Originally published January 2017

If you've read any of the other drinking game rules available on the website, you are likely aware that a majority of the fun I have with these rules is just coming up with the rules in the first place. Of course, you are likely also aware that I recommend drinking responsibly if you want to play along with these rules because they can occasionally get a bit rough, depending on the material. Whether you choose to drink a spirit to the rules, or just a glass of cranberry juice, is up to you. All we encourage is you have fun, and maybe come up with your own rules along the way. Since you've likely experienced drinking games for other mediums of entertainment already, have you ever considered making rules for a bad book-drinking game?

Let me spin a little tale about the inspiration for this one.

In a few short years, a particular book franchise managed to explode, seemingly overnight. It quickly became the most popular tale, among women of all ages, about an abusive relationship between a pale-skinned jerk and a blank-slate female protagonist. The Twilight series was a huge success thanks to its marketing and self-fulfilling story about a girl who has no exceptional qualities other than supernatural boys wanted to date her. Like it happens with anything popular, Twilight was heavily criticized as common dreck by haters, while die-hard fans fantasized more about it and even wrote their own fiction, placing their beloved characters into what-if scenarios. One of those lucky fan-fiction stories managed to morph and evolve like a bacteria into a superbug of amateur fiction. It even managed to get its own best-selling book franchise and a feature film two years ago!

50 Shades of Grey is a book series that took off just as quickly with a slightly different crowd of women. It spread like a venereal disease as it set aflame the loins of many underappreciated ladies with its dull language and poorly researched material. Or maybe it was the sex that was in it... That's what it was! Sex! As though erotic novels haven't existed for years, and as though there hadn't been a place for one to look up good romantic/erotic novels beforehand (http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/), 50 Shades of Grey exploded in popularity like its source material. How come? Mostly because it was a story about a woman in love with a rich, young, attractive, damaged, successful, businessman with a taste for BDSM, or in reality: abuse.

Before I go any further into criticizing this franchise, I should say that I am DEFINITELY NOT the authority on quality fiction writing. There is still a lot for me to learn in how to critique fiction, let alone write it. Not to mention, none of my fiction has ever been published. In terms of where I have been published, I've had some work published by small independent literary journals, and obviously a bunch of crap on here, and I do tech writing for a living. However, I still have not gotten any fiction of my own published by outside sources. So take my criticism of 50 Shades of Grey or Twilight with a grain of salt since I have yet to achieve the success that EL James and Stephanie Meyer have, and I am not likely to do so anytime soon. After all, they must be doing something right, right? That being said, 50 Shades of Grey was a really bad read.

The BEFORE picture is always better than the AFTER.

I picked the book up years ago out of pure curiosity and immediately saw things that irked me much like a bad movie. I decided to use a gift card—I wasn't going to pay real money—to purchase it so I could share it with / force it upon my friends in public readings. Upon doing so the first night in our community hall known as the House of Innsmouth, it became apparent that some drinking rules were in order. This was partly because we needed something to make it fun enough to get through each chapter without becoming enraged at the fact that a book this mediocre was so successful. Years since then, the book is still in my possession, and we still have never finished it; we have only a hundred pages left!

We probably never will finish the thing, but finding the rules again has made me want to post it for the sake of posterity and to make sure I don't lose them. The rules that follow are all applicable to the first 50 Shades of Grey novel since they were written specifically for it, and we chose these because of their frequency of use and laziness in editing/writing. However, you may find room to adjust them for your own trashy book you might be reading. In most cases, it would be better just to put the book down, but if you want to power through the read, these rules may make the process a little more fun.

50 Shades of Grey / Bad Book Drinking Game

For those who just want a list of the rules as they read along, simply follow the shortlist. If you want to see a description and how we came up with these rules, see the sections that follow.

