My Child Of Grace Theory - The Twilight Precursor?

[zelda_queen]

I am writing up this report because of a rather startling revelation I had as of late. Really late, to be precise like around midnight of last night, but never mind that. The point is, I had this crazy theory - the horrible fanfiction Child of Grace is somehow the forerunner to the Twilight Series.

Seriously, think about it.

First, we have our "protagonists", Holly and Bella respectively. Both are young girls who angst. A lot. Both are never satisfied with what they're given, just using it as excuses to complain more, even though it's more than a lot of people ever get. Both keep the appearance of sweet, caring, innocent girls, when both are the most bitchy, arrogant, awful, slimy toads of characters that I've ever seen in my life. And neither of them have the decency to come right out and be as bitchy and awful as they are inside. Instead, they basically are Purity Sues, holding up a facade of innocents and never actually doing anything. Both have an ungodly number of people jostling for their attention. For no reason at all, I might add, since both of the girls have the personality of packing peanuts and, as I said before, are never happy or satisfied.

And then we have the fact that this ungodly number of people can be divided into two groups - the shallow, bitchy, absolutely rude people and the genuinely nice people who call the girls out on their behavior. Two guesses as to which group both girls prefer and which one both belittle and ignore and mock at all opportunities. Hell, we even get a copy of Bella's flounce in New Moon over how Jessica and co have the gall to be annoyed with her after she ignores them for several months - just look at Holly getting pissy at Ron, Hermione, and Neville for daring to suspect that she had anything to do with the Chamber of Secrets, never mind the fact that she and her friends were gleefully bullying and abetting in bullying for that entire year. And what do you know? The only one that Bella considered worthy of forgiving was Mike, because he kissed her butt and let her walk over him. The only one that Holly at all got over her "betrayal" for was Neville, who kissed her butt and let her walk over him.

So yeah, like I said, two groups of friends. First, let's look at the bitchy, shallow ones. In Twilight, that's of course the Cullens. They're gorgeous, rich, and bend over backwards to please Bella, when they themselves aren't mocking humans or forcing her to do stuff she doesn't want. Now, let's look at Holly's group of Slytherin friends. They're at least moderately attractive (and, of course, described with the most flattering adjectives available), rich, and bend over backwards to please Holly when they themselves aren't mocking or attacking characters the author they don't like.

And then the good group of friends. That'd be Jessica, Mike, Lauren, Tyler, and Eric, for Twilight. the author does everything in her power to make them seem unappealing. She uses them as scapegoats whenever she can. She tries her damnedest to make us hate them. But all we can think is that they have the patience of saints to put up with Bella's shit and not kill her. We think that when they do fight and argue with her, it's actually quite justified, even though we're supposed to see it as terrible behavior. Now, in Holly's case, she has Ron, Hermione, and Neville. They are extremely nice to her, looking out for her wellbeing and giving her nice things. The author tries to make them look like a bunch of backstabbing jerks. But all we can think is that they're very nice, very loyal people to continue to send Holly lovely gifts and attention after how distant and rude she's been to them. We think that when they were suspicious of her, it was quite justified, given that she does nothing to condone her friends' behavior which, among other things, injured a First Year enough to send him to the Hospital Wing several times. And, spoilers folks, she continues this into her third year. Because an entire summer of wishing her a happy birthday and sending her gifts (which even her friends didn't do) isn't enough to make it up to her.

Of course there's an "aren't I the greatest" scene in both stories, by way of a dance. In fact, I think Holly is even worse than Bella in that regard. I don't want to spoil it, because dear God ABOVE is it a doozy, but let's just say that it puts even Bella "every boy in the school wants me" Swan to shame.

In case you're wondering where Luna was in all that, she's the Angela stand-in. Seriously. She's the character outside of the Good People who the author deemed worthy to bask in her Sue's presence and basically is a little minion now.

But, of course, what would a bitchy, "sweet, doormat protagonist be without a bastard of a boyfriend, hmm? We all know about Edward by now. Let's not pretend we don't. Let's instead look at Tom Riddle. We have the same case of the author trying her hardest to excuse all of of his flaws in the name of "he just loves Holly that much"! And dear lord, is there a lot to try to excuse. He openly admits to drugging his fellow orphans - just children - until he had his wand. Until he had a means to more effectively torture them. He goes on about how his Voldemort self is such a monster and he's filled with self-loathing over it, but he clearly is the same. He makes very tasteless jokes about attacking and torturing people. He constantly belittles and laughs at everyone the author he doesn't like.

Plotwise? Almost exactly the same. Bloated, purple prose? Check. Inability to just call someone by their damned names? Check. Conveniently glossing over important or interesting details, just to linger over what they like? Check. Mary Sues by the truckload? CHECK!

Seriously, first Arianna black, then My Inner Life and now this! What the heck? Either Stephenie Meyer's few writing projects before Twilight were fanfiction or that says something rather awful about the quality of her work. Gack.

Comments

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I'm not knocking the fanfic writers; it's not published to the masses (in the proper way) and they know, somewhere deep inside, their stories are not respectable because they are plagarism.

No. Fanfic is NOT plagiarism. It is copyright infringement, yes. You are unquestionably using someone else's characters (and possibly setting).

But, unless you are copying the books, the films or the TV scripts, either word for word or through incredibly close paraphrasing, you are not plagiarizing. You are not passing off someone else's stories as your own. In fact, most fanfic writers have disclaimers in their stories' headers stating something like this:

Disclaimer: I most emphatically do not own The Dresden Files books. They belong to Jim Butcher and ROC Books. No profit is being made and no copyright or trademark infringed upon.

Or this:

Disclaimer: I am not Terry Pratchett, nor do I own Discworld. No money is being made from this, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

That states fairly clearly that the fanfic writer is NOT the original author, that he or she has no rights to the series, that he or she is not trying to infringe on the rights of the author or publisher (provided the work is still under copyright and is not in the public domain) and that he or she is not trying to make a profit by using the original author's world and/or characters.

That's not plagiarism. A plagiarist is trying diligently to pass off someone else's work as his or her own. I can give you a couple of examples, too:

Lori Jareo, who wrote a fanfic novel and tried to sell it on Amazon.

Lucia Logan and A Hidden Passion.

It's perfectly acceptable, by the way, to write a story or even a novel based on a story in the public domain. Neil Gaiman won a Hugo for doing this in his Sherlock Holmes/Lovecraft crossover, "A Study in Emerald." Jane Smiley won a Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres, a re-imagining of King Lear set on a 20