blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2012-08-25 01:10 am
blamebrampton) wrote2012-08-25 01:10 am
Entry tags:
Ah HA!
FANFICCERS!
Worried about lack of reviews?
Sad that everyone is reading everyone who is not you?
Depressed to see teenagers who don't know how to spell frottage and cannot accurately gauge the bendability of the average penis with thousands of ffnet reviews while your finely crafted and beautifully edited masterpieces are lucky to garner 23?
FRET NO LONGER!
THE SECRET IS REVEALED!
''People say it isn't good quality but you have to remember Fifty Shades started as fan fiction and as fan fiction you have to have action,'' Hayward says. ''You have to have a sex scene in every chapter because that's how you get your reviews. The amount of people who review per chapter shows popularity, that's how your ratings get up. In fan fiction every chapter has to give you something to keep you reading it.''
(From an SMH interview with Amanda Hayward, the really rather brilliant publisher of the not as brilliant book.)
So there you go! You lot who've been telling me to porn it up were right all along! (I mean, obviously I'm not going to, but that's for the best. The Bad Sex Awards longlist is already inches thick.)
I thoroughly recommend the article, which is interesting and respectfully written, without being actually nice about bad writing. It includes this gem from The London Review of Books' Andrew O'Hagan, which I had previously missed: ''It's not that Fifty Shades of Grey and E.L. James's other tie-me-up-tie-me-down spankbusters read as if feminism never happened: they read as if women never even got the vote.''
Worried about lack of reviews?
Sad that everyone is reading everyone who is not you?
Depressed to see teenagers who don't know how to spell frottage and cannot accurately gauge the bendability of the average penis with thousands of ffnet reviews while your finely crafted and beautifully edited masterpieces are lucky to garner 23?
FRET NO LONGER!
THE SECRET IS REVEALED!
''People say it isn't good quality but you have to remember Fifty Shades started as fan fiction and as fan fiction you have to have action,'' Hayward says. ''You have to have a sex scene in every chapter because that's how you get your reviews. The amount of people who review per chapter shows popularity, that's how your ratings get up. In fan fiction every chapter has to give you something to keep you reading it.''
(From an SMH interview with Amanda Hayward, the really rather brilliant publisher of the not as brilliant book.)
So there you go! You lot who've been telling me to porn it up were right all along! (I mean, obviously I'm not going to, but that's for the best. The Bad Sex Awards longlist is already inches thick.)
I thoroughly recommend the article, which is interesting and respectfully written, without being actually nice about bad writing. It includes this gem from The London Review of Books' Andrew O'Hagan, which I had previously missed: ''It's not that Fifty Shades of Grey and E.L. James's other tie-me-up-tie-me-down spankbusters read as if feminism never happened: they read as if women never even got the vote.''
no subject
What worries me is the impact of a big success like this on everything else, which is like people who drink more Coke than water and wonder why there's suddenly a worldwide epidemic of dental cavities. I don't think for a moment that Amanda Hayward is saying 'Do this and you'll have my sales figures', because she seems very sensible (so does EL James). But I've noticed a lot of serious publishers saying 'Oh, the ladies like the porn! Who knew? Right, what do we have?'
Which will be FINE as long as it results in just a raft of hilarious sex writing that will keep my work friend saying 'It's so bad, I'm ashamed to enjoy it, but what the hell!' It just won't be fine if it results in only that sort of book dominating new releases, because fan service is all about responding to things you already know, whereas good books and films and TV show us new things and make us want to see the world in those new ways.
The woman you saw would have made a brilliant photo. But maybe she's like my work friend and having a bad divorce, so it's fun to dream of men who can be Redeemed By Great Love. (Personally, after my one bad break up, I would have liked to read a book about men who can be fed through garden shredders and how to clean the parts thoroughly afterwards …)
no subject