The Fifty Shades Of Grey dilemma – (WARNING – Strong language and scenes of a sexual nature)

I’m very firmly of the belief that you shouldn’t knock it unless you’ve tried it. New foods, new ideas, new books – especially books, because when I was six and was given a book for Christmas, I didn’t think I’d like it. Still, my parents got me to try it – and they turned out to be the Harry Potter books; the series which I credit for making me such a good reader and giving me a good start with my writing too. Even if I don’t think I’ll like that genre, I’ll generally try it. But there is one trilogy that I am trying to weigh up whether it might be beneficial to go back on my promise and never read, because I don’t know if it’ll even be worth the £3 per book to get it on my Kindle.

From reading extracts and reviews, I’ve concluded that 50 Shades Of Grey is my idea of a nightmare book for a number of reasons.

1. It’s been described as “Mummy porn”. I’m not a mother and I have no interest in porn, so why would I want to read it?
2. The whole concept of erotica fiction just seems a little weird. I mean, there’s so much porn on the internet, there’s so many videos and pictures… some people seem to think that porn is dirty, unless you read it. Why? Watching it doesn’t make you a bad person and reading it doesn’t make you some great intellectual person.
3. It started off as a Twilight fanfiction. Twilight isn’t exactly well-written, and every Twilight fanfiction I’ve read seems to try and emulate Stephenie Meyer’s style, so I think that alone would be enough to put me off. I’ve heard enough about the errors and poor writing style in 50SOG to put me off – yeah, maybe I’m a snob, but a bad writing style really annoys me and I’d end up throwing it out the window.
4. There are so many better fanfiction writers out there! There are some who have written Harry Potter fanfiction who could easily have best-sellers published, and from the excerpts of the book I’ve read online, the HP fanfiction authors are so much better.
5. What the hell is an inner goddess and why does she talk about it so much? I’ve only read a few excerpts and yet it’s all over the place.  Also, what is “there”, what is “kinky fuckery”, what is a “considerable length”…? Seriously, if you’re going to write porn, at least be brave enough to use the actual words.
6. Jeez. Holy cow. Biting lips. 50 Shades of Repetitive! Oh, and apparently “Oh my!” is used 79 times in the book, and not once in reference to lions, tigers and bears. Not amused. I mean, who is she? George Takei??
7. Anastasia Steele should have been called Mary Sue (or Bella Swan). Flawless and innocent and virtuous other than being a teensy bit clumsy. I can’t be the only person who automatically despises these characters and longs for their eventual gory, messy, painful death. Oh, and Christian Grey is Edward Cullen.
8. Some of the sex just sounds disturbing. And hello? Have you ever heard of UTIs, Ms James? They exist, and they’re painful. And some of the other bits… no. Just, no.
9. BDSM and abuse are not the same thing, and one of the major off-putting things about this fanfiction is that reviewers have said that it confuses the two things. Oh, and since when have women been incapable of being dominant? Way to set us all back 100 years… I hope that in the future kids will read The Hunger Games, not 50SOG, and see what a real female protagonist should be like.

So, for the record, I’m not judging the people who read it. Heck, I may even read it at one point, so I can put my money where my mouth is. If I enjoy it, or I’m wrong in any of the points I just made, I’ll hold my hands up and admit it. However, people are spouting the figures of book sales like it’s a good thing… but how many of them are reading the book for a laugh, or have read it and immediately posted reviews of how terrible it is (answer = a lot)?

I mean, I’m glad it’s getting people reading, because that’s always a good thing, I just wish people would open themselves up (no pun intended) to the better works of fiction that are out there – the classics, and if not the classics, then at least good modern fiction such as The Hunger Games, Harry Potter (I’ve also heard rave reviews for the A Song of Ice and Fire series), or even chick lit – at least those tend to be novels, rather than glorified fanfiction.

Slacking….

First things first, happy Easter to you all! If you’re religious, I hope you enjoy your day doing whatever it is you do (I’m not clued up on religious traditions), if you’re not, enjoy your chocolate! I get my easter eggs tomorrow because I’m busy today, but I hope you all enjoy your day.

This is another apology, I’ve really been neglecting my blog this past week. In fairness, I do think I have an excuse – I’m still ill, and really haven’t felt like blogging at all this week until now, when I thought it best I leave you this quick note to apologize. I will be back to my prolific-blogger-best before long, I promise, but for now I just need the time to recover, so thanks for understanding and sticking by me 🙂

Maddy x

Writing Religion!

Yes, it’s another post about one of the themes that is touched upon in quite a lot of pieces of writing. I deal somewhat with religion in my stories, although I’m always quite anxious about causing offence – and I don’t want my views to be forced onto the reader, or for all of the characters to share my religious views, which I think can come across a bit preachy if you do that and have them mentioning it so frequently.

I’m an atheist. I’m accepting of other people’s religions and faiths, but I, personally, don’t believe in God or anything. I’d like to think I’m a spiritualist, but really, I don’t want to label myself as anything because my views change so frequently depending on my mood. Sometimes, I am a spiritualist (a non-Christian one, I must add), but other times, I consider myself to be very much irreligious. I don’t think about it all that much because religion really isn’t a big part of my life. I don’t pray, I don’t worship – it just isn’t something that is ever on my mind, other than when I’m writing.

