Mining for Implications, Inspiration
When thinking about lessons or implications for writing when looking at 50 Shades, I suggest it's important to get beyond the easy bad stuff to the harder bad stuff. After all, the bad writing has an easy implication for us all - write better. A little harder is to go beyond disgust of a character for, as Sarah says, "not doing what he or she wants to do ... unless" It's the "unless" which interests me. "Unless" there is a larger journey or a broader and deeper point resonating on the level of social issues of the day, the psychology of growing up, the "human condition" to use a worn out phrase or, yes, neurosis and its nature. Indeed, 50 Shades gives us nothing at that level, so the implications for writers are: gotta have the depth and development, really got to have it. And, then, hmm, just how to make it happen? I suggest not a bad place to begin is with a bad book as an angry inspiration for what one wants to do and say in a better one.
Likewise, on SCC, my thinking is there might be productive terrain in challenging the concept not in the way Sarah suggests, i.e. discarding it and hurting one another as a consequence, though there too there is possible story development of interest. My thought is the concept itself is problematic held up as it is by the S&M practitioners as a dictum and gateway to enter the exciting, daring but then safe and rewarding world of S&M. I make the point in a previous post about "consent" - the pivotal part of the dictum - meaning nothing without the whole person behind it.
We know what's wrong with the series, it seems, to read the flood of posts. But teasing out exactly the issues and beginning to think of implications for our own writing might be a useful point of departure for the thread too.
Still another path beyond simply ranking on the book: compare and contrast with Story of O, Exit to Eden and the Beauty series on character development, writing style, themes (I realize the thread isn’t a class essay, but still). I found O more gripping, deadly, downward spiraling into true evil, but beautifully rich and compelling on the horror of turning a self over to another, and not in a superficial way, but with the full soul and will frighteningly transformed in the process. Me shivers. Eden and Beauty? Puff cakes by comparison. Agreed?