slaves, tell me about 50 Shades of Grey

i think emil.y's right that "enervating energy" could be used successfully, as paradoxical reference to the way that being wound up can feel like a kind of exhaustion, although it's dangerous, and the alliteration (or whatever you call alliteration when it keeps going for multiple syllables) is always going to create a hurdle of goofiness. "exhausting" might be the better adjective, since it's still dissonant without being flat-out contradictory; i dunno. another weird thing here is that "enervating"'s been stuffed into the middle of the mild cliche "excess energy" like an attempt at disguise. and that nothing about the book's prose in general inspires confidence that the writer knows the phrase is a paradox.

mistaking enervate for it's opposite is a very common mistake.

its

(just being a pill, ignore me pls)

nah, I throw in unnecessary apostrophes all the time. I understand the difference, and I deserve to be called out on it

going on a Vivarin bender while cramming for finals in college = "enervating energy"

drinking 2 pots of coffee after 2 days of no sleep = enervating energy

prednisone = enervating energy

lol

butts

IMO, what the author of this article is suggesting is that these words are being used to bring a veneer of sophistication to some stupid bullshit

― that is a weird thing to bring up over lean cuisine (DJP), Friday, June 1, 2012 5:14 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this is OTM. "Epistle" is a terrible word to use in that sentence, not because readers can't understand it - it's because it makes the whole sentence sound like 20 pounds of shit stuffed in a five pound bag. The reason why this reads like a junior high schooler plumping up her essays with fancy thesaurus words is because the rest of the sentences can't support those words.

Sure, many of them are technically correct, but editing fiction is about more than making sure everything is technically correct. You want the writing to be tonally consistent, too. Reading an "epistle" instead of an "email" is not even remotely tonally consistent. It's jarring as hell.

Another 50 Shades Domestic Violence PSA. Now with added author breakdown.

This romance author, Jennifer Armintrout, has been live-blogging her chapter-by-chapter read of Fifty Shades and I won't read the book but I'm having so much fun w her blog about it! But shit just got a little real in this entry.

Great post!

From the comments:

For example, from Entertainment Weekly 's 4 page (allowing for photos) April 6, 2012 cover story, the last column has this:

"Not everyone is charmed by the sex in Fifty either. Some believe Ana and Christian have an abusive relationship that misrepresents BDSM sex play. "He tells her when to eat, he stalks her and goes into jealous rages every time she's talking to her male friends. I'm like, that has nothing to do with BDSM. That's just a good old-fashioned abusive, controlling boyfriend," says sexologist Jill McDevitt, owner of the feminist sex shop Feminique Boutique in West Chester, Pa.

That's it. One small paragraph in a 4 page article. And slanted to look like it's just the opinion of "feminists"---and who likes them, right?

Way x-post to La Lechera:
Are you sure they didn't mean to write "adore" and spellcheck accidentally zapped it to "ardor?"

Eh, it was totally in character for her to do that. Either way, it needed to be changed and she was always pissed at me for taking some of the "pizzazz" out of her writing. I worked there before the digital revolution was fully underway, or I would have more examples. She was our queen of doggerel, and I appreciated her writing for its entertainment value in that regard.

xxpost carl: huge outloud laughs with 20 pounds of shit stuffed in a 5 pound bag

I look forward to your next fanfic

Lechera, this one's for you: Romance Story Plot Generator

haha

Science Fiction: This story takes place at a portal to another solar system. In it, a loudmouthed fire fighter is introduced to an athletic merchant. What starts as detachment soon turns into obsessive love - all thanks to treason.

Oh that is wonderful.

Fantasy: In this story, an elementalist with a chemical dependency falls in love with a confident demonologist. Yet, how can a vicious demonologist tear them apart?

Science Fiction: In this story, a nostalgic secret agent falls madly in love with a shuttlecraft pilot who has an obsessive attraction to a particular alien species - all thanks to the taking of a test.

this is disconcertingly close to the plot of Ender's Game

In this story, an innocent treasure-hunter is in love with a fence whose body was infected by an alien seeking to reproduce - all thanks to a birth. It seems a pleasant surprise will bring them even closer together.

would read tbh

So, I am really ashamed to admit this, but in 2009 I dabbled in the Twilight fandom. Just a tad. Poked around. Yeah, I liked the stupid Twilight books. Today, my sister asked me if I ever heard of the fanfiction, "Master of the Universe" -

I said yeah. And then like, I found out about the whole best seller thing.

