Attention m/m novelists

[veronica_rich]

Yes, those of you with publishing contracts to sell m/m books starring OMCs - if you would care to render your opinion on something related.

A friend wants to know if you think repurposed slash fanfic could ever go as mainstream as 50 Shades has for het erotica (I don't know if she means any m/m or m/m erotica; you'd have to ask her, really). I'm not an author, so the opinion I gave isn't informed - do you all have any?

Comments

[slayitalldown.livejournal.com]

I do, I was beta'ing for someone and she had an idea that I thought would make an AWESOME M/M original piece as the dynamics of the character's and their relationship had a lot of chemistry. So, artfully done, yes - most readers are women after all, and we all love a love story!

Srsly, has 50 Shades of Grey taught us NOTHING about who we really are... its a rom-com with extra smut, at best. We look for chemistry and we like the final reaction, its not fair to say we like slash for the sake of slash, we like stories... slash is just another flavour of smut, really.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more of erotica, but actually any kind of book featuring a romantic relationship between two men (or two women, although Sarah Waters has already done that to a certain extent). Historical romance, detective fiction, comedy, anything you like. The only common denominator being the treatment of a same-sex relationship as normal and part of the fabric of life. :)

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

50 Shades got popular really fast but it's written like Twilight. So people who like to read stuff like that probably helped make 50 shades popular.
I have problems with the ethic's of the BDSM relationship in the book. I don't think the author knew what he/she was doing when they wrote that.

Anyway - I too am trying to turn some fan fic into original fiction.
The hardest thing to do is to take out all the fan fic details and change the characters' enough so that they no longer resemble the characters of fandom.
I think it's okay to do this. I won't promise that anything will become main stream though. I think 50 shades is a fluke. But, you never know and I hope your Author friend does get popular.

[finding-neo.livejournal.com]

If it's as poorly written as 50 Shades, sure.

The thing about 50 Shades is that it seems to me to have been written for the lowest common denominator reader, one who does not realize that part of the pull of the book is that first person narrative, which is just silly. No one can be having sex, getting flogged, what-the-f-ever sexual pleasure and be texting or writing the action at the same time. But it does create an experience for the reader which is very masochistic. We are all masochists in the broadest sense of the word. The fact that the actions in this book are somewhat forbidden for many of the sheltered women reading it, heightens the enjoyment.

Everyone knows that romance novels follow formulaic writing, right? This is the same thing. Sorry to be so down on it, I'm not down on the fanfic that you all write, just down on shit becoming popular that reads like a 3rd grader wrote it. A very twisted third grader, but still.

And I have read enough of it to have this opinion, I'm not just hating on first person narrative. We sell it where I work now. I can also go in to the socio-economics of it right now too - how women are deprived (depraved, LOL) because they can't go out and spend as much money as they used to, etc etc. This is a cheap thrill. Just the other day there was a report about how many thousands of $$ women spend in their lifetime on things like shoes.

So the publishing of 50 Shades seems very well timed, if nothing else. Find that key and you'll make a million dollars on fanfic too.