50 Shades of Grey trilogy goes from fan fiction to Random House

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Stew21

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/10/fifty-shades-of-grey_n_1336990.html


James' trilogy began as fan fiction, a thriving genre online in which fans write variations of their favorite books and characters, stories usually intended solely for fellow aficionados. James used the vampire Edward and teen Bella from Stephenie Meyers' mega-selling "Twilight" and placed them in Seattle. First called "Master of the Universe" and published two years ago on the website , James' stories attracted a strong following and were released commercially in 2011 by Writer's Coffee Shop.

The books' success has set off a strong debate online.

The arguments are that it is well-known that the book started as fan fiction, and that James' characters are nothing more than stand-ins for Edward and Bella; the publisher says the book has undergone major changes to become the series it is.

interesting...
 

Stew21

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I shared the link on Facebook and one of my friends said she's read them and any romance reader would love them, and she hates book snobs so let people enjoy what they want to enjoy. I explained to her that absolutely, it's sold like wild fire, and will sell more, I'm sure, but this isnt "book snobbery", but as writer, it's fanfiction roots are a concern. She doesn't understand what I mean, I'm sure... ah well.
 

Cyia

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It's being trumpeted as a victory for fanfiction writers gaining "legitimacy", but I'm not sure even the people in the communities understand the possible implications down the line.

The story was so similar to the fanfiction that the author was "outed" when her angry fanfiction fans started crying plagiarism after reading the commercial version. She had to assure them that the fanfiction was her creation as well. Plotting issues aside (again, this is 2nd hand info), there are things like rampant Britishisms in a book set in Seattle and populated by solely American characters. It's definitely a case of momentum trumping all, because that sort of thing wouldn't normally fly.
 

Alitriona

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50 shades is an all human story about a late 20's, early 30's wealthy business man who had an unsavory relationship with an older woman as a young teen. He is very much involved in BDSM lifestyle. He meets a young woman who comes to interview him for a college newspaper and begins a relationship with her as his sub. I imagine most people know Twilight is set in Forks where the vampires sparkle.

I read it as fanfiction. It wasn't my cup of tea, although I wish the author well. For me, there was no significant similarity to Twilight other than names. The books are not aimed at the YA market.

ETA. I mean the names in the fanfiction, the names in the book are different.
 

Stew21

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no, it isn't aimed at the YA market, because it's erotic fantasy fan fic. At least that's what I understood fromthe article.
 

jjdebenedictis

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50 shades is an all human story about a late 20's, early 30's wealthy business man who had an unsavory relationship with an older woman as a young teen. He is very much involved in BDSM lifestyle. He meets a young woman who comes to interview him for a college newspaper and begins a relationship with her as his sub. I imagine most people know Twilight is set in Forks where the vampires sparkle.

I read it as fanfiction. It wasn't my cup of tea, although I wish the author well. For me, there was no significant similarity to Twilight other than names. The books are not aimed at the YA market.
I have read fanfiction where the premise was so different from the source material that I suspected the writer was essentially trying to steal an audience for their original fiction by putting in another author's character names.

This premise sounds so different from Twilight's that I don't have any problem with it being published as its own work. Maybe it shouldn't have been called Twilight fanfiction in the first place (caveat: I haven't read it; I don't really know. High possibility I'm talking out of my ass, rather than my typing fingers.)

However, I am kind of tickled that someone decided to openly portray Edward as a Dom and Bella as a sub. To my mind, that is where Twilight's driving tension comes from--Bella's a natural sub who must assert herself to win her Dom's affections, and Edward is a natural Dom who is trying to discreetly bow out of the relationship. All the conflict is internal.
 

veinglory

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It was AU (alternative universe) fan fic. So I have not trouble believing that it could be made 100% non-Twilight.
 

kaitie

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As someone who hasn't read it, doesn't it matter more how similar it is to Twilight? I've read several AU fanfictions in my day that were so completely different from the original stories (oftentimes characters completely changed to match whatever the author wanted as well), that it was hard to tell it was even supposed to be fanfiction.

Is this one that was really similar to Twilight in the original incarnation?
 

Stew21

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kaitie, I haven't read them; I have no idea.

I'm just going from the point that it was admittedly (from the author) Twilight fanfiction posted on fanfiction.net to a small publisher - giving it a different title and changing the characters names - to Random House (which I'm assuming is because it is a steamroller right now and they wanted to get a piece of it while it's still rolling.)
 

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Swagger jacking? All sorts of book are clearly trying to be the next Twilight. There is nothing forbidden about comparison or inspiration.
 

Cyia

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I don't think the problem is with 50 Shades, it's in the potential precedent. To a (huge) pool of people, this is coming off as "I sold my fanfiction for a fortune, AND YOU CAN, TOO!" Even though that's not the author's intent.
 

