50 Shades of Butterflies in the Amazon (remixing something you don't agree with)

First a little context.

While having a beautiful and relaxing holiday in the South of France, we noticed an odd phenomenon: most of the British women at our camp site had a copy of 50 Shades of Grey, or one of its sequels.
One afternoon, I was lying on a sunbed, listening to to wonderful noise from the pool when two women walked slowly passed, one was holding the third book from the trilogy. As they passed, the women not holding the book said: "So is it good?" and the woman holding the book said: "Nah, it's crap, but you kind of want to know what's going to happen next. I think you'd like it."

Chalk up three more sales.

So I started talking with Alison (she had read books 1 and 2, but couldn't be arsed to buy book 3) and, in the process, came up with the idea of rewriting 50 Shades and making it 'better.' Of course, this relies upon me being a better writer than EL James and my ethics would never permit me to say such a thing. No, scratch that. I am. Much better.

Anyway, I made the decision to rewrite the first couple of chapters when I had the time and see how it went. If it was OK, I'd continue. If not, I'd drop the project and go back to thinking about aliens in strange Victorian dress and an apocalypse that happened very slowly. The idea was given added impetus by China Mieville's recent talk about fostering remix culture in literature (I think what I'm doing is a cover version, rather than a remix, but the principle is similar enough for it not to matter).

But. I have just finished chapter 2, and I've hit a major stumbling block. It's this.

I am enjoying the writing. Reading through someone else's work and thinking about how to make it better (which is something I do everyday, though with a much lighter hand, in my day job), and then writing out an improved line of text is very satisfying. It's like someone came in and took care of the broad brush strokes of a painting, allowing me to concentrate on the detail - to try to take lumpen dialogue and romance novel cliche, and turn it all into something sparkling without betraying the central ideas of the text.

And therein lies the problem. I think the central ideas in the text are deeply problematic and, this is the kicker, the central character in the story is refusing to go along with them. I've tried to make her into a simpering simpleton searching out validation and the love she never really got from her parents, but she is resisting. In each encounter with Mr Grey (I renamed him Mr Severin in honour of Severin von Kusiemski), she pushes back - occasionally embarrassed by her complicity in his attempts at control. This does interesting things to the characters, but in terms of romance novels, may not provide the desperate escapism that is so often regarded as the core demand of the reader.

So that's problem one. I have changed one aspect of the character and it's started rippling through the plot. And this leads to problem two.

Every novel has a line, paragraph or section upon which the entire structure pivots. It is an anchor holding the whole thing steady. In my other book, it was nine words and a piece of punctuation.

In 50 Shades..., it's the moment when Christian reveals his 'dungeon' to Ana - and thus reveals who he truly is - though of course, deep down that isn't his true self, cos that would be bad.

I haven't got to that part yet (I'm writing as I read), but hearing other people talk about it, the only thing I could think of was the bloke from The Lovely Bones taking the girl into his hole in the ground (genuinely revealing his true self) and trying to convince her that everything was OK. The girl in that story understands far more than her captor. She knows who he is, and what he wants, while he maintains the pretence that he is a cool old man and is in control. We know that in life he envies power but has none. And so he exercises what little power he can attain (though even this is false and fleeting, and always in need of topping up) over children.

You have to imagine how creepy it would be to have a new lover take you into a room and say: "Basically, the thing I'd like to do is hurt you. You can trust me though. Yes, I know you don't really know me, but you can trust me. Cross my heart and hope to die!"

This scenario is no good for either party in 50 Shades... or for the audience.

Ana is an innocent. I've made her less innocent, but nonetheless, EL James has made her pure and even a little hesitant about her own sexuality. I'm pretty sure her reaction would be: "Fuck off! Creep." And rightly so. She's not an idiot.

But Christian is supposed to be about control, about measured exposure. He is the kind of person that would never blurt out a secret to someone he barely knows, especially if he is investing his emotions in that person, and the revelation might fuel his own self-loathing. James paints him this way, and then splurges her efforts on this one moment. He would need to know he was going to get what he wanted.

A more realistic scenario involves the pair flirting, becoming close, learning to trust one another, discussing fantasy, experimentation, etc. Even if one character is driving these conversions and moments towards a particular goal - or confession - it would only make sense to do it within the confines (and I use that word in a positive way) of a trusting relationship.

I'm going to continue writing this (I quite like the notion of the romance/erotic novel, though in the examples I've read, I get bored quite quickly) for another two chapters and see how it goes. My theory is that the butterfly flaps that have just happened in the hardware store where Emma Wainwright (Anastasia Steele was the first cliche to go) will be amplified through a short (much shorter, in fact) photographic session, into a flirtatious but chaste car journey and into arrangements for a first date.

The interesting thing is. If we understand that Christian Severin has unusual tastes, and is working towards revealing this to his new love, there is the prospect of a story that has loads of sex, but also loads of sexual tension. It's not the love or consummation that is delayed, as in traditional romance, but the understanding. We know. He knows. She (sort of) knows. But who tells first.