Take a sip of your drink for:

Characters with dumb names show up, or the full version of that dumb name is mentioned
Poor (over)use of adverbs
Poor editing (grammatical/formatting/spelling errors)
Clear signs the author didn't do any proper research on their subject or setting
Product placement
Cheap facial expressions used to convey emotion or action
Clichés, archetypes, blank slates, lazy writing
Overusing other verbs to replace "he said" or "she said"
Embarrassed about the subject matter (Specifically 50 Shades of Grey)
Psychotic behavior that is just accepted (Specifically 50 Shades of Grey)
"Crap!" and its variations are said (Specifically 50 Shades of Grey)

Characters have dumb names/the full name of a character is frequently used

Coming up with good names for your characters in a story is difficult, make no mistake. You want to give a name that makes sense for the character without it being too on-the-nose or unrealistic. You also don't want them to have an utterly common name like John Smith, unless that is an important part of the characterization for your story. I say this as someone who had a vampire story with a guy named "Maligant." We all make mistakes, but thankfully my story hasn't been published.

That being said, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey (both of which have names that match the color of the book gasp) are pretty uncommon names in the real modern world. Just saying them aloud makes me feel dumb. Yet these names, in their entirety, were frequently dropped in the prose of their book. If you find a character's name to be ridiculous for no reason, take a drink any time you see it. These names would perhaps work in a different setting and for a different subject matter but for a love story between the two in a modern American love story set in the Pacific Northwest? Did I mention the author is from the UK? We'll get to that.

Poor Use of Adverbs

Adverbs are useful. Adverbs are commonly used. Adverbs are easy. Adverbs can also be problematic.

A lesson that has stuck with me for years when it comes to writing fiction is that if you're using an adverb to describe a scene or action, there is probably a better way to do so with a thorough description. Take a simple phrase like, "He smiled lazily." You've probably read something like that before, maybe written it. But what are you getting out of this? A male, is smiling, um... what is "lazily" exactly? Whatever you use to answer that question is probably better than such a simple, bland phrase.

"He stretched is arms and let his auburn hair fall in front of his eyes as he relaxed further into the recliner. The sun was setting and the room was lit with the colors of fire. But he lacked the energy to match that color and just smiled. This was a smile she knew well. A smile that he thought friendly, and she thought useless."

I'm not saying that the little excerpt I pulled out of my ass is anything award-winning, but it tells you a lot more about a smile a character has and its effect on the characters involved. Adverbs have a place in the first draft and in sections when you are trying to move the pace of the scene along without getting dense with language. 50 Shades of Grey has an adverb problem because it's slow-paced, and yet it is still dense with adverbs. Including this redundant gem in Chapter 1: "He shrugged non-committally." How else do you shrug?

Take a sip any time you see an adverb that hinders the language. In my honest opinion, this is the only rule you will need reading this book. You are likely to get plenty of drinks in by the end of a chapter with just this rule alone.

Poor Editing

Why are there so many unintentional grammatical and spelling errors in a multi-million-dollar money machine of a book? Anytime you see an error, take a sip. Keep in mind, since 50 Shades of Grey was written in the UK, some spellings of certain words will be different for American readers. So drinking to "colour," would be wrong, except for the fact that these characters are supposed to be born and raised in the US. So if you want to extend this rule, you can drink to any time a character says something that a person from the UK would say instead of the US, like "go on holiday" as opposed to "go on vacation." This little rule just so happens to lead right to the next one.

No Research

As an author, it pays to do research. Just ask JB Fletcher from the classic TV show Murder She Wrote. Much of the time, the reason the little angel of death from Maine was visiting a different location where a murder would inevitably take place was because she was doing research for her next novel, or visiting another family relative, of which she has thousands. Mrs. Fletcher, a fictional character that she is, probably still knew the importance of using a region's dialect, as well as the importance of the physical description of that region to help with a story's immersion in her novels.

I seriously doubt EL James had ever been to Seattle or spent much time there prior to writing her novel. I determined this partially because of the lack of description of the settings in which the story was taking place. I also was able to guess it because her estimates on how long it would take for a person to drive from Portland, Oregon, or Olympia, Washington to Seattle were quite inaccurate. I know this because I've driven through those cities myself and can tell you that the drives do not take as little time as she seems to think. An author does not need to go there personally, since the location could be entirely made up, but it needs to be consistent and real enough to do so. ________, the author of Middlesex, claimed never to have been to San Francisco before writing a scene about it that was very vivid and accurate, just like how George RR Martin has never been to his made-up land of Westeros, but that didn't stop them from maintaining their consistencies.