Back in 2009, "Master of the Universe" was HUGELY popular. People freaked out over it. The author had a bunch of fans, enough that they had their own CONVENTION for her. I think I read a few chapters of this story--in fact, I have a copy in its original form if anyone wants to see it. Don't know why you would. If I recall there were a lot of obvious Britishisms and a sex scene which involved the male character ripping out a bloody tampon prior to fucking.

And also the title reminded me of He-Man.

Wait, didn't Ayn Rand already write this novel?

*cringes*
*sighs*

I wrote an unfinished Twilight fanfic for my best friend. She was reading all these horrible ones and she kept sending them to me and I couldn't stand them and then I got all 'well if you think they're so bad why don't you write one smartypants' and I did and I still die a little inside when I think about it.

I still haven't finished it. I am conflicted even talking about it, lol

If you read the Amazon reviews, it's really obvious who the fanbase is. People who don't read.

wait, wasn't 'Mr. Grey' the name of James Spader's character in Secretary?

i just got addicted to the chapter-by-chapter thing laurel posted and read it all. it's pretty o_O. when twilight was happening i assumed that the main thing that got its fans excited was the necessity of restraint, because sex might cause perfect chiseled dreamy dangerous superpowered badboy edward cullen to VAMPIRE FUGUE and RIP BELLA'S THROAT OUT, and this is a fun combination of teasing and danger and also kind of a novelty in Today's Hypersexualized Culture.[*] plus i figured people thought the vampire mythology and the adventures and the edward saving bella from other vampires was exciting and cool. all the stuff where edward is almost comically controlling and possessive and bella is almost comically self-loathing and solipsistic i thought no doubt appealed to some (the latter especially to Teenz) but could mostly be attributed (like the mormon overtones and the part where edward gives bella a caesarian with his teeth) to personal peculiarities on stephanie meyer's part and didn't really have a lot to do with everyone going berserk over it. i mean, i don't know -- these are the things that i liked about twilight, at least the movies (i was into most of the second one); this was the stuff i thought could be genuinely sexy, or cathartic, or whatever.

but maybe the fanbase was actually just super into the idea of being in an abusive relationship. apparently they were! cuz this thing is just twilight with the supernatural stuff -- the mythology and the adventures and the evil vampires and the teeth caesarians and even the VAMPIRE FUGUES -- removed, and what's left augmented, so that the story is literally just a self-loathing solipsist being abused by an emotionally unavailable psychopath. and everyone's just as turned on! maybe people are just reading it for The Good Bits, the spanking or whatever, or the descriptions of the guy's tie (it's grey), but there's so much of bella/anastasia's total pathological self-hatred, which manifests as contempt for and exasperation with everyone who is the tiniest bit nice to her (and conversely as helpless lust for the guy who is not nice to her at all except when he pays her the occasional strategic compliment like he's dispensing a pellet for a rat), and so much of edward/christian being controlling and manipulative and emotionally abusive, that i'm pretty sure this stuff is the point of the book. so this is what people are into at the moment, i guess? feeling fundamentally insecure and alone and hating/resenting everyone except people willing to exploit and abuse them? have we actually always been into this? am i taking this too seriously? does it mean anything? what are we learning here and about whom?

[*] (obv our culture remains infested by all kinds of patriarchal and disapproving and confining attitudes towards sex but in our media there isn't usually a lot of aching restraint.)

In this story, a cheerful gas station attendant falls passionately in love with a calm treasure-hunter - all thanks to an accident at home.

Does this have anything to do w Girl w the Dragon Tattoo? Aren't those books about a rape victim or something?

