If you haven't heard of it (which you will have, so this explanation is pointless) it is a fan fiction that has been published. If you don't know what fan fiction is, then you simply did not enjoy your tween years. Fan fiction is a website where people write stories about characters from books. I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I have got to say that I did have my own (very active, might i add) fan fiction account, where I wrote stories about Twilight. In fact I recently read them, and was struck by my own genius. No, not really, but to be fair to my 14/15 year old self, some of them are pretty hilarious. And lol no, I'm not going to give you my name. Not that you're obsessed with me to the extent that you'd actually care.
Anyway, I apologise profusely for that massive detour that was just about myself, but FSOG was written originally as a Twilight fan fiction. If you are a true Twilight fan, you can see many similarities. But aside from that, the point of this thing was, was to say that it is unfair how mean people are about FSOG.
Everyone talks about how it is anti-feminist, how it's a form of pornography, how it is terribly written and so on.
First of all, yeah the writing is appalling. I mean, she does talk a lot about her 'inner goddess' as well as constantly exclaiming, 'double crap!' and referring to her sub-conscious in weird ways. As a fellow fan-fiction-er I can tell you that it is written exactly like a fan fiction. I even re-read some of mine and they are written a bit like that, I think the phrase, 'I felt confusion ripple through my body' was used in one of mine. I dont know abut you, but i have never felt confusion ripple through me. But, whatever, it's just fan fiction. No one cares. And FSOG was written as a fanfiction. People just want to read more about the stories, they only care about the characters, so it simply doesnt matter to anyone if the writing is poor. I think it's so unfair when people are so mean about the writing, because it was not written as a work of literature. Plus, she's actually got a really good fanfiction talent in that when you're writing on fanfic, you've got to end every chapter in a cliffhanger. It's freaking hard. It's cus you've always got to keep your readers interested, as there's so much competition, and they can just click off you. The story also needs to be simple enough so that your readers (who are probably reading five or six stories) can always catch on to what is going on, hence the devastatingly simple storyline. Let me tell you, to keep people interested is a skill. You also need incredible skills in timing. But that's beside the point, I'm just saying, its not easy to get recognised on fanfiction. Srsly.
Then there's the pornography thing. I admit, I do not know a lot about porn, but FSOG is not porn. Yeah, Christian Grey is into, like, S&M, but the whole point is that Anastasia isn't! She doesn't like it, and yeah she does it for a while but that's because she's fallen in love with him (awwwwwwww). I don't want to give the intricate plot away, but there are complications regarding her... participating in the acts. This has got a lot more seedy than I first intended. I am sorry. Tbh, the sex scenes are not THAT explicit. Not in comparison to other ffs (not mine!!). If you want to check this, just go onto fanfiction.net and go to Twilight and click 'M'. In fact, I'll do it for you: http://www.fanfiction.net/book/Twilight/14/0/1/1/0/0/0/0/0/1/0/. Because, let me tell you, clicking on 'M' when I was 12 years old because I didn't know what it meant, scarred me a little bit. All I wanted to read about was Dr Who, and yet I still remember the one I read now... it was disgusting.
But anyway, I am not the authority on erotica literature (I am sorry to both disappoint and surprise you all!) but I wasn't really shocked by the sex scenes. Well, some of them are weird, but I had heard that FSOG was a disgusting book that you need ID to buy in Waterstones because it will corrupt your brain as soon as you read the title... And it didn't! Damn. Better read something worse...
And the anti-feminist thing. Eugh, I can't even be bothered with this. Before I read it I was all omggggg women have been put back two centuries by this book omgggg. I would like to tell previous me to stfu, because it's just not true. It's just what people who hate the book say about it to make others instantly hate it too. Obviously if someone says that a book is anti-woman and yet written by a woman and read by loads of women you'd be like, 'this must be stopped! It makes us look weak!' but it's not.
And now we get onto the people-hating it thing. I was discussing this with a friend, (fine, it was my mum) and we came to the conclusion that people are just jealous of EL James. She didn't even try to publish her book, and yet it became an instant success. I mean, an incredible success: it's sort of unbelievable. And when you see these interviews with her, you're like, this is so unfair! My stories on ff are witty and charming and intelligent and oh-so-well-written, and yours is written as though you were high, and has no sub-plots! I HAD SUBPLOTS, DAMMIT.
Really, everyone has become wrongly obsessed with this book (or trilogy, should I say!) when it is just an ff like any other that women read because it's a romantic love story which (and I don't want to give anything away here) ends happily. WHO COULD ASK FOR MORE? That's all I want. Cry. This has now taken a turn for the awkward, soz. Interestingly enough, most of my ffs had depressing ends which may have been why people got upset with me. Insight, at last. In one of them, Jacob died. So controversial.