This rule may not apply as much to genres like Fantasy and Sci-Fi, since the locations are fabricated, but if you're reading a book and it becomes clear to you the author didn't do much research on the items, locations, weather, or other details of their world, it's time for a sip.

Product Placement

Audi, Starbucks, and Blackberry were among numerous product/brand names that made their way into 50 Shades of Grey. Why? I don't think she was getting any payments for doing so. I think it was just to give familiar details that didn't need much of a description. This, like adverbs, can be useful in particular situations. However, the frequency at which they appear in lazy writing is a reason to groan and a reason to drink.

Pursed Lips, Rolling Eyes, Arched Eyebrows

Is that a dumb image in your head? Does it look like this?

Image edited. Original image from Zoolander (2001) Paramount Pictures

These descriptions of a character's face, among many others, were commonly used in place of quality characterization or action occurring between Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. It doesn't have to be these exact descriptors, but the next time you're reading a book and the narration focuses on a character's face—especially the eyes—and the author uses a lame or cliché line like "he pursed his lips," take a sip. Our face is a complex arrangement of features and we have many ways of expressing deep and powerful emotions with it. There are myriad ways to describe it with more interesting and surprising details than simply the muscle movement involved.

Cliches! Archetypes! Blank-Slates! Oh My!

There is a place and a time for clichés and archetypes in writing. Typically, it's in the first draft, when you're still sorting out the details and trying to develop the characters more. They work as good starting points and can even function in a final draft if the cliché or archetype is earned in some way, such as a self-aware perspective, for instance. When the main protagonists of the final draft of a story manage to be little more than archetypes, walking clichés, or blank slates, you have a story without interesting characters.

The "blank slate" is common for protagonists, especially in stories that are seeking a broad audience. It's meant to be a character that the reader can project themselves onto for the sake of identifying with him/her and becoming more invested in the story as a result. It can be used as a bit of wish-fulfillment for those who pine for the opportunity to have multiple men of vain, thin, and supernatural physiques fight over you for "love" like a piece of meat or property. If you caught the hint, Twilight is guilty of this. Worse still, is the amorphous blob of Anastasia Steele.

Maybe the movie gave her more of a personality?

The blank slate from Twilight, Bella, had very little to her personality that would make her something special as a main character worthy of the throbbing loins of werewolves and vampires, but she still did stuff in the story or tried. Not all of it made sense, but it was at least something. Anastasia Steel doesn't do anything other than be a judgmental virgin prude who has no personality or hope of achieving one because she has no real goals or interests. She just sits around and thinks about what other people say and comes up with passive-aggressive reasoning by consulting with the multiple personalities in her head. No joke. By the point I stopped reading, I still had no idea what this girl wanted out of life or why she was the main character. I just knew she was crazy and dumb.

If you run into these types of protagonists, take a sip anytime the character has an opportunity to do something like a normal human being or an interesting character and instead chooses to be a void of literary reason. If you can predict what a character will do or say, chances are, they're fulfilling an archetypal role or a cliché with which you're familiar. In which case, take a sip as well.

He Said/ She Said

Despite what your middle-school English teacher may have said that one week you learned about something fun like writing your own fiction, there is no need to replace every "he said" or "she said" with different verbs. In Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction, she mentions how the use of the word "said" in fiction is so common and straightforward, that it might as well be a piece of punctuation. Instead, many amateur writers will often feel the need to "spice" up their writing by adding different verbs here. It actually ends up distracting more than anything else, since they don't actually add to the quality of the writing. They're just different verbs.

In 50 Shades of Grey, the characters rarely ever "said" anything to each other. Instead, they often "murmured" or "muttered" something. If you imagined an actual conversation where people were talking like this to each other the whole time, you'd wonder if they were joking or had a speech impediment. Take a sip any time you notice unnecessarily excessive use of a verb in place of "said."