Judging books for their covers, I just assume people want to seem trendy, sexy, edgy, etc., to the people next to them on the plane/bus/train.

so it is about the tie, then.

the story is literally just a self-loathing solipsist being abused by an emotionally unavailable psychopath.

dunno about the "self-loathing solipsist" end of the equation, but it seems to me that "passive woman consumed by romantic/sexual longing for a powerful, controlling and contemptuous man" has been an important part of the romance genre's DNA for a long time.

right, everyone loves mr. darcy (although they also love liz bennet, is the thing, don't they?) but this stuff seems to take that scenario into an extreme of helpless emotional isolation on the narrator's part and controlling coldness on the lust object's part. i mean maybe i haven't read enough romance novels because i basically haven't read any, but i've flipped through some stuff where the girl's in love with a pirate or whatever and the girls were at least a little spunky. in fact part of the thrill is the way the girl's spunkiness is challenged by the guy's coldness/indomitability, right? there is none of that here. idk maybe i'm out of my depth but i'm just curious is all cuz this shit has been blowing up my facebook.

one ancient button this definitely does push is the one where the guy's the way he is cuz terrible stuff happened to him and the girl feels for him. that one's pretty standard.

also she can save him if she just hangs in there
but eventually, if the romance writer's phrasebook is to be believed, the final emotions one will need to express are:

anguish, defeat; tears; unhappiness, disappointment

those are the actual chapter titles in the section for "emotions"

it starts out

happiness, joy; confidence; determination

then moves to defiance; surprise; annoyance

and so on until "her mind was filled with sour thoughts", which is the final phrase before the section on colors

thats it, i gotta write some romance novels or something. I can write so much better than these bozos.

Okay I am now falling into the same bloghole that DLH fell into. I love this woman. Also those of you defending the prose in these books:

So young - and attractive, very attractive. He's tall, dressed in a fine gray suit, white shirt, and black tie with unruly dark copper colored hair and intense, bright gray eyes that regard me shrewdly.

Is the whole thing written in present tense?

I'm glad you guys like the Armintrout blog! I liked her right away but I can be a sucker for that snarky blog tone so I don't nec trust that my taste in that will be shared.

How many copy-editors still read this side of the site? Somebody wanna drag Maura in here?

Is the whole thing written in present tense?

isn't everything now

Does this have anything to do w Girl w the Dragon Tattoo? Aren't those books about a rape victim or something?

Gal protagonists...

right, everyone loves mr. darcy (although they also love liz bennet, is the thing, don't they?) but this stuff seems to take that scenario into an extreme of helpless emotional isolation on the narrator's part and controlling coldness on the lust object's part. i mean maybe i haven't read enough romance novels because i basically haven't read any, but i've flipped through some stuff where the girl's in love with a pirate or whatever and the girls were at least a little spunky. in fact part of the thrill is the way the girl's spunkiness is challenged by the guy's coldness/indomitability, right? there is none of that here. idk maybe i'm out of my depth but i'm just curious is all cuz this shit has been blowing up my facebook.

as i understand it, 50 shades is a hybrid of the traditional romance and the bdsm erotic novel. in the wake of the story of O, bdsm novels in which the heroine achieves or learns something through total, self-negating surrender to sexual dominance have become fairly common. it's perhaps unsurprising that the breakout sexy e-books would tell a story of this sort, as it seems a natural extension of the more "tempestuous" type of traditional romance. and the heroine's lack of agency and self-confidence is consistent with the twilight novels, right?

wild orchid as a cinematic precursor to this? relatively blank female protagonist submits to the "dark desires" of a powerful, wealthy and controlling man, hoping in the process to heal the psychic wounds that fuel his kinky commands.

contenderpedia

those of you defending the prose in these books

I just want to point out that those of us who loathed that stupid blog post about the writing WERE NOT defending the prose in the books. We were pointing out that the blog author was attacking *the wrong things* about the writing.

I was trying to say that the that attack revealed more about the author of the blog post than the things being attacked, things that I would imagine it was not the author's original intention to reveal.

Okay, fair enough.

These are useful maxims for beginners. They reign in a lot of bad writing, but they are over-taught and they are not the end-all and be-all of rhetoric and style.

I wouldn't ordinarily mention this, but in the context of the present discussion it seems appropriate to point out that you mean "rein in."