E.L. James’ newest work: A Parody by S.M. Stroup

E.L. James, author of the best-selling “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy, is writing a new book called “Fifty Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess (A Journal)”. The book will be a writing guide for new writers as well as an instructional guide on how to find your “inner goddess.” Though the book isn’t out yet, here is my best guess on what will be featured in it.

Chapter 1: Start your work from your fanfiction of another series

As most of my readers know, I started “Fifty Shades” as a “Twilight” fanfiction. Though, yes, Christian Grey is an awful lot like Edward Cullen and Anastasia Steele is an awful lot like Bella Swan, I totally changed them around once I decided that it was my story. I mean, there are no vampires in my book, and there’s so much sex you won’t even know how to deal with it. That’s totally different from “Twilight”. Also, that other series didn’t include that the heroine has this inner self, “Lizzie McGuire”-style. I did. That was my idea.

Chapter 2: Don’t you dare research anything

So I’m a Brit, but to challenge myself, I decided to make Grey and Steele American. That proved to be a bit of a challenge, but nothing I couldn’t handle. So sometimes they use British slang or make obscure references, but hey, I think my audience can handle it. Sometimes I write sentences like “I hadn’t reckoned on this,” because DUH ALL AMERICANS SPEAK LIKE COWBOYS. Even us Brits know that. Also, make sure that they call bathrooms the ‘powder room.’ Sometimes I have to class up my smut.

Chapter 3: Stream of consciousness is always great

“The drinking, oh no the drinking, the phone call, oh no the phone call, the vomiting, oh no the vomiting. Jose and then Christian. Oh no.” Guys, this a direct quote from my best-selling novel. So obviously everyone needs to write like this. Also, write things like “I’m going to be sick…no…I’m fine,” because everyone needs to know exactly what goes through a character’s head at all moments. Don’t believe me? Imagine a “Harry Potter” where you read about every lusty thought that Ron has about Hermione. Maybe then that series would have actually sold some books.

Chapter 4: Always use as many verbs as you can

Verbs are a writer’s best friend. I use them all the time, even when they don’t really fit, because verbs. Sometimes, my characters do things out of the ordinary like jump, yelp and bleat timidly – basically, I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that Steele was secretly a sheep without having to come out and actually say it. Verbs help do that.

Chapter 5: Sex

Always sex, man. Always. As much as possible.

For tips like this and more, look for the book on shelves starting May 1.