainly aren’t meant for the YA crowd (I hope)!
I would give the books a solid B rating except for one thing that irritated me all the way through the books—the dialogue. It only took me a few pages into the first book to realize that the author was probably British. That’s fine, I read and like plenty of British authors, but this one needs a crash course for learning the way Americans phrase things. The way the characters’ conversations in this book were stilted and contrived. It just didn’t work well. That being said, I think Ms. James certainly has the talent to write good books. It might help if she would have her settings in the UK though.
Yes! This! Exactly! During the GMA thing yesterday, I actually wanted to hear the reporter’s answers, but the men came on and started flipping pages and giggling. :::eye roll:::
In the public library system where I live there are over 100 copies. But, that does not keep-up with demand, as there are over 800 people on the waiting list!! This is just for the FIRST book in the trilogy.
Amazing.
I’d never heard of 50 Shades until Sarah started talking about it here, and I couldn’t read more than about 20 pages of Twilight without wanting to do physical damage to the furniture because Bella wasn’t around to slap upside the head. But this whole debate still fascinates me, mostly because I’m a (geeky) lawyer and it plays into the central, fascinating (to me – did I mention I was a geek?) issue of almost all copyright infringement – which is the difference between ideas and expression of ideas.
Copyright protects expression, but not ideas. Which is why you can have 8,000 books about star-crossed lovers that don’t infringe on each other, but you can only have one Twilight (thank God). In a lot of instances the line between expression of an idea and the idea itself can be pretty thin – but I have to say that if something starts out as fan fiction that possibly infringes on someone else’s ideas, but over the course of rewrites and reworkings and time passing and the author growing as a writer it evolves into something unique that was just inspired by her love of another book, I don’t see why there’s such a fuss.
I’m not particularly interested in reading this book, but its fanfic origins don’t bother me, either, as it appears to be so different from the source material as to be a non-issue. (If “Master of the Universe” had never been posted to the internet, would anyone even guess that “50 Shades of Grey” started life as a “Twilight” fanfic?)
A few months ago I read a novel reviewed on this site that I’m convinced started life as a “Supernatural” fanfic with enough details changed to avoid legal action—and that didn’t really bother me either, as the author put enough of an individual spin on the characters and setting to make them her own and keep me engaged.
I am reading book 3 right now. I have also read the Twilight trilogy. While I can certainly see the parallels (especially, when thinking about it, Christian’s family) between the two trilogies, I have not been constantly comparing them back and forth while reading them. It’s not great literature, but it is engrossing. Anastasia is much better than Bella, although she can be annoying.
I do think the books could have used a much heavier hand at editing. I enjoyed the second book much better than the first as I thought there was a better balance of sex and story.
As a librarian, I helped a customer from another system yesterday who was asking about the book. I doubt we will buy it, but who knows.
I don’t get the problem if she wrote the fanfic in the first place. But I kind of don’t get the fanfic phenomenon. And, for sure, I could never get through the Twilight series, tho my somewhat intelligent daughter loves them. The thing is, really, if you read the sample on the Amazon page, which I did, you would probably feel like maybe it would be nice to find out what happens next but damn this style is annoying. Maybe that is just my own POV and dialogue quirks as I heard it is Amazon’s number one seller as of this a.m. Don’t eat grapes, much less sour.
I read Fifty when it was first starting out on Twilighted.net as Masters of the Universe. I never got the chance to finish it, since I stopped reading fanfic for a while when school got to be too crazy (recurring theme for me, I know) and I was too overwhelmed with writing papers to be able to do any pleasure reading. When I first heard about Fifty Shades of Grey, I thought the plot sounded awfully familiar, but it didn’t connect until the controversy hit. And honestly, I don’t mind one bit that it started out as fanfic. And I’m not saying this because I happen to write fanfic (or I used to – again, I don’t have a lot of time to do anything with school deadlines), but I think that alternate universe fics, when the minor details that make it a fanfic (names, details like eye color, hair color, location, etc) are changed, it essentially makes it an original story. Does that mean that the idea originated with the characters based on another author’s work? Yes. But don’t authors get ideas from other places all the time? Watching a movie, reading books, watching people in the park… ok that last one is a tad creepy, but you get my point. I think people just ultimately want something to talk about and have something else to bitch about in the press. And, of course, something else for Dr Drew to stick his nose in that he has no idea what he’s really talking about.
