Fiction Friday: Fifty Shades of Give Me a Break

The hot topic in publishing right now is Fifty Shades of Grey.

Originally conceived as fan fiction for Twilight, it was written by an Englishwoman, E.L. James. After it became wildly popular, she changed the names of the characters (but not much--"Emmett" became "Elliott" for example) and a few other basic facts and self-published it as an e-book. With, it's estimated, hundreds of thousands of sales, the book attracted the attention of Vintage press, who are running off copies as fast as they can, before the furor dies down.

Some people are upset that this book, which could once be read for free, now costs money. That's kind of like being upset when the cable company suddenly realizes they've been giving away Showtime and starts sending a bill. I figure Ms. James did the impossibly difficult work of creating something people (okay, women) want to read, and she deserves the reward.

Other people have problems with the fact that she essentially swiped Stephenie Meyer's characters. While that may be true, the only person who has a legitimate gripe there is Meyer.

Still other people (interestingly, mostly male people) object to the fact that it's erotica (read: porn), and not just porn, but BSDM porn.

Personally, I have no issues with anything consenting adults want to do. Tie each other up, use the entire chicken (sorry, PETA), invite people over to the coop and have yourselves a party if you want to. As long as you don't wind up in the emergency room to get said chicken extracted from wherever, thereby inflating healthcare costs for everyone, I'm okay with it. I may not be right there with you, but I'm perfectly willing to let you enjoy your life, your way.

That said, I cheered at the end of Fifty Shades...when Anastasia dumped that sick bastard. And was bummed, but unsurprised, when she went right back to him at the beginning of the second book. By the end of that one, he's a changed man due to a good woman's love, and everything was all set to be hunky-dory between them.

This is where it became problematic for me.

Sending women that old bullshit line "if you love him enough, you can change him," bugs me. And wrapping that message in hot, regressive sex, so that it seems edgy and cool, instead of the throwback to Victorian times it really is, bugs me even more.

So, if it pisses everyone off (for various reasons) why is it so popular? Well, how does it stack up against our rules for great love stories?

Is the hero rich, attractive and prepared to make Ana the center of his universe?

Christian is a gorgeous billionaire entrepreneur. It's not at all clear how he manages to keep his businesses running when he spends all his waking hours thinking about how to dominate Ana.

Is the heroine in some way his opposite?

Ana is, in the words of one reviewer, the only 22-year-old virgin in America, at least till she meets Mr. Sicko. This is particularly hard to believe because she's also so beautiful guys can't leave her alone, deeply inquisitive, and the product of not one, but two broken homes. Which is not the typical background for a girl who, without any religious convictions, saves herself for Mr. Right all the way through college. She's also distinctly un-wealthy, and while the point is made over and over that she's not materialistic, I honestly can't see her taking this crap from a homeless guy, however good-looking.

Is their attraction dangerous?

This, to me, is where the books actually work. Because of Christian's predilictions, being around him puts Ana in real, physical danger. He has anger management issues, he enjoys inflicting pain, and he's not only used to having his own way, he's accustomed to using his wealth to ensure he achieves his desires. Despite Ana's weaknesses as a character, the danger quotient was pretty high.

Add to that the hook--graphic depiction of the kind of sex that most of us have never engaged in but have always had a sneaking curiosity about--and the books' popularity becomes understandable.

So, while Fifty Shades of Gray may not appeal to our better natures, it definitely appeals to our worse ones.

Raisin Rant: The 2012 Sausage Fest

An ABC News Picture

Last week, Congressman Darrel Issa convened a panel to discuss the pressing issue of contraceptives for women. Everyone who needed to be there was included.

Unless, of course, you think possibly a woman needed to be there.

So here's my question for Congressman Issa: where do you get the giant brass balls to think that you have the right to make decisions for me?

Oh, that's right. You were born with them. (Although I'm guessing the bronzing came later.)

And the fact that I was born without them justifies completely ignoring my right to have any say-so over what happens to my body.

(Yeah, I know this hasn't been an issue in my life in 30 years. Roll with me on this, please.)

Rick Santorum shares Congressman Issa's opinion. Well, Rick, here's a thought for you: As a taxpayer, I have an issue with you continuing to have unprotected sex even though you've already gifted society with one child who will never be able to care for herself. The fact is, once a woman reaches a certain age, the odds against her bearing a healthy child increase. For heaven's sake take some responsibility for your own reproduction. Strom Thurmond may have continued to squirt out babies till he was 99, but he didn't do with a 99-year-old woman.