The other interesting thing is that, shorn of its rape fantasy pillar - and the joy of relinquishing control within the confines of a book - does this kind of story still work for the target audience? For any audience?

First draft (straight to page, no edits) of Chapter 1 is here.


* Standard disclaimer: should something brighter or shinier bash into my brain, I may not finish this. The value of trousers may go down as well as up. You home may be at risk if you do not keep up repayments on it. *

* Second disclaimer: If you think I'm nicking the beginning of EL James' novel for my own moneymaking purposes (and especially if you're a lawyer working for the suddenly loaded Ms James), it might be worthwhile searching out one of my university projects in which almost exactly the same thing happens. It's even conducted mostly through emails and texts. *

Finally, a way into the big idea

I've mentioned to a few people that my big idea for a second book is likely to be controversial. Really controversial. And so I've been trying to work out the best way to approach the whole idea. My first idea was to just leap straight in with the first real scene, but I think that would be a little too shocking and doesn't provide the kind of little turns I like to put into these things - that 'WTF just happened?' moments that I enjoy. And so, inevitably I think, I went back to Frankenstein and the recursive structure from that. So I have someone telling a story, of someone else's story of the main narrative. That should give me the distance that I like, and the slightly disreputable enveloping narrators should make the whole thing a little more 'unreliable'.
I managed to bang out a 1,000 words of Chapter 1 (the first envelope) tonight while watching the Poland-Russia game in French and planned a little of the second envelope. Now the second envelope is controversial, but is nothing compared to the nugget of the story.
One other interesting thing to ponder: this story has a lot of real people in it, so I'm thinking as part of my mitigation strategy, that the narrator for the first envelope could be me.
What does that do to the story?
Interesting questions.

The first paragraph (so far), by the way, is this.

The last message I got from Davy was a text a couple of days before he pegged out. It just said “ur story” and then had the address of a hotel and a ‘code word’ to say to the receptionist. By the time I landed in Miami, he’d gone.

Where to get ideas from?

Ideas seem to come in two forms. The first is a kind of magical thing that pops into your brain as if from nowhere. It might be inspired by an overheard snatch of dialogue between two people, a near-miss event (what if that had happened?), or a random thought. I've had lots of these, but in the main they don't feel solid and often I'll start writing and hit a block fairly quickly. These ideas get filed away for later, but I think the initial rush makes it difficult to return, even though the blocks are probably easily resolved.

The second belongs to a process. This morning I woke up thinking, I've actually finished my first attempt at a fiction book, and in a few days people I care about will have a beta version in their hands. But what do I do next? Despite the fact that it is hard, I love the process of writing and editing and so sitting back and doing nothing is not an option (I've also discovered that if you neglect your Forza 4 skills they disappear very quickly) so when I was awake at 5am this morning, I thought: "Right, let's have an idea..." I went through a ton of things from my past - some obvious, some obscure - and there were a few good things there that could be excavated, but nothing that you would want to hang 75,000 words on alone.

Next up I started putting myself into other situations to see how that would work. Then I started looking at objects in my apartment and thinking about the various associations I have with those things. And there it was: a germ of an idea.

So I have added three core characters (all fairly blank lego people at the moment), and started thinking about their relationships and the tensions that may arise between them. There has to be conflict, so if you have a happy relationship - and I thought it was important to have at the core a strong, stable relationship - where does that conflict arise. That's my next challenge. I have a partial solution based on ideology and history and the compromises we make in any relationship, but it needs a little thinking about.

I have a beginning, now I need the ending.

Oh, and while all this is going on in my head, I also need to think about what happens beyond the last page of the first book I wrote, because there's a whole world to explore there...

My disloyal mind

Here's a funny thing. Barring any massive changes, I have about 2,000 words left to write. Ordinarily that would take me an evening. But I have been pondering this last stretch for a couple of days, and have yet to make any effort to actually get them done.
It's not like I don't know what each word is going to be - the three chapters they come from are all done in note form, and I know what I want to say - but still I find myself writing other stuff (including this rumination, and rambling things about the genius of the songs Duel, Jewel and Jewelled by Propaganda) and not getting the final bit done. Why is this?
Two nights ago I woke from a really horrible dream in which I was being chased around my hometown by a very large male lion. I did everything I could to shake it off and ended up cramped between a red steel bar and a glass roof, quite high up, hoping the lion wouldn't realise it could jump on the bin as I did and eat me. Despite being incredibly scared, I kept saying to myself "Of course this is a dream! Where the hell would a lion come from in Thornbury?"
Luckily I woke before the beast realised that the bin would be a good springboard, but did a status update on Facebook about the nature of my night. A colleague suggested that dreams like this meant either a fear of authority (ha!) or a fear of not being able to live up to expectations. I think this is something my dad suffered from - he would rather throw out substandard work than let anyone see it - and so I can only conclude that this bout of procrastination (and my god, am I good at procrastinating) might be due to a worry about saying "it's finished" and then having people read it.
I've been pretty confident through the writing process itself, so find myself a bit baffled by this apparent bit of doubt. I thought I'd left that behind me, but apparently not.
Anyway, another of my bits of procrastination activity has been writing some short stories, including the slightly horrible one I'm going to post in a minute. As with the Flight Fiction I did earlier (there will be another of those on Saturday, btw) it's a first draft + line edit.

