Dearest Bohemian reader: Perhaps you, too, were bumming around the blogosphere this morning and saw that another work of Twilight fan fiction got a book deal.
If you’re like me, you feel outraged at first. You think: Isn’t Twilight strange and disturbing enough? Isn’t it already shameful that a work of fan fiction then became a wildly popular three-part series? Do we really need a third set of tomes inspired by the already-flat characters of a sparkly deer-eater, a sometimes-wolf with rapist tendencies and a teenage girl who could really benefit from some kind of extra-curricular activity?
But then, if you’re like me, you admit that you’re strangely compelled by the whole notion of fan-ficiton. You overhear 16-year-old boys talking about their Game of Thrones fan fiction in coffee shops (but they’re mostly writing about Cersei so you don’t really want to know). You once wrote an article about Gone with the Wind fan fiction, for which you spent three months listening to Gone with the Wind fan fiction, which is so full of bizarre plot twists and decadent clothing that you felt bored and empty when you were done. You remember this term from college, “intertextuality,” which is basically a smart way of saying that everyone writing literature is ripping someone off.
So you take to the Internet and Google “Twilight fan fiction,” to see what horrible and fascinating things emerge.
First, you find that there are several professional-looking forums, in which hopeful writers of Twilight fan fic post their plot ideas. They list the number of chapters, the language, the genre. They include summaries—everything from future snapshots of the Cullen clan to this one, which is kind of awesome: “Falling asleep on a bus and missing his stop, a man ends up in Forks for the weekend…poor guy.”
Then, you find that Googling “Twilight fan fic” brings up a number of Tumblr pages. Apparently, if you’re wanting to write Twilight fan fic and can’t find the words to express the wonder and longing inspired by the original series, you can use pictures! But, wait, never mind. Don’t click on those links! While there are some lovely watercolors of wolves (which would look right at home on a tie-dye shirt), there are also some photoshopped images of Edward in pants that zip…oh my goodness. You can’t un-see that.
Finally, in a moment of soul-crushing despair, you’ll realize that the worst has already happened. Frankenstein’s monster has birthed a child, who has, in turn, birthed a child. Or, to be more Twilight-appropriate, that half-human, half-vampire child from the series that started it all has found a half-human, half-vampire mate, and their sparkly progeny is destined to outlast us all.
