Stephenie Meyer Fan Junket: FAN-FICTION Q&A

Jul 7th, 2010 | By | Category: Featured Articles, Site News, Stephenie Meyer Interview

Tonight we bring you a bit about FAN-FICTION from our Stephenie Meyer Fan Junket!  This question was brought to the table by Twifans.com, and we had so much fun hearing what Stephenie thinks about the subject…

Twifans: What do you think of Twilight fan-fiction?

SM: Fan-fiction has become kind of a mixed thing for me. like in the beginning I hadn’t heard of it and there were some that were…I couldn’t read the ones that had the characters IN character. It freaked me out. um, but I liked. there was one about Harry Potter and Twilight that was hilarious. And then there was one that was about a girl who was starring as Bella in the movie and that was funny. And uh, I hear so many people arguing about fan-fiction. This one and that one. It seems like they are not as much fun anymore. I don’t know.

Twifans: Well, we’re having lots of fun with it

Twifans: People pour out so much energy and talent into them

Twifans: Some of them are really good

SM: It makes me frustrated. I’m like…go write your own story. Put them out there and get them published. That’s what you should be doing. You should be working on your own book right now.

Twifans: Some people could just change the names and they could be books

Twifans: The ones I like to read are the ones that aren’t anything like the book. I like the ones where Edward is a banker or Edward is in the mafia

SM: (talking more about fanfics) As long as the writers of it, move on from it. I think it’s sad to spend so much energy on something you can’t own. And that makes me a little bit sad because all these talented kids should be, ya know, get your story out from under the bed and get it out there.

Twifans: Well if you won’t write it, we have to have something.

Twifans: The ones that I love are the ones that are so good, they could be a novel, if they would just change the names, because it’s nothing like the plot.

SM: That means it’s their own story and maybe they want to have a venue to try their stories out and that’s something too. Yeah, but you do have to kind of have to worry. The whole Midnight Sun….mess, came about because, when you first get started, you really want people to read your book & give you feedback and no one’s ever gonna care, like you don’t have to worry about leaks. That’s such a crazy idea. With MS you know, I had a readers group and we all read each other’s stuff and that’s very normal. I saw a lot of feedback, like “she shouldn’t be giving her stuff out”, but 10 years ago before anybody knew that had ever read Twilight, did you ever think anyone was gonna care or look for this crap? Absolutely not. As a writer, that’s how you work. You show your stuff, you get feedback from people, and you learn from it and I think that the fan fiction can do that in a nice way. Ya, know? You least you get to hear some people’s thoughts. Also, but there is a lot of negativity online. If your faced isn’t attached, when you’re in person with someone, I think it’s pretty hard to be like, “I hate you” (laughs). I worry about feedback evolution. Like if we all are all mean on the internet is that going to cross over into real life? Are we going to lose that common courtesy because online it’s completely gone? If you have a writer’s group and you are talking about your work, people are at least going to have some courtesy like “well, this part maybe didn’t work for me” not their not going to be like “you’re the biggest loser in the world” which is what they’re gonna get online and that might discourage some writers that are really good. And shouldn’t be that discouraged.
SM: Breaking Down was actually a project for a while. There was a while where you get burned out, we came up with an alternate Breaking Dawn called Breaking Down (laughs). It was awesome! Complete spiraling downward & destruction in Bella Swans life & everyone around her. Charlie became a meth addict.

Group: Oh My God!

SM: It starts out with Bella on the same cliff, right. Except this time she’s taking her life & she’s going back over like everything that has happened to get to this point. It all kinda got started because there was trouble & Alice and Jacob….I forget how it works…..Jacob killed Alice.

Group: Wow! (gasps)

SM: No, no…It was BREAKING DOWN


Group: (collective oh’s and laughs of understanding)

SM: So Alice is dead and Jacob is horrified because this is Bella’s fault, and he like…backhands Bella and disappears he’s gone. Alice is dead. So Bella is in the hospital on heavy pain meds which is how Charlie got addicted. She ends up marrying Mike. So she’s stuck with Mike and it’s very depressing and then he leaves her for Eric Yorkie.

(Someone tells SM not to tell anymore)

SM: Oh AND….Lauren Mallory wins America’s Next Top Model. And Charlie ends up getting killed by drug dealers, and I think her mom dies of a heart attack. So she ends up being nothing so she’s gonna kill herself then says “this is stupid, I’m not going to kill myself. I’m gonna rebound, I’m gonna forge a new life. She turns around, trips and falls over the edge. There were so many expectations for Breaking Dawn. if this doesn’t happen, I’m going to hate it and then the exact opposite, if the exact opposite doesn’t happen I’m going to hate it. I’m like I’m going to write something that everybody hates (group laughs) and then I wanted to leak it. It was going to be great. We had a lot of fun, when ya know, coming up with these horrific ideas. You know the thing is that Billy Burke would kill Charlie on drugs. He’d be so good at it.
Meghan chimes in helping Stephenie remember all the gory details of ‘Breaking Down.’ Let me just say I am dying to read this hysterical story from Stephenie! The two of them have really talked this story out. It seems to be a running inside joke between the two friends.

* Thanks to TwiFans.com for transcribing this portion of the interview!

5 Comments to “Stephenie Meyer Fan Junket: FAN-FICTION Q&A”

  1. Kaytie says:

    OMG! That would be soooo funny if she published it! It would be like her own fanfiction!

  2. cassie says:

    haha that is soooo good!
    i looked at the picture and there is only one guy!
    haha it is matt from Imprint

  3. […] Source: Twilight Theories…. […]

  4. Hannah says:

    ha ha. thats funny! that would atcualy be funny to read. Does anybody non when stephenie meyers next book is coming out, or if shes working on 1 at the mo because im trying to be patient but in strugling lol

  5. Rai says:

    I think fanfiction is great. It’s the fans fixing up the story and making what they wanted to happen happen. They are sharing their creativity without having to go through the pain of publishing. I prefer the Jacob ones myself, but that’s just because I hate Edward. 🙂

    😉

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