The impossible happened: I lost even more respect for humanity.
Wednesday, June 20th, 2012 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenoko1Fifty Shades of Grey outstrips Harry Potter to become the fastest selling paperback of all time
I kid you not. Read it here. Granted, I would like to start by saying that I have not, nor will I ever read these books. They are PWP, I find that trashy and reflective of a lack of creativity to write a great book without smut. It's a challenge authors should rise up to meet, rather than contributing to the decline of morality and quality of literature.
That also being said, yes, I have read and did like Twilight. Guilty pleasures, we all have them. Twilight made me laugh and giggle and grin, the first book probably my favorite. You may see this as a complete contradiction, but cie la vie. I also completely love Harry Potter and am saddened by the fact that it had to hand over it's title to published fanfiction.
And it's being made into a movie.
Not to mention, insult to injury: "Publishers are now rushing to bring out more similar erotic fiction – including Jane Eyre Laid Bare, an explicit rewrite of Charlotte Bronte’s novel."
I. Kid. You. Not.
That also being said, yes, I have read and did like Twilight. Guilty pleasures, we all have them. Twilight made me laugh and giggle and grin, the first book probably my favorite. You may see this as a complete contradiction, but cie la vie. I also completely love Harry Potter and am saddened by the fact that it had to hand over it's title to published fanfiction.
And it's being made into a movie.
Not to mention, insult to injury: "Publishers are now rushing to bring out more similar erotic fiction – including Jane Eyre Laid Bare, an explicit rewrite of Charlotte Bronte’s novel."
I. Kid. You. Not.
I have so much RAEG face right now.
Am I the only one that feels like they just heard someone insult a very dear friend and now has full rights to right hook the offending party in order to defend their friend's honor?
Even more insult to injury? This garbage is published and selling like hot cakes. I'm still trying to get an agent when I know (and no, this is not me being prideful or arrogant) that my writing is much better. Smut free, too. Ugh, just when I thought I couldn't lose anymore faith in humanity.
Am I the only one that feels like they just heard someone insult a very dear friend and now has full rights to right hook the offending party in order to defend their friend's honor?
Even more insult to injury? This garbage is published and selling like hot cakes. I'm still trying to get an agent when I know (and no, this is not me being prideful or arrogant) that my writing is much better. Smut free, too. Ugh, just when I thought I couldn't lose anymore faith in humanity.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 02:12 pm (UTC)Bring me lots of tissues. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
I also love Harry Potter and agree we can all have guilty pleasures. But it feels so frustrating to know how many overrated smutty books are getting turned into money-making plots while the good ones get kicked into the dust bin.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 02:19 pm (UTC)RIGHT?! Jane Eyre?!?! What's next? All of Jane Austin's works?! Pride, Prejudice, and Handcuffs? Little Women becomes Little Brothel? Oh how I shudder. This is a complete outrage. A travesty. I- just- words fail me. How can humanity be such a walking contradiction? Both what is the absolute worst in us, while there are other people that selflessly and unconsciously represent what makes us worth while?
Please excuse me, my forehead has a date with my desk top.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 07:01 pm (UTC)Bram Stoker's Dracula seducing Frankenstein's monster. The Transvestite Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huck Finn and Foul Play. The Romping Wind Around the Willows.
I'm guessing the old myth about advertising is true and that you can get the public to buy anything as long as you market it right. But as long as they're going to put books, movies, and tv shows out there, I want them to be at least mediocre if not awesome. Seeing bad stuff get so much credit is frustrating especially when you're a fan fiction writer and know you can do much better.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 05:51 pm (UTC)(Seriously, if you have to base your shit off of fucking *Twilight*, and Twilight fanfiction (and BAD fanfiction at that!), that's a Really Bad Sign that This Is Going To Suck More Than Anything Has Ever Sucked Before.)
I have no problem with smut per se, but there's a big difference between good smut and smut that's so godawful it reads more like a fricken adolesecent giggling over naughty bits in class. Out of curiosity one day, when I was in a Target, I flipped through the first book, Gray, and couldn't get through one paragraph without snorting and going "WTF is this shit?!? People LIKE this crap?!?" The characterization is just hideous.
(Also - WTF is up with these morons writing women as totally spineless dipshits who only get better once they have The Perfect Man?! That makes me even angrier than the bad smut.)
I haven't even read your writing, and I'd bet serious money that it's far superior to 50 Shades.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 05:55 pm (UTC)I haven't even read your writing, and I'd bet serious money that it's far superior to 50 Shades.
Well thank you! Hopefully I'll be fifty times as successful as well.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-21 04:57 am (UTC)I can't believe they are making it a movie though.
But romance selling like hotcakes is nothing new. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. Porn has been doing bad covers of things for ages now.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-21 09:00 pm (UTC)Personally I find it funny that before it was really hush hush if a person wrote slash or enjoyed erotic fiction, but now the way things are going, it may be more accepted eventually. Or at least eventually it'll be everyone's dirty, little pleasure. Still I'd argue that some fanfic slash is more well written than smutty romance novels that are officially published. My friend tried to get me into official smut, once, and I couldn't get passed 3 pages without laughing until my sides hurt. The books are so "racey" that they're absurd and the writing is wayyy to flowery for me. Yet these kinds of things still get published and widely read. I don't think I'll ever fully understand why.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-23 05:11 am (UTC)I don't mind smut in regular books, and I don't even mind the "romance" novels that are basically all written porn. I mean, if people want to read it instead of watch it, good for them, I don't care. But holy shit, this is badly written.
Stuff being parodied into porn doesn't surprise me, though. I still remember the day I turned on the TV late at night and stumbled across Lord of the Cock Rings or whatever it was called. And with all the classics being turned into popular "horror" books lately (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, for example), it seems this is the next logical step for marketing. :\
But seriously, this book is awful.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-23 12:12 pm (UTC)And like other people have said, fiction mash-ups are proving popular too. Who knows, maybe reading the 'reworked' version will make more people want to read the original. That is if they've not already, I'd guess that a large section of a reworking's fanbase is fans of the original novels that are curious about what they've done. Like me and the Austen monster reworkings.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-10 07:30 pm (UTC)