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Alright! We’re doing the Sequences in Fifty Shades of Grey!

How did EL James get those perfect curves?

Spoiler Alert: I don’t know.

Unlike The Da Vinci Code and The Rosie Project, her sequences were not easy to pinpoint. For the most part, the sequences, if indeed there are any, do not have clear dramatic questions that are asked at the beginning of the sequence and answered at the end.

That said, each one does still have a fairly clear unifying aspect. In fact, for most of the story there is a framework that pops out and acts as an 8-part container. Which is pretty cool.

Anyway, here we go…

Synopsis of Fifty Shades of Grey

Anastasia Steele falls for a guy with particular relationship rules he follows, which he continuously breaks for her.

Sequences in Fifty Shades of Grey

Sequence One:  The Interview
Chapters 1-4, pages 1-64ish, 12.5%

• Unifying Aspect: The article Kate is writing on Grey needs an interview and a photo shoot.
• Content: Ana agrees to do the interview with Grey; Grey takes an interest in Ana, shows up at Ana’s work, agrees to do the photo shoot, asks Ana out to coffee, warns her off, buys her books, saves her at a club, holds her hair while she pukes.
• Progress Forward: Ana leaves the bar with Grey.
• Emotional Shift: shy and flirty at the interview (+) to puking in the bushes (-)
• Notes:
  • One trick (?) ELJ uses to achieve a negative curve is heavy usage of words with negative emotional connotation. On the page where A is puking in the bushes (just the one page), ELJ uses the following words and more: suffocating, panicky, “I don’t want this,” furious (2), vomit (3), disgust (2), horrible, appalling, swamped, shame (2), worst (2), rejection, and humiliation. All on one single page.
  • The interview happens in the first chapter, but the word “interview” is used throughout the sequence, even when both the interview and the photo shoot are over.

Sequence Two:  Preliminaries
Chapters 5-8, pages 65ish-124, 24%

• Unifying Aspect: NDA and the Rules
• Content: Grey doesn’t want to have sex with her until she signs all the paperwork. They get through the NDA and the rules, when he learns she’s a virgin and has to rectify the situation.
• Progress Forward: “Christian Grey has a sad side,” which takes us into a downward curve.
• Notes: The identifying aspect of this sequence could be a couple of Dramatic Questions: 1. Will they or won’t they? Or, 2. Will she sign the contract? But the first question is answered pretty quickly and it takes the whole book to answer the second.

Sequence Three:  The Contract
Chapters 9-12ish, pages 125-194, 37.7%

• Unifying Aspect: The Contract Terms
• Content: She has questions and not just about the contract. He gets her a Macbook, tells her to research submissives. She does, then tells him it was nice knowing him.
• Progress Forward: He asks about her concerns with the contract.
• Emotional Shift: Great sex (+) to Punishing Sex (-)
• Note: From here on out the curves mostly revolve around Grey’s mood and the sex that results. Sometimes he gives Ana what she wants, and we get a positive curve. Sometimes he wants to punish her, and we get a negative curve.

Sequence Four:  Negotiating the Contract
Chapters 12ish-15, pages 195-268, 52%

• Unifying Aspect: Negotiating the Terms of the Contract
• Content: They fail to negotiate the terms of the contract and Ana says she wants to keep thinking about it, but then she and Grey meet up again at her college graduation, where he’s a speaker. She agrees verbally to look again at the terms.
• Progress Forward: She says she’ll try (but still no signature), and he says that when she’s not being his sub, he’ll try out the “more” that she wants.
• Emotional Shift: She says no (-) to “Christian Grey is up for more!” and he rewards her by letting her be in control (+)

Sequence Five:  Moving from Portland to Seattle
Chapters 16-17, pages 269-313, 60.1%

• Dramatic Question: Will she sign the contract?
• Content: He wants her to sign. But then he spanks her, and she shies away and cries. The roommate yells at him for this. He gets her a blackberry. She says bye to Portland and moves to Seattle.
• Dramatic Answer: No, but he’s “breaking all the rules” anyway.
• Progress Forward: He wants to get her on the pill, even though she hasn’t signed yet, and he invites her to dinner with his mom. She agrees to both.
• Emotional Shift: she was “in control” for a while (+) to the roommate wants to throw him out (-) to Grey’s breaking more rules for her (+)
• Notes: The lowest point of this sequence is in the middle, where the roommate wants to throw him out for making Ana cry all the time.

Sequence Six:  Moms
Chapters 18-21, pages 314-388, 75.4%

• Dramatic Question: Is she going to stick to the arrangement (even though she hasn’t signed)?
• Content: They have dinner with Grey’s mom, and Ana says she wants to go see her own mom, without Grey, so that she can have some space away from the intensity. She wants to touch him, but that’s a hard no still. She trades sex for info about his past.
• Dramatic Answer: No, she’s going to go to her mom’s without him.
• Progress Forward: She gets on a plane for Georgia.
• Emotional Shift: he gets mad about her wanting to leave for Georgia (-) to sex in the boathouse (+)

Sequence Seven:  Georgia
Chapters 22-25ish, pages 389-476, 92%

• Unifying Aspect: Ana hangs out with Mom in Georgia.
• Content: Ana is in Georgia with her mom, emailing back and forth with Grey, when he shows up. They go hanggliding. He leaves. She tells her mom she loves him.
• Progress Forward: She goes back home to him.
• Emotional Shift: leaving (-) to hanggliding (+)

Sequence Eight:  Homecoming
Chapter 97-Epilogue, pages 395-454, 100%

• Unifying Aspect: How painful can it get?
• Content: She gets home and he wants her “fast, hard.” He says the contract is moot, but the rules still stand. He reminds her about the safewords. He spanks her and makes her count them. She says that won’t be happening again.
• Progress Forward: They break up.
• Emotional Shift: Happy to be home (+) to  breaking up (-)

Summary

After waiting so long to get to this it was kind of anticlimactic. Maybe I wasn’t the right person to look for sequences in this book. I wasn’t one of the bazillions who were all about it when it hit big, and when I went to skim it this time around to do this post, all those emails did not look familar. So I have a feeling I probably missed some stuff, but… Oh well. She’s finally done. =)

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Well, that’s it for me

What about you?  What sorts of tricks for achieving peaks and troughs have you seen in the Fifty Shades or elsewhere? Tell us in the comments!

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Related Posts

• Rhythm in Plotting: The bestseller’s best-kept secret – Part 1
• Rhythm in Plotting: The Bestseller’s best-kept secret – Part 2
• Sequences: What are they?
• Rhythm and Sequences: How Graeme Simsion does it
• Perfect Rhythm: How Dan Brown did it in The Da Vinci Code

Up Next

I don’t know. We’ll see. =)