50 Shades of Twitter Trolls

If you follow Twitter and the literary world, you've probably heard that EL James was the brunt of a Twitter attack . If you don't know who EL James is, you at least know her books, the  50 Shades of Grey series. Now, I don't claim to be a fan of the books. I have read about 5 pages and wasn't impressed. However, I would never take it upon myself, no matter how much I hated a book, to brutally attack and criticize the author, especially during a Q&A they were hosting.

Sure, many people think she's not a good writer, many people don't like her books, a lot of them think they portray abusive relationships in a glamorous light. So write a book review on Amazon. Blog about it. There is no need to attack the PERSON behind the words.

Here are some of the horrible tweets...

•  does the E.L. Stand for ELiterate?
•  after the success of "Grey," have you considered re-telling the story from the perspective of someone who can write.
•  what's it like telling millions of women it's okay to be in an abusive relationship as long as he's rich.
•  Is there a safe word we can use to get you to stop writing such drivel?
•  Do you ever feel guilty that you made so much money from romanticizing sexual abuse and selling it as "erotica romance"?
•  Will you be rewriting the book from Stephenie Meyer's point of view next time? 
•  how do you feel knowing you've made your riches from convincing young impressionable girls that abuse is 'love'?
•  Which do you hate more, women or the English language?
•  Is it only ok for Christian to stalk, coerce, threaten & manipulate Ana because he's hot, or is it also ok because he's rich?
•  Do all these negative tweets sent to you seem abusive to you? I think it's romantic enough to be turned into a novel!

Um...seriously? From what I could see, the majority of tweets during the #AskELJames  Q&A were like this.

Let's take a couple things into consideration...

50 Shades of Grey is FICTION! And it's erotica. EL took people's real life sexual fantasies and
fictionalized them. Maybe they aren't my sexual fantasies or yours, but I bet they are someone's. Why else would so many copies have sold? Out of the millions and millions of books out in the bookosphere (yeah, it's a word) I'm sure there are others that glorify relationships like this, and rape, and murder, and all sorts of ugly things.

Remember the movie Natural Born Killers? I mean, I thought it was brilliant, as did others. However there were some...not so much. They felt like it glorified violence. Here's what some reviewers say...

• ...just for sickening starters, there wasn't one, single, solitary character in this entire film who was even remotely likable.
•  Phew! - What a total waste of H-Wood Talent !
•  I regret having to give this film one star- zero stars isn't an option. Neither is negative 3 stars. That would've been acceptable.
•  worst movie ever... 
•  ...I could feel my brain welling up with hatred for every individual involved in the making of this movie. 

You get my meaning? It's not real. It's fiction. It's subjective. So, like the people above, if you hate it so much, write a review. I would almost guess that they can't though because they probably have not read the books.

I'm not defending the series, I didn't read it, I have no desire to read it, and like I said, the part I did read I thought was crap. Writers are used to that kind of criticism. We have thick skin (or we learn to grow it.)  I am defending the writer. She's a person and is not defined by the books she wrote. She likes wine, dogs, chocolate, bacon and Magic Mike.  And she has feelings like the rest of us.

So step off Twitter Trolls. Go back to fawning over Harry Styles, making up new memes, posting Shia Laboeuf videos, and tweeting about hockey (this is truly what some of them do, I checked.) Just leave EL James alone.

Plus, she probably doesn't give a shit what you think anyway.