Editing Fifty
IN 2009, a good friend I’d met through the Twilight fandom introduced me to the story “Master of the Universe.” According to her, the lead male character—Fifty—was everything I’d been looking for in a good fanfiction Dom. He was mysterious, calculating, demanding, jaded, and best of all, panty-dropping hot.
“Master of the Universe” or, as we now know it, Fifty Shades of Grey, held me captive from the first chapter. I was drawn to Ana’s unbelievable innocence, and I found Christian’s ability to take command of Ana in the bedroom and otherwise a huge turn-on. While I’d read several BDSM Twi-fanfictions by the time I came across Fifty Shades, something about the way E. L. James wrote her characters made their story unique compared to the others.
It didn’t take long for Fifty Shades of Grey to garner a following in the Twi-fandom. People could read it on FanFiction.Net as well as at the Twilighted community. I followed the story via FanFiction.Net. By the time I really got into the story, James must have had over 2,000 reviews from fans. I’d never read a fanfiction novel that had received so many comments in so little time. People were passionate about the direction the story took from update to update. Fans would get irritated at Christian for being too demanding of sweet little Ana or angry at Ana for not being more understanding of Christian’s needs as a Dom.
I visited the Twilighted threads a few times during the months I was reading the fanfic. Twilighted is where James built her original fan base—the Bunker Babes. The Bunker Babes are a group of Fifty Shades fans that supported and backed James no matter what direction she took the story. They promoted Fifty Shades all over Twitter and the fanfiction communities. They were her sounding board and cheer squad, and were a force to be reckoned with.
I loved reading the story because James took a nonconformist approach to intertwining the BDSM and vanilla aspects that kept the BDSM elements from being too in-your-face. The sexual tension between the two characters made me so hot and bothered that it was sometimes difficult to contain myself, and I wasn’t the only one. Thousands of women all over the world were reading about the “Red Room of Pain,” using the phrase “Laters, baby,” and begging for more between James’ updates.
Prior to reading Twi-fanfiction, I’d had very little experience with erotic romance. As a matter of fact, in college I’d fallen in love with, and studied, Victorian literature, captivated by works such as Villette, Frankenstein, Dracula, Heart of Darkness, and Jane Eyre. Victorian literature is nowhere near erotic in nature, instead focusing on virtue and goodness. Fifty Shades of Grey changed everything I knew about literature and myself—it increased my curiosity, not only in erotic romance as a genre, but also in BDSM as a lifestyle.
In early 2010, I was asked to help in the development of an e-publishing house for the Australian-based company The Writer’s Coffee Shop. The Writer’s Coffee Shop began online as a site for worldwide discussions centered around books, authors, blogs, and more, and eventually evolved into TWCS Library, where people could post original works as well as fanfiction. I worked alongside the original founders of TWCS’ site to build a publishing house that catered to the needs of aspiring authors. I became a managing and acquisition editor and worked with erotic romance manuscripts more often than not.
As an editor of erotic romance, I feel that the genre opens the doors of the imagination into worlds most readers have never traveled. An erotic romance manuscript should capture the excitement and naughtiness of a first love—the one you lost your “V card” to. It needs to combine sensuality and kink in ways that make the loneliest person feel. It should be romance, adventure, love, loss, suspense, and unbridled desire all rolled up into one story. James’ Fifty Shades did just that and in a manner that didn’t scare off first-time readers of the erotic romance genre.
From the launch of TWCS Publishing House, we knew we wanted to acquire and publish the story that had set the Twilight fanfiction community afire, and we were thrilled when E. L. James chose to publish the series with us. Due to my background in editing and writing erotic romance with the publishing house, as well as my experience in the lifestyle, I was the only choice for editor of Fifty Shades of Grey. Many would have been nervous taking on such a task, but I was excited. I knew from the moment we signed James that this would be the chance of a lifetime.
I was given a little over a month to edit and finalize the manuscript with James. Reading through it for the first time after the rewrites was a surreal experience. The structure and characters were the same as the original story that first caught my attention in 2009, but the changes in details made it feel like a first read. James had managed to take her Twilight-inspired story and turn it into a manuscript that was truly hers.
It didn’t take long for word of the rewrite and potential release to spread worldwide. James had a huge following of readers prior to publishing Fifty Shades of Grey, and this helped in initial sales. It also made the task of editing the book and keeping it true to James’ intent very important. We knew James and her readers would not take kindly to an editor coming in and red-penning her story, and I was advised by TWCS to handle James and Fifty Shades with kid gloves. At times it was difficult for me to hold back my natural desire to make changes I thought were necessary; after all, I have been lovingly dubbed “Comma Bitch” by those I’ve edited. Looking back, I’m glad that I refrained from making drastic changes to the story and allowed the characters to speak for themselves, but agreeing to handle the manuscript and James delicately went against everything I stood for as an editor—and if I could do it over, I’d go with my gut instinct rather than sugarcoat the process for those involved.
When I edit, I like to send “bundles” of edited chapters to the authors I’m working with—bundles being four or five chapters at a time. James would get a bundle and sort through it. Once she was done, we’d have a Skype session and go over the changes I’d made, suggested, or questions I had. Sometimes we agreed, sometimes we didn’t. In the end, she always had the final say-so. This was her baby—months upon months of her hard work. It was very important for her to be able to guide the process.
We went through the manuscript twice together in this manner before our final Skype session. The last edits we went over together were those we got back from the publishing house pre-reader. We spent an entire Saturday, seven or eight hours, grinding through the manuscript. As a team, we agreed on some of the changes that were suggested while axing the ones we didn’t find relevant or necessary. It was a lengthy process, and by the time we were done, we both let out a huge sigh of relief.
Working with E. L. James was not as daunting a task as one might think. She was no more particular about her work than any other author I’ve worked with. As a matter of fact, James’ quick wit, tenacity, humor, and the simplicity in her writing are all traits that contributed to the enjoyment and challenges of editing Fifty Shades. Our final thoughts, on that last day of edits, were about the potential backlash from some in the literary community due to the nature of the story and its original life in fanfiction form. It’s a chance we all knew we were taking—a chance I am so thankful James had the balls to take. The genre of erotic romance has been forever changed, as has the world of e-publishing.
I like to think that I had a little something to do with it.
TISH BEATY was part of the team that developed The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House, where she worked closely with E. L. James and edited the New York Times bestselling novel Fifty Shades of Grey. She has a bachelor’s in psychology and minor in English literature. Tish has been writing since childhood and dabbles in erotic romance. She currently resides in southwest Missouri with her two energetic boys and husband, and can be found online at www.tishbeaty.com.