I do actually have one thing to worry about...

I've been reading quite a lot of comment and comments about how self-publishing is going to destroy the very notion of quality in publishing and that, without the gate-keepers of old, any old rubbish will be competing for the eyes of the public.

The other thing that gets mentioned is that publishers are risk-averse because they're looking for guaranteed profits. So here's my worry. I am a pedant. This book is supposed to be written by a 13-year-old girl with no formal education, at a time when grammar was being solidified in the English language. This means that I can't begin like this.

Excerpt one - common sentence, grammar and language structure.

Dear husband. Three days ago I became the last girl in the world. In 40 pages I will be a woman. My father says that I am bound by tradition to tell you how I 'became' a woman, but Jon Mair - the doctor - says I should use these pieces of paper to write down the herbs, spices and recipes that will make farmers better so they can continue to work.
But I want to tell you about Jenna. You probably know her, but if I don't write down my memories of her, I will forget the way she looks, and the things we did when we played like sisters and friends. Pa says I can remember her just like I remember Ma. But I don't really remember Ma. I forgot her face soon after she died. Now I can't recall her face or hair, or the sound of her voice. Sometimes, when we make tea with lots of honey, the smell makes me feel I can almost see her, but not enough to really see her in my mind.

Excerpt two - my sentence, grammar and language structure.

dear husband. 3 days past i became the last girl in the world. in 40 pages i will be a woman. pa says i sposed to tell you how i turn into a woman but jon mair says i must write down the herb and spice plans to make farmers better. i want to tell you all about jenna. you know jenna but if i dont write her into my pages i will forget how she looks and the things we did like sisters and frens. pa says i can keep her in my mind like ma but i dont have ma in my mind anymore. i cant tell him that when she went to the old island she left my mind fast. now i dont no her face or hair or the sound of her voice. sometimes i will smell the house after a long time away or smell hunnytea and i can see some of her. but not enuff.

(this is draft one, and I've just realised my spelling of 'write' doesn't work. It should be rite (same structure as bite) and also 'anymore' might be a little bit complex). So excerpt two is a little more difficult to read than one, because there was uncommon spellings that work phonetically in the main, no capitals, no commas and no apostrophes. It is the way I would imagine someone writing if they had grown up in a largely oral culture.

Now I could go over and edit the text to make it modern (which is the first thing I imagine an agent would suggest), but then the book would lose its spine. The language develops through the text as the girl becomes more confident, and so to blunt these early chapters would ruin it. It would, in fact, make me hate it.

That's a bit of a dilemma, because if you take chapters 1 - 5 out of context (they're short chapters, I promise), or even just ripped out a single sentence, then you would assume that this was written by one of a million chimps who had just struck the typewriter keys with uncommon luck. When you read beyond chapter 5, things start falling into place (the grammatical progression has been the hardest thing to manage so far, and it still feels a little abrupt at times) and it starts to feel more like a more traditionally written piece.

So. What to do? How do I get people beyond the first five chapters?

Stewart Lee's lesson for concerned writers everywhere

OK. I've never got this far before and I have discovered something beautiful as near the final parts of draft 1 and start thinking about draft 2. There are very definite themes running through the text that I wasn't expecting, and the one I had planned is actually fairly strong already and will require just a little shifting of the POV's thoughts to reinforce things. The beauty is that these have bubbled up organically so (to my ear at least) don't feel forced. It would be easy to make the themes too obvious and contrived, so I have to make sure I haul things back and make sure I don't leave the character's voice behind.

While writing the last four chapters I've been reading Stewart Lee's books about stand up comedy and his attempts to both annoy and captivate the audience at the same time. This, obviously, is not my intention (Radiohead tells us you have to gain an audience before trying to alienate them), but the idea that the audience is willing to follow you through plainly difficult moments if you can reassure them early on that you know where you're going, and everything will come together in the end, is something that I think is easy to forget. The reader needs confidence in the author. If it's your first go at a novel, that's quite difficult to achieve.

Part of the appeal of writing stuff here, I think, is the ability to prepare the reader (look, I'll just assume I'm going to have a reader) for the fact that the beginning is not traditional, but that things change as the story develops. It would be easy to pick up chapter one or two and, because of the nature of the voice, think: 'this person just can't write. Can't even spell!'

Some of the short fiction pieces that I plan to post here (character/event pieces written with a more traditional voice, but within the same history) will hopefully provide this sense of comfort that allows me to take the reader along when things go strange.

The other thing I've done, which makes me very happy, is writing the final line. I know how it all ends.