First, congrats on your GMA bit. I was so excited when you popped up in the article! Second, I didn’t know it was Twilight fanfic. Ewww! Just kidding. Sort of. I haven’t actually read the book yet. I am just excited that GMA didn’t trot out stupid Dr. Drew to talk about it like the other morning show did. Now that was truly EWWWW! He is so clueless. I do plan to read it but it’s not at the top of my to do list. Honestly, all stories come from somewhere so big deal that this one came from Twilight. I read all of the Twilight books and EWWWW! The ending, it hurts! The better issue is, is the book well written? Did the author do their homework before writing the book? Is the book properly edited and formatted? Is all of the material truly original? Finally, will reading this book encourage people to search out more books and keep reading?!!
Pastiche is fine, but there is no excuse for bad, cheesy BDSM scenes – not when there is so much quality out there to learn from.
I accidentally bought it. Swear. I wish I could get my money back. Skipped to the end and thought it would redeem itself by the girl leaving but then she had to be all *sob sob*.
I don’t see twilight in this book. I read all of those and thought Bella was to stupid to live through most of them but again, I don’t see a resemblance.
But to those that do like this series, good for you.
You got me curious enough to read the first chapter. (How bad could it be, I thought.) I didn’t make it past page 2 before I started to wonder about it:
“The roads are clear as I set off from Vancouver, WA toward Portland and the I-5.”
Who on earth drives from Vancouver to Seattle by way of Portland?
Coming in to this late as usual, but…
I’ve finally realized that what makes me tweeked about these books isn’t so much the fanfic thing, nor is it even the fact that something as low-brow and misguided as the 50 Shades books are now being regarded as some kind of “face” of erotica and BDSM erotica.
No, what jerks my jaws about the whole ordeal is the juvenile behavior of the media coverage. With very few and too-brief exceptions, everyone from the broadcasters to the “breathless housewives” seem to be incapable of discussing sex without giggling or smirking like a damned 12-year-old. And that makes me kind of want to weep and scream at the same time. Gee, thanks for setting back the entire romance and erotica genres 30 years, guys.
It’s times like this where I wish I’d spend that $10 for a Something Awful account, they need to tear this series a new one in the Fandom Lunacy thread.
What I want to know is, in book 4 of 50SoG, what will the baby be named? And how will Christian perform the C-section, maybe with some of his faux-BDSM toys? Can you really flail someone that hard? At the least, he’ll need a flechette knife. Oh, and one more thing. When the adult male sidekick “imprints” on the oddly named baby, will he end up in jail?
The media reaction reminds me why I tend to look almost solely to blogs for my publishing and book news now.
The problem is that “Master of the Universe” *was* posted on the internet as fanfic. If it hadn’t been, if 50 Shades of Grey had just been another book with certain similarities to Twilight, I don’t think there would be any controversy. There are lots and lots of books that are similar to Twilight in one way or another. Similarities between works are what allow me to come up with lists of read-alikes for books. The issue for me is that James directly used Twilight fans. It was published as Twilight fanfic, so her fanbase started off as only Twilight fans and fans of Twilight fanfic (not necessarily the same thing). When it got really popular, THEN she published it for profit, and fans of the fanfic did a good chunk of her marketing work for her. From everything I’ve read, it’s not even like 50 Shades of Grey is a major rewrite of Master of the Universe – most of the changes are name replacements and minor wording tweaks.
Would 50 Shades of Grey have been as popular if it hadn’t been originally posted as fanfic? Would James have published it if “Master of the Universe” hadn’t gotten popular? My suspicion is that the answer to both of these questions is “no,” but I’m really interested to see if James ever publishes any original fiction and how well it does if she does.
May I just keep reading my copy of “The Story of O” & maybe 1 or 2 of Henry Miller’s Novels?
NPR has an article discussing the fanfic aspect of 50 Shades, and they mention Jane Litte. http://www.npr.org/2012/03/15/…
50 Shades might very well exist without Twilight or its fandom, but I would bet you good fanbucks that it wouldn’t have made it in front of a *tenth* of the eyeballs it did without having characters whose names were first “Edward” and “Bella.”
There are unspoken rules of engagement in Fandoms. One of the big ones is you don’t disrespect the original creators (because they can and have shut you down), and the other is that you don’t take advantage of the other fen or try to make money ripping off the original work.
