They say that everyone has a book in them.
My standard reply to this has always been a flippant, ‘Yes,
but most people’s books would be unreadable’. You only have to look at some fan
fiction on the web to see that. Pick any film or TV show (or even Radio 4’s
‘The Archers’) that has a substantial following and likely as not there’ll be
some budding author online extending the official story in prose form – and
usually with some pornographic content thrown in for good measure (though
thankfully not in the case of ‘The Archers). It’s a nice idea – if you can
ignore the copyright infringement – that anyone can have a go at taking his or
her favourite characters into situations that the ‘official’ cannon won’t.
When ‘Snowqueens Icedragon’ posted ‘Master of the Universe’,
her erotic fan fiction based on characters from the ‘Twilight’ vampire saga,
she was basically just transcribing her own filthy daydreams. ‘This is my midlife crisis, writ large’, she says.
‘All my fantasies in there, and that's it’. Could she have imagined in
her wildest (and cleanest) dreams the success it would have when she removed
the copyrighted details, changed her pseudonym to E. L. James and rebadged her
work as ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? It’s now become the UK’s fastest selling
paperback. Good luck to her and her many readers.
But the problem with most online fiction (and many
self-published ones) is the total lack of editorial control. Much of it is
simply dreadful. Happily though some of it’s good and some of it – like ‘Master
of the Universe’ – finds a niche market.
I’ve recently re-examined my views on this article’s initial
statement and I’m no longer sure that my default response to it is correct. I
don’t think I still believe that everyone has the ability to write a book,
whether a good or bad one. I’m not sure that everyone has the dedication. Sure, everyone could have the idea for a book, a one-off spark of inspiration – ‘ooh, that would
make a great plot for a novel’ – but to carry it through to completion? No, I
don’t think so.
One thing that E. L. James did that they (and I) have yet to
do? She finished what she started. She has three completed novels out there in
the market. I have none. I do though have half a dozen novels lying around in
various states of progress. My hard drive is currently a graveyard of dead and
dying novels. Some I still like, some I despise for having wasted so much of my
keyboard time. I’ve learned something from starting all of them, but sadly none
of them have taught me how place 100,000 words in a precise order that other
people could take an interest in and even recommend to their friends. Yet.
Anyway, that’s all I have time for this week. I must dash –
I’ve promised to complete my next self-published book by the end of the month.
© Shaun Finnie 2012
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