And here's my next question: why does Rick Santorum (and every other zealot out there) think I should live my life according to his religious beliefs? I get the anti-abortion thing: if you think life begins at conception, then abortion is murder and we don't let people murder other people. But using a condom or some other form of contraceptive to prevent pregnancy in the first place isn't abortion.

It's behaving responsibly.

Santorum also believes that if a woman--even a young girl--becomes pregnant after being raped, she should be forced to carry that rape baby. And he wants her to do that even if it means putting her life at risk.

Because that's his religious belief.

Here's an idea for you, Rick: how about we stuff a growing, living representation of the worst thing that's ever happened to you under your sweater vest and let it gestate there for nine months? It will shove all your other organs out of the way, permanently changing the landscape of your body so there can be no forgetting what happened to you, until it's time to push it out through a too-small orifice.

How does that sound?

Oh, that's right. You aren't making this decision for yourself.

You only want to make this decision for women.

Fiction Friday: The Twilight Story

(Yeah, I know it's Saturday Sunday. Give me a break.)

Last week we analyzed Twilight using the beat sheet developed by the late Blake Snyder. This week, we'll look at it based on the precepts of Robert McKee, Hollywood's grand master teacher of script-writing and author of Story.

Assuming Twilight is a story in 3 acts of Bella and Edward's star-crossed love, the act structure looks something like this:

Inciting Incident: Bella sees Edward in the cafeteria.
Act 1 Climax: Bella realizes Edward is a vampire.
Midpoint: Bella and Edward realize they're in love.
Act 2 Climax: James spots Bella and decides to make her his quarry.
Act 3 Climax: Edward rescues Bella from James.

According to McKee, each of these points should represent a turning point in the story, where the action turns in a completely different direction.

So on that basis, the story works well.

But McKee also says "repetitiousness is the enemy of rhythm." A story where something good happens, then something else good happens and then a third good thing happens is one boring story. But what some writers don't realize is that a story where something bad happens and then something worse happens and then something even worse happens, with no alternating rhythm of positive things, is also pretty tedious. At best, it's one of those mindless action flicks where the hero runs from one nightmare situation to the next without a break. At worst, it's melodrama.

The turning points listed above should turn as follows:

Act 1 Climax: + to - (For a down ending, this reverses)
Midpoint: - to +
Act 2 Climax: + to -
Act 3 Climax: - to +

So, based on the value of "love" (which is the overarching value in this story):

Act 1 Climax: Bella realizes Edward is a vampire. + to -
Midpoint: Bella and Edward realize they're in love. - to +
Act 2 Climax: James spots Bella and decides to make her his quarry. + to -
Act 3 Climax: Edward rescues Bella from James. - to +

So, at a macro level, the story works well. Especially since the degree of negative/positive movement in the situation intensifies over the course of the book.

On a more micro level, scene outcomes should also alternate positive and negative, based on some value held by the protagonist (or POV character). So let's look at the first few scenes of Twilight.

Scene	What Happens	Value Change	Value
1	Renee takes Bella to the airport	+ to -	Happiness
2	Charlie picks her up at the airport and she learns he bought her a truck	- to +	Happiness
3	Bella cries herself to sleep (sequel)	+ to -	Happiness
4	Bella sees the Cullens for the first time in the cafeteria	- to +	Excitement
5	Bella gets Edward as a lab partner and he acts like she smells bad	+ to -	Acceptance
6	Mike chats with Bella, easing some of her tension (sequel)	- to +	Acceptance
7	Bella overhears Edward trying to drop their biology class	+ to -	Acceptance

As you can see, Meyer does a great job of alternating her value changes, impelling the story forward and pulling us along with it. The other thing I found interesting was her use of sequels. Sequels, as you probably know, are designed to allow the protagonist (or other POV character) process the scene that just occurred and decide what to do next. It also lets the reader take a beat. Meyer shows that sequels can also be used to let the author slip in a needed value change.

Next week: Characters or Why Twilight Sold a Bazillion Copies

Fiction Friday: A Look at Twilight's Plot a la Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet

There are many ways to analyze plot structure in novels, plays and movies. The one I'm most familiar with are the Act/Scene/Beat breakdown taught by Robert McKee in his book Story and in his seminars.