Specifically Grey

These last few points are more specifically for 50 Shades of Grey, but maybe you can still apply something similar to what you're reading.

Embarrassed & "Down There"

For a book about an amorphous blob who is attracted to a successful businessman who likes "BDSM," Anastasia never quite seems to get over the whole "sex" part of her interactions with him. Everything is just so surprising and embarrassing because she's an annoying prude who has opinions about things without ever experiencing them. Since she's also the narrator, she seems to blush any time she mentions her genitalia, in her thoughts or otherwise. It's as though she wasn't quite aware she had genitals before now, which wouldn't surprise me since she often called her vaginal area "down there" instead of words adults use to describe their naughty bits... Like "naughty bits,"... I'm an adult!

Don't get excited, these moments are brief, even by book-sex standards

When you have a character in an "erotic" novel who can't seem to figure out how their own equipment works, or just accept that it's even there, it makes me wonder why the hell I'm reading about her story. From Anastasia's perspective, she was a 21-year-old virgin till she had sex with Grey (spoilers)—who apparently never attended a sex-ed class—and her first introduction to having sex with someone is with a guy who is supposed to be into BDSM. However, members of different BDSM communities have criticized the book for its somewhat inaccurate portrayal of the experience. So really, we're following the story of a prudish ignoramus blob who dates a guy who abuses her under the guise of BDSM. This would be a lot better if it were a horror story.

So what's the rule, specifically? Any time she refers to his/her genitals with a laughable expression, as well as any instances where either of the characters blush, flush, or get embarrassed. You're in an erotic novel! Grow up!

Crazy Behavior is Acceptable?

I think Anastasia Steele has multiple-personality disorder. Maybe she doesn't, but it sure seems that way since she mentions her Inner Goddess—and some other voice in her head I can't be bothered to remember—with frequency. She envisions these personas doing or saying certain things as responses to events taking place, which are supposed to represent her Id and Super Ego, to use Freudian terms. One of them gets all hot and bothered when Christian Grey shows up while the other is something of a mentally prudish librarian. These personas are all over the book and we are just supposed to accept it, as though every woman has voices in her head like this.

Also, Christian Grey is into "BDSM" thanks to the abusive relationship he had with a dominatrix who may have been committing statutory rape. Anastasia does not pity Christian for the abuse, but is actually jealous of this woman and insecure about her existence in his life, as though she's a threat to their relationship. She even does the passive-aggressive bullshit about bringing her up in conversation over and over as a jealous girlfriend would who was dating a guy who had multiple relationships before meeting her would.

Also, there's a "nice guy" character who tries to take advantage of (aka rape) Anastasia when she's drunk at a party, but it's not a big deal the next day after a simple apology. Really.

Take a sip when bizarre behavior occurs and is presented like it's commonplace.

Crap! Tier Cake

Anastasia's expletive of choice when she finds herself in a bind is "Crap!" This situation can vary in severity from the painful need to fart in front of her rich boyfriend, to the really crappy situation of the "nice guy" being nice enough to try to rape her. Depending on the severity, she will say in variation, "Crap," "Double-Crap," "Triple-Crap," and "Holy Crap." For each of those variations that appear in the text, perform the following: Crap = 1 sip, Double = 2 sips, Triple = 3 sips, and Holy = 4 sips. Does this seem dumb to you? That's because it is.

That's it! A lengthy list of rules to help ease the pain of reading a book you think is bad. 50 Shades of Grey is an easy target and it certainly received its fair share of criticism when people were still talking about it. However, it seems like it's almost fallen off the planet and no one cares about it anymore. So what better time than now to post a drinking game about it, right?

Let me know if you disagree with my opinions of the book and why, or make up your own rules for some crappy books and let me know!

Drink responsibly!

Don't forget to check out our universal Hair of the Dog Rules!

Fan of death metal? Check out my band on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. If you like what you hear and want to hear more, head to HoundsofInnsmouth.com for more info!

Bad Book Drinking Game - Hair of the Dog (50 Shades Edition)