Kitty27

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Swagger jacking? All sorts of book are clearly trying to be the next Twilight. There is nothing forbidden about comparison or inspiration.



Swagger jacking isn't about comparison or inspiration, Veinglory. It means taking someone's style COMPLETELY, without trying to put your own unique spin on it.
 

ChaosTitan

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As someone who hasn't read it, doesn't it matter more how similar it is to Twilight? I've read several AU fanfictions in my day that were so completely different from the original stories (oftentimes characters completely changed to match whatever the author wanted as well), that it was hard to tell it was even supposed to be fanfiction.

Is this one that was really similar to Twilight in the original incarnation?

Other folks have mentioned that the fanfiction version was apparently Alternate Universe. I've read AU fanfic before, and even written some back in the day. Some AU is only slightly different from the source material, while some AU is so wildly different that sometimes the only similarity is character names. "Masters of the Universe" seems to fall somewhere in the middle (I'm guessing here, because I haven't read it).

It's possible that while the Shades text and the MOTU text is very similar, the original MOTU text may be different enough from anything remotely Twilight that they're legally safe. That must be what Random House is banking on, or they wouldn't have touched the books.
 

veinglory

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I don't think she did that. The writing style, the genre and the events in the story are different. If it wasn't known to be have formerly be an AU it would probably not be in many people's top 10 'trying to ride the coat tails' nominations. Probably not even the top 50.

It is known that Meyer's lawyers looked at this book a month or so ago. Apparently they don't have a problem with it. If there was even a hint that they did, I doubt it would have been picked up by a big house.
 

ChaosTitan

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It is known that Meyer's lawyers looked at this book a month or so ago.

This is about when I first heard about the trilogy. Then it started popping up on review blogs. People were talking about it because of the Twilight connection, and then the whole thing went viral.

All it really proves is the value of word-of-mouth. Writing/story quality aside, people bought it because it was being talked about and they wanted to investigate the hype for themselves.
 

Alitriona

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I have read fanfiction where the premise was so different from the source material that I suspected the writer was essentially trying to steal an audience for their original fiction by putting in another author's character names.

This premise sounds so different from Twilight's that I don't have any problem with it being published as its own work. Maybe it shouldn't have been called Twilight fanfiction in the first place (caveat: I haven't read it; I don't really know. High possibility I'm talking out of my ass, rather than my typing fingers.)

However, I am kind of tickled that someone decided to openly portray Edward as a Dom and Bella as a sub. To my mind, that is where Twilight's driving tension comes from--Bella's a natural sub who must assert herself to win her Dom's affections, and Edward is a natural Dom who is trying to discreetly bow out of the relationship. All the conflict is internal.

I don't believe there was any audience stealing going on. This writer had no way of knowing what a hit the story would be. There are some accusing her of this, there's a lot more to that, most of it personal to the author rather than anything to do with her work content.

There is a lot of DOM/SUB Twilight ff. Some better protrayed and some worse. As for it not being fanfiction in the first place. There is a thinking, which I don't agree with, that any story no matter how far removed from source is fanfiction if the writer says it is. This is especially true in twi ff, where there is a short supply of vampires.
 

Momento Mori

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Jeremy Duns on Twitter (@jeremyduns) was talking about this yesterday. He's got a bit of a niche when it comes to examining plagiarism and he was interested in talking about the implications for this.

Personally, given that the fic seems to have been pretty much AU and it goes in to worlds that TWILIGHT was never going to touch with a ten foot sparkly werewolf, while I think it's pretty unethical, I'm not surprised by it. There are a number of YA and fantasy authors out there who were helped to their publishing careers by their large fandom presence. Taking a sufficiently AU fanfic, filing off the serial numbers and then selling it back to that same hungry audience and charging for it, is pretty much the next step in it.

Publishing's always had a strong element of "like X but different" and this is just another manifestation of it.

Having read a number of blogs on this in the last couple of days, I think the author played Twilight fandom superbly and has milked it as much as she can. I also think that she'll get away with it because I can't see Stephenie Meyer or her publishers having the stomach to fight it UNLESS a fic is so blatantly a rip off of their work (e.g. Potato Moon or whatever that whackjob was selling last year) that it makes it financially worth their while to incur the legal expenditure. (And I note that she never did go after Lady Spudulike or whatever her name was).

MM
 

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I think there was something about the Twilight relationship that sparked it off. But something too abstract to cause problems now.

I don't think it was done cynically. It was just an AU that broke free and become something more.

One of my books started out as an AU, but I doubt anyone could tell which one or what the inspiration was.
 
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