Due to the nature of my story – it deals with an afterlife that isn’t heaven – most of my characters end up with “uncertain” religious beliefs – regardless of what they believed in life, they aren’t sure anymore. One of my characters, although this isn’t mentioned, would have been a Pagan-type religion during his life because of the time he was alive. Another was an atheist born to an incredibly strict Catholic family, which was one of the major contributing factors to her death. The main female character is the one with whom I refer to religion the most, because she does end up questioning her beliefs – she was a firm Christian, but ends up questioning everything due to what happens to her. As for the rest of them, I haven’t really given it much thought – I suppose there will have been some who were religious due to their place/time of birth, others who would or wouldn’t have been religious through choice and so on.

I think it’s quite important, as I said, to make sure you don’t push your beliefs onto others, which is why I was very careful when dealing with the main female character questioning her beliefs. As an atheist, I didn’t want to just say “and suddenly she didn’t believe in God anymore” (mainly because that isn’t how I write, but also because it would seem too jumpy and sudden), and I definitely don’t portray any religion or lack of religion as more truthful than the others from a narrator’s point of view – some of the characters are firm in their beliefs and others are wavering. Instead, I made it seem as though her faith was being worn down, but she still retains some of it, and will do for the remainder of the series, because I think that’s important – I don’t want this impression being given that when bad things happen to people, they immediately decide that there isn’t a God and never believe again. I think most people question their beliefs at some point or another, and then it’s up to that person whether that questioning simply reaffirms their faith, or leads them to change their beliefs.

I think one problem I have in the story is demonizing Catholicism – I strongly disagree with some of their views, and I tried not to let that come across in the story, but the fact of the matter is that with one of the characters, her parents’ strict ways were mainly influenced by their devout Catholicism, and that is what lead to her death. I don’t want to convey the idea that Catholicism is responsible for murdering one of the characters, because it isn’t – she killed herself, and her parents were incredibly strict and took their religion too far, and it was only one of the contributing factors towards the way they behaved towards her – so I think, during editing, I may tone down the mentions towards the Catholic faith in that chapter, so that it is still there – because it is incredibly important still – but perhaps not as extreme as it was.

Religion in writing can be an absolute minefield – you have to tiptoe around so many things to avoid setting off a minefield of offence to people, some of whom take any opportunity they can find to get offended, particularly when it comes to religion. I just hope that, should my stories get published, people will realize that I as a narrator never take a particular stance towards any religion, as I aim to be tolerant of all of them (extremists are another matter altogether, but that’s something for another day). What I do is I show the views of the characters on their religion, be they good or bad, because that is a fact of life – some people have negative views of religion, others have idyllic views of it, and I want my stories and my writing, despite being fiction, to represent real people as much as possible.

Moom’s Views – Gay Marriage

This is a topic that has been in the news a lot recently, and has sparked a massive debate – most of it polite, but some of it not so. From my understanding of it, the government is considering legislation that will make gay marriage legal – at the moment, here in Britain, we only have civil partnerships – by 2015, although churches will not be forced to perform them. 

Personally, I think this is a good thing – although I don’t like the fact that the church can turn the couple away on the basis of the fact that they are gay. There are gay Christians, quite a lot of them (and I’m not referring to the Christian on Eastenders, who is gay), and they have every right to get married in a church – more right, I’m tempted to say, than someone like me, who is an atheist, straight but I’d like to get married in a church because it’s tradition, most girls dream of their big white church wedding etc. Why are churches happy enough to marry these people, but can refuse people of their own faith purely because of who they fall in love with? 

You can’t help who you fall in love with – that’s one thing I’m fairly sure of. I disagree that homosexuality is a choice, or something caused by nurture – I didn’t sit down and choose to be heterosexual, so why do people assume that gay people sit down one day and think, “Right, shall I be gay or straight? I know, I’ll be gay!”. I really can’t see that happening, somehow. I think love is love, and you can’t help who you fall in love with. The sooner people appreciate that – especially Christians, who preach so much about love and acceptance – the better. 

The church leaders say they’re trying to “preserve traditional marriage” – why can’t they just extend traditional marriage so that gay people are afforded that right too? What is so bad about changing tradition – there are so many traditions that are now outdated and aren’t used anymore because they’re considered old-fashioned or even “wrong”, and to be honest I think that the tradition of only allowing heterosexual couples to marry is wrong and old-fashioned too. 

Why do children need a mother and a father? Why not a father and a father or a mother and a mother, especially when they’ve been adopted – two caring parents of the same sex are surely better than abusive heterosexual parents, or no parents at all, or being in a care home when they don’t have any real parental figures – only carers? As long as the child is cared for and loved, that’s all that matters. 

Some people are worried that gay marriage would make homosexuality appear to be “normal” – and that’s a bloody good thing! It shouldn’t be seen as something disgusting or abnormal because it isn’t – it is love, the most natural thing in the world regardless of who it is you fall in love with, as long as both parties are legally able to consent and do consent to it. It’s time we became more accepting of people – this is all due to fear, which is due to ignorance, and if those people who are so afraid of accepting something new would reconsider their perspectives and realize that love is something beautiful, regardless of who it’s between, perhaps the world might be a little more happier.