I was as shocked as anyone yesterday to hear that MIDNIGHT SUN, the re-telling of TWILIGHT from the hero’s point of view, has been postponed indefinitely.
If you haven’t yet read Stephenie Meyer’s letter to fans, then please go here first.
Finished reading? Okay.
I suppose my reaction to this could probably best be summed up by eavesdropping on my phone conversation this afternoon with Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
PHONE RINGS
Me: Hello?
Jen: It’s me. Did you hear about–
Me: Midnight Sun getting posted by Internet pirates!?!
Jen: YES!
Me: I would die.
Jen: It’s awful. I won’t even go read the pages she went ahead and posted because I would never want anyone reading MY first drafts.
Me: I would die.
Jen: What a terrible situation. She must feel so violated.
Me: I would die.
(fast forward through five minutes of Jen making very knowledgeable and well-formed statements and me saying “I would die” fifty more times.)
Jen: So what are you doing?
Me: I’ve got to dry my hair and then go buy puff pastry so that I can make apple turnovers.
Jen: Okay. Well, I better let you get back to that then.
JEN HANGS UP AND THEN GOES AND DOES SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T INVOLVE PUFF PASTRY.
I’ve spent a lot of today thinking about Internet piracy and author’s rights and–perhaps most importantly–the ROLE of the first draft.
1. Internet piracy: it’s shoplifting. Pure and simple. It’s no different than walking into a bookstore, shoving a book down your pants and then leaving. So it’s bad, in other words. Don’t do it.
2. Author’s rights: An author’s ownership of their work is an incredibly important and personal thing.
This situation is not unlike having someone post pictures of you in your underwear on the Internet. It’s not so bad as truly indecent pictures, but it’s definitely not showing a person in their best light or even the light that they choose to leave the house in.
I don’t know who leaked the draft or why or how. I have met Stephenie–once. For about two and a half minutes, so I’m not saying this as her friend–I wouldn’t presume to use such a label. I’ll say it simply as an author: I would die.
Some people might point out that I have, in fact, posted draft versions of deleted scenes for my books to this blog from time to time, but this is different. So very different.
I chose what scenes to post. And when to post them. And how to set readers up for them. I made those decisions. The thought of having someone else make those decisions for me is terrifying.
Also, those drafts were posted AFTER the final book was in place.
It’s one thing to show readers a finished product and then show them what the book looked like in its rough form. It’s a very, very different thing to see a rough draft and then try to imagine what the finished book will be.
Most people never get past first perceptions.
I can’t even get past first perceptions.
(CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO SPY entered this world as an incredibly bad book. In my mind it will always be an incredibly bad book even though 99% of readers, my editors, my agent, my friends, and my mom all say they like it better than Love You Kill You.)
So that’s why I would die.
Because something very, very personal was taken from me without my permission.
And because I would be so humiliated that the world saw me (and my work) when it was at its worst.
3. And that brings us to the role of a first draft…
I don’t know how Stephenie works, but I do know that very few writers write first drafts as if they’re supposed to be finished drafts.
For example, it’s not uncommon at all for my drafts to say something like “insert something funny here” or “come up with a way for Bob to get the magic crystal“…
And then just skip to the part where Bob is looking at the magic crystal.
And you know what? THAT’S OKAY. That’s the role first drafts serve for me and my writing process.
But if BOB AND THE MAGIC CRYSTAL was slated to be the biggest book of 2010…
And if millions of people around the world loved the most recent book in the series, BOB AND THE ENCHANTED EMERALD…
And if the BOB AND THE PSYCHEDELIC SAPPHIRE movie was about to come out…
Then I highly doubt that people would “get” that first drafts and finished drafts are incredibly different things that serve incredibly different purposes. People would instead just talk about how crappy BOB AND THE MAGIC CRYSTAL is and about how I must really be slipping as a writer.
Books are like people–they will change a lot between the ages of one and thirteen and thirty—they’re supposed to.
At least my books do.
And that’s why if the draft of Kat/Heist I’m working on right now made it onto the Internet…
I would die.
