Dirty Books

[PawPaw]

I'm sure Stephanie Meyer is all broken up about her series not being on par with say, Citizen Kane - why, she must have a room in her mansion just for crying about it!

That's just the thing... say what you want about Twilight (and there's plenty terrible about it), but it was original. E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey series is literally Twilight fanfiction with just enough details changed to publish it. It's one thing to get filthy rich off of one's own work. It's another to get even richer by taking someone else's work, jamming it up your ass, and crapping it onto a keyboard.

That's par for the course in the romance/porn genre.

Well, yeah! Even whatsisname, Clancy. After about his third or fourth book, he was simply a whore for his publisher. Or WEB Griffin, who largely re-titled books, changed a few pronouns and republished them. I read his entire Officer series (The Lieutenants, the Captains, etc) as an exercise in bad fiction. What amazed me was he was able to get them all published, all the way to The Generals. Same bullshit, over and over.

I used to read four books a month, until I realized that most of what I was reading was re-packaged horseshit. The last three writers I've followed are Kate Myers Hanson, James Lee Burke, and Larry McMurtry. No one else can write worth a shit. I'm really looking forward to Katie's next book.

[Jericho941]

That's par for the course in the romance/porn genre.

Not really any more or less than other genres.

Well, yeah! Even whatsisname, Clancy. After about his third or fourth book, he was simply a whore for his publisher. Or WEB Griffin, who largely re-titled books, changed a few pronouns and republished them. I read his entire Officer series (The Lieutenants, the Captains, etc) as an exercise in bad fiction. What amazed me was he was able to get them all published, all the way to The Generals. Same bullshit, over and over.

You can't plagiarize yourself. Only repeat.

[Greg]

That's par for the course in the romance/porn genre.

Not really any more or less than other genres.

It's especially bad with romance (and yes part of the 'romance' genre is porn), based on buying patterns particular to that genre. People who read those things tend not to do much else, they go through those titles like a stoner with Doritos. Sheer title output counts, and being purely formulaic is not a handicap.

[Jericho941]

I think we're talking about two different things here. I'm not exaggerating the tropes shared between Twilight and 50 Shades, or failing to account for normal derivative work. 50 Shades is literally Twilight fanfic, originally called "Master of the Universe," which can still be found online, even after it got taken down from the original site. The short of it was "Exactly the same as the original Twilight but with sex."

Really, the most significant difference is that Edward Cullen is renamed Christian Grey and changed from a 100-something vampire to a twentysomething billionaire CEO who talks like a 100-something vampire, and somehow has even less personality. The characters are so blatantly cut-and-paste, even the books' fans charted it out (and apparently don't see anything wrong with that). In appearance and personality, the characters remain virtually identical. Many of the books' events are copied as well, with minor changes in details.

[Greg]

I think we're talking about two different things here. I'm not exaggerating the tropes shared between Twilight and 50 Shades, or failing to account for normal derivative work. 50 Shades is literally Twilight fanfic, originally called "Master of the Universe," which can still be found online, even after it got taken down from the original site. The short of it was "Exactly the same as the original Twilight but with sex."

Really, the most significant difference is that Edward Cullen is renamed Christian Grey and changed from a 100-something vampire to a twentysomething billionaire CEO who talks like a 100-something vampire, and somehow has even less personality. The characters are so blatantly cut-and-paste, even the books' fans charted it out (and apparently don't see anything wrong with that). In appearance and personality, the characters remain virtually identical. Many of the books' events are copied as well, with minor changes in details.

Yes. Ridiculous, isn't it?

And all of that very nearly matches the way romance novels are produced.

Funny, you don't seem to think I understand the similarity between these books, and I don't seem to think you understand how the manufacture of romance titles is farmed out. (Imagine a romance novel as a cigarette. People who read romance novels all tend to have 2 pack a day habits. Quantity counts.)

[HTRN]

I'm sure Stephanie Meyer is all broken up about her series not being on par with say, Citizen Kane - why, she must have a room in her mansion just for crying about it!

That's just the thing... say what you want about Twilight (and there's plenty terrible about it), but it was original. E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey series is literally Twilight fanfiction with just enough details changed to publish it. It's one thing to get filthy rich off of one's own work. It's another to get even richer by taking someone else's work, jamming it up your ass, and crapping it onto a keyboard.

It doesn't seem to bother Meyer - she's given positive comments about it, although disclaiming the genre isn't her thing..

As for Twilight, I still say what the series really needs is "a real fucking vampire".

[Captain Wheelgun]

Twilight needs a visit from MHI.

[Jericho941]

Yes. Ridiculous, isn't it?

And all of that very nearly matches the way romance novels are produced.

Funny, you don't seem to think I understand the similarity between these books, and I don't seem to think you understand how the manufacture of romance titles is farmed out. (Imagine a romance novel as a cigarette. People who read romance novels all tend to have 2 pack a day habits. Quantity counts.)

As someone who is good friends with a romance/porn author, has met a bunch of others randomly through the NaNoWriMo community, and most of them are also avid consumers of their own genre... I'm curious as to what you base that on. Really, I want to know where you're coming from on this, because it just doesn't jibe with my own experience.

[Greg]

Yes. Ridiculous, isn't it?

And all of that very nearly matches the way romance novels are produced.

Funny, you don't seem to think I understand the similarity between these books, and I don't seem to think you understand how the manufacture of romance titles is farmed out. (Imagine a romance novel as a cigarette. People who read romance novels all tend to have 2 pack a day habits. Quantity counts.)

As someone who is good friends with a romance/porn author, has met a bunch of others randomly through the NaNoWriMo community, and most of them are also avid consumers of their own genre... I'm curious as to what you base that on. Really, I want to know where you're coming from on this, because it just doesn't jibe with my own experience.

The person I went to school with who writes romance novels. As for the demographics of romance readers, and their buying habits, that's everything I've ever read about the subject, from a wide range of sources.

[Windy Wilson]

There's always been hack writing and the good stuff. These complaints about the derivative nature of Fifty Shades of Gray and the Twilight Series are also re-runs, as the same was said about Westerns about Max Brand and Louis L'Amour. Earlier when Science Fiction was a pulp magazine phenomenon, there were the ray guns and tentacled alien crowd and the ones we remember today.

I was talking recently about these series with a woman who had a degree in English Literature, and I said that Fifty Shades of Gray was young adult literature for people who had graduated from high school. Hardy Boys for sexually active girls.