Another, one that's probably a little easier for the neophyte, is the beat sheet shared by the late screenwriter Blake Snyder in his book, Save the Cat.

If you're interested in learning to plot better, you can't find a better place to start than with Snyder's book.

The table below represents Snyder's Beat Sheet, which assumes a 110-page script. I was looking at the trade paperback version of Twilight, which ran 498 pages. Because Snyder recommended that certain things happen at specific intervals in a movie script, I've listed the appropriate page numbers from the script and applied a multiplier of 4.54 to calculate a similar spot in the book.

Where Twilight varies from Snyder's recommended placement of a beat, I've indicated the suggested spot with a strike-through, followed by the actual page number(s). As you can see, up to about the midpoint, Meyer sticks pretty close to Snyder's beats, then blazes her own trail. Which is interesting, because it's that last quarter of the book that has all the action. It's relatively cerebral up to that point.

Also, Twilight doesn't really have much of a B story. For lack of anything better, I treated the "Bella settles in at a new high school" as the B story, but it doesn't get much page time.

Note: In a normal book/movie the A and B stories get switched when you move from the printed page to the screen. This is because the A story in a novel tends to occur too much inside the protagonist's head to translate well to the screen. The B story tends to be more action-oriented, which works a lot better for film.

Script Page	Twilight Page	Beat	What Should Be Happening
1	5	Opening Image	Foreshadowing of James attacking Bella
15	68	Theme Stated	"That was the first night I dreamed of Edward Cullen."
12	55	Catalyst	Edward risks exposing himself as a vampire when he saves Bella from being crushed by Eric's van
12-25	55-114	Debate	Bella tries to figure out how she feels about Edward Cullen
25	114	Break into Two	Jacob tells Bella about "the cold ones" and Bella realizes Edward is a vampire.
30	136	B Story	Bella goes to Port Angeles with Jessica and Angela
30-55	136-250	Fun and Games	Edward rescues Bella from the rapists; he and Bella spend the day alone in the meadow
55	250 286	Midpoint	Edward finally commits to not kill Bella (a high point in any relationship)
55-75	250-341 427	Bad Guys Close In	Rosalie doesn't like Bella; James catches a whiff of Bella and begins to hunt her
75	341 427	All is Lost	James claims to have Bella's Mom hostage
85	386 440	Dark Night of the Soul/td>	Bella thinks about all the stuff she's losing as deliberately walks into James' trap
85	386 452	Break into Three	Edward arrives to save Bella
85-110	386 452-500	Finale	Bella and Edward go to the Prom
110	500	Final Image	"...and he leanded down to press his cold lips once more to my throat."

Next week: Acts/Scenes/Beats (different kind) value changes and rising action.

Fiction Friday: What Makes a Great Love Story?

As warned, I'm going to spend a few weeks deconstructing the Twilight saga and trying to understand what made it so compelling.

In all the really great love stories I've ever read, the hero had the following characteristics:
o Rich
o Attractive to women (in the same way that cocaine is attractive to addicts)
o Is prepared to make her the center of his universe forever (It's fiction, people.)

That about sums up our Edward, doesn't it?

Compelling heroines are more of a mixed bag, I think.
o Bella is altruistic (to a fault)
o Scarlett O'Hara is stunningly selfish
o Clare Abshire (The Time Traveler's Wife) is unshakably faithful from the first minute she meets Henry
o Elizabeth Bennett instantly forms a prejudice against Mr. Darcy

Next, the hero and heroine are in some way opposites:

o Edward is a vampire, Bella is a human
o Scarlett wants acceptance/admiration from her society, Rhett could give a rip
o Clare is temporally sequential, Henry is a time traveler
o Elizabeth is lower middle class, Mr. Darcy is wealthy

So, if I wanted to create a compelling love story, I would start with people who are opposites:

o He's Wall Street. She's Occupy Wall Street.
o He's an atheist. She's a missionary.
o He's a prosecutor. She's a criminal.
o He's a soldier. She's an anti-war activist.
o She's Doctors Without Borders. He's a revolutionary.
o He's an abortionist. She's a right-to-lifer.

The more fundamental their differences, the more compelling the story. While Mr. Wall Street/Ms. Occupy Wall Street make a romantic comedy, Dr. Abortionist and Ms. Right-to-Life are not kidding around.

