That's what the "Shades of Grey" series is currently making. Seriously, I'm not the jealous sort, but she could buy a mansion a week on mommy porn/fan fiction. Are you kidding me? When another writer has success, I totally believe it is THEIR time, their gift. I hold nothing against Ms. James and her success.
However, when something that breaks all the rules and is just a dirty Harlequin on steroids and without editors? It's hard to take. There are so many EXCELLENT writers out there, and no offense to E.L. James (not that she cares with what she's making) but as an author, it is hard to understand when something like this takes off.
One of the key rules of writing is RUE -- Resist the Urge to Explain. That means, don't tell your reader the same thing over and over again. Let's assume, they are smart enough to get it the first time.
This clearly doesn't apply to the first Shades since I got about eight pages in before Mr. Christian Gray was called arrogant about forty times. I literally threw the borrowed book across the room (sorry Jan!) and said, IS HE FREAKING ARROGANT? BECAUSE I TOTALLY DIDN"T GET IT THE FIRST 39 TIMES!
Clearly, that doesn't matter to readers. I, however, couldn't get to the mommy porn parts of the book because I couldn't get past the lack of editing. And I know, I'm just jealous. But it's not really that. It's that there are so many quality books out there and it's hard to understand when something has such a powerful effect on readers and you don't get it. I mean, at all.
Rules should never matter over story. Any writer will tell you this. The problem is, I missed the story too.
Maybe I should have skipped to the dirty parts, but I can think of nothing ICKIER than sex written in first-person. So I think I made the right decision in allowing Ms. James to make her million and a half a week without my help.
So I'm not going to promote her book. She's doing just fine, thank you.
Perfectly Ridiculous