As far as pulling inspiration—authors who do it honestly pull it from several different sources, not a single source. Christian Gray is still Edward Cullen with the teeth filed down, and Ana is still…whatever Bella was, aged a few years and transplanted into a different town. There are plenty of fanficcers who moved into original fic and their fan communities know about it. But they didn’t sell their fanfics for profit.
The original “publishing house” also started its life as a fanfiction archive.
I think what so many people find offensive is that the author deliberately trolled the Twilight fandom in order to piggyback off the many fans of the original franchise.
Over at Dear Author there’s a list of the egregious similarities in not just the characters, but their situations, too.
I think one of the problems here is the notion that any story is “original.” There is really no such thing. Everything is derivative of something else in some way. Admittedly, fanfic is much more directly related because of its overt use of character, universe, and place; however, using those elements as a jumping point to start is not a betrayal of whatever rule of ownership. Let’s remember that even Frankenstein was subtitled The Modern Prometheus and borrowed/was inspired by Ovid’s myth, as well as a story written in 1790 called Frankenstein of the French Revolution.
It is a curious thing to know the origins of a work that is being read and then hold it in comparison to its source material or inspiration. We want to pick it apart to find the similarities and differences, and then sit in judgement of which of the two does the better job. I read the sample chapters of 50 Shades of Grey on my Kindle and was just as bored and disinterested as I was when I read Twilight. EL James may have re-worked a fanfic, but at the end of the day it is a poorly written book that caters to a demographic who *were* enthralled with Twilight. As has been mentioned previously, Twilight also opened the market to a plethora of copycat themed paranormal human/vampire/werewolf stories that have a tendency to be obvious and boring. If James can make enough changes to her original text, then she has created her own version of original. Fanfiction, especially AU fanfiction, does require a great deal of investment to both the source and the authors idea of who those characters are and what that narrative is outside of the canon. Whether or not James successfully alters her narrative and characters enough, I will probably never know. As mentioned, I was not enthralled by the sample chapters and I disliked Twilight, so I will not be visiting this particular ‘verse.
All of that said, I am more than positive that there are PLENTY of works of published, “original” fiction that owe their existence to some other source, maybe even as a form of fanfiction. I read Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series and was reminded of nothing so much more than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Whether or not she was a fan or had ever seen an episode, I don’t know, but that first book, especially, read like fanfic reworked.
The one thing that really bothers me is the fact that nobody mentions the incorrect grammar and punctuation in this book! While she wrote the fanfiction, she told a reader of the fic to go kill herself because she translated it into her own language so people in her country could read it.
Yeah, real superstar.
Check out Finless by Davee Jones similar genre but more style in the writing. Due to be released by Secret Cravings Publishing. Pre release copies are available. Other work by this up and coming author can be found at Amazon.com “On Ellicott Street” in ebook format,
I haven’t read any of the Twilight series books but after I read all 3 Fifty Shades series I ran into an article about movie stars with iconic features and Kim Basinger’s mouth in Nine and 1/2 Weeks came up…light-bulb moment! I looked up Nine and 1/2 Weeks in Wikipedia which lead me to Wild Orchid and now it seems to me that the Fifty Shades series are based on both this movies. I mean they’re almost the same thing combined!!! I liked the 50 the books, and maybe because I’m foreigner and have only been speaking English fluently for less than 8 years and I didn’t catch as many mistakes as other readers did I wasn’t as annoyed, but certain words (British ones included) and repetitive expressions did make me roll my eyes a few times. And maybe because I’m in my early 30’s it was odd to read about a character like Christian as a 27 year old. He seems at least 37. The story definitely transports you to a sexual fantasy scenario but I cannot picture a grown woman who does not want to be in a D/s relationship, letting herself into the humiliating aspect in some of the sexual encounters; even if she’s inexperienced and not sure what’s right and wrong in terms of the things she should be letting him do to/with her (personally I know there are a couple of things that I regret having done as a young totally infatuated girl just so my boyfriend would want me like a wanted him). I’m all for spicing it up and getting kinky but some things seem to cross the line into a situation that would have the barely-willing-Sub doubting her believes, self-esteem and worth when she’s not with the Dom. If you can get pass these and enjoy the fantasy then go for it, it was fun to read!
Thought you would find this amusing
http://storify.com/atshaffer/5…
Here’s a very funny parody of 50 Shades called Fifty Shades of Black and Blue http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Sh…