Guilty Pleasures

Dear friends,

I owe you an apology,  I missed last week’s post.  I could tell you how, as an adult, going back to school while working a full time job and being a single mom to a Senior in high school is sucking my time and half of my brain cells but you already know how that works.  Unless you wanted me to give you a review of “The Tempest” or “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare (which, by the way, I am all set to sit you down and explain Hamlet to you all, don’t get me started on the Dane.  I will talk your ear off.), I haven’t really had the chance to read much dear friends. Not anything to sit down and write a review over.  And I’m hesitant to review anything that already has millions of reviews and is beloved by millions such as I’m reading in my current class.  I feel there are much better book critics out there that can review Toni Morrison’s works better than this nerdy bookworm could.

Instead, since I need a blog post for this week, and let’s face it, I owe you, let me tell you about one of my guilty pleasure.

I am a fanfiction reader and author.  Fan fiction, for those who don’t know or haven’t heard all the hub bub surrounding a certain trilogy of books ripped from the Twilight novels (the less said about that from me here, the better), is defined as stories written wherein the writer takes the characters from that particular medium and creates their own stories.  Fan fiction began as a labor of love.  As fanfiction was free, there was a fine line of what authors were allowed to get away with.  (okay, I’m stopping there.  I could write and entire blog post on fanfiction but not today folks!)  There are sanctioned works of fanfiction on the market, each time you read a book that is based on a movie or a series, (I’m looking at you Star Wars EU that exists no matter what certain directors say), it’s technically legal fanfiction.

Once the copyright is up on a certain book and it is listed as free domain, that when the fun starts!  And one of those fun are called “variations”.

My guilty pleasure at the moment are “Price and Prejudice” variations.  Stories that take the characters of Jane Austen’s beloved novel and put them in different situations.  Always, of course, with the happy ending.  The happy ending here being Elizabeth and Darcy ending up together. 

I can’t help it.  I devour these pieces of fiction like candy.  I can’t even tell you how many of these I’ve read so far, dear friends.  Some are okay, there’s been a few bad one, and then there are some that are phenomenal and I find myself asking the same question people ask me.  “Why aren’t you writing your own stuff?” 

The answer to that dear friends, is that this is so much more fun.  Taking established characters who already have devoted characterization, a backstory, motivation and putting them in the stories we’ve created is basically what we’ve all been doing since childhood. I mean, seriously, how many times around the world, in millions of households, have Barbie and G.I. Joe hooked up or gone out on a date?

All of these lovely delights can be found on Amazon Kindle.  Kindle Unlimited has a larger variety which , for me, just feed the addiction.  Audible even has some if you don’t have time to sit and read.  It’s amazing to me how good some of these are and if you’re able to get someone to a book to audio, it says something.

If you love Pride and Prejudice and are intrigued by the idea of this and  wanted to try some, might I recommend “The Abominable Mr. Darcy” by J. Dawn King, “Conceit and Concealment” by Abigail Reynolds and “The Falmouth Connection” by Joana Starnes.  The first was my introduction into Pride and Prejudice variation novels and it send me down a downward spiral I don’t care if I ever get out of.

Until next week dear friends, when I try to figure out what to write about because I’ll still be reading Toni Morrison for class, Get comfy, curl up and enjoy a good book.