And if there is something about those fundamental differences that makes them dangerous to each other, the tension ratchets up another notch.

o If Elizabeth falls in love with Mr. Darcy, she has to admit she was wrong about him and that she's not as smart as she thinks she is.
o If Scarlett marries Rhett, she loses the acceptance of her society.
o If desperately-wants-to-be-a-Mom Clare marries Henry, she miscarries all those time-traveling little fetuses.
o If Bella spends too much time with Edward, he may lose it and suck her dry.

Which is why Twilight works so well.

Next week: Love stories and lumpy goods.

Third Annual Toddler New Year's Eve Party

(Better late than never....)























The plan was for the boys to sleep upstairs under Old Dog's supervision while the girls bedded down on the first floor, with me on the couch.

After yelling at the boys to settle down and go to sleep, Old Dog dozed off, only to awaken to the following whispered conversation:

Robbie: It's a monster!

Sam: There's no such thing as monsters.

Robbie: Yes, there is, and it sounds like this (makes a very loud snoring sound).

I hear you, kid. Grandma sleeps with that monster every night.

So we threw down another air mattress and the boys came downstairs and we all (except Harper, who conked out at 11:45 and Old Dog, who was upstairs sawing logs) watched the ball drop over Time Square.

Fiction Friday: The Twilight Zone

When Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, became a bestseller back in 2005, I had no real desire to read it. I didn't care for Young Adult fiction even when I was a Young Adult, and a love affair between a human girl and an ageless vampire struck me as a particularly silly concept. Beyond that, I'd heard that Ms. Meyer's prose style was not good. (Which made it particularly humiliating when iwritelike.com classified my own fiction-writing as being most like hers, but that's another post.)

Then, a few months ago, I heard a book reviewer on NPR talking about his--his, mind you--guilty reading pleasures. He was embarrassed to admit it, but he just loved Twilight.

My interest piqued, I picked it up from my local library and zipped through it.

And realized Ms. Meyer's critics were right: her prose style is not strong. I don't believe I ran across a single metaphor in Twilight that wasn't a well-worn cliche. She felt the need to tell us, not only what people said, but how they said it. (I suggested. He agreed. Mike muttered.) Even the grammar wasn't always correct. (The past tense of "kneel" is "knelt," not "kneeled.")

On the other hand, Ms. Meyer is a kick-ass story-teller.

As someone who struggles to create sympathetic characters, I was fascinated by how Ms. Meyer made Bella Swan so appealing. (According to my critique partners, my own characters tend to be too blunt in their communication and too analytical. They suffer, I'm afraid, from Just-Like-My-Creator syndrome.)

As Twilight begins, 17-year-old Bella is moving from warm, sunny Phoenix, AZ to always-raining Forks, WA to live with her dad. Her mother has recently remarried and young Bella wants to give Mom a shot at happiness with her new husband. Our girl is not a particularly good sport about it--she's as sulky as your average teenager--but she does make a voluntary choice for her mother's happiness over her own.

Altruism is very attractive.

I was interested, too, in Edward Cullen, Meyer's brooding hero. What makes a compelling hero? Chiseled good looks? Intelligence? Cash? All those things, plus a willingness to make the heroine the center of his universe. (Which is what makes the courtship phase of relationships such a drug, but, again, that's another post.)

Then, in my quest to analyze Meyer's characters, I picked up the second book in the series, New Moon.

This is where it got crazy.

New Moon is 563 pages.

Eclipse, the third book, is 629 pages.

Breaking Dawn (which, by the way, reads like Meyer had to turn it in to her publisher, ready-or-not and they published it as-is) is 754 pages.

I read those nearly 2000 pages this week. While working full-time. Finishing at 10 p.m. Thursday. (Okay, I had Monday off for MLK Day, but still.) After reading New Moon I was obsessed. Old Dog fell asleep every night this week with the light on my side of the bed shining in his eyes as I assured him that I'd turn it out "in just another minute."

Even when I wasn't reading, I was in a supernatural fog.

Now that the mist has (mostly) lifted, I'm going to go back and tear these things apart and see what makes them tick. Over the next few weeks we'll look at characterization and plotting, refererencing Bob McKee, Blake Snyder, Syd Field and Christopher Vogler and Joseph W. Campbell as I try to figure out what made the Twilight books so hypnotic.

Because, while I have no desire to write a vampire book, I would give all four bicuspids to write something that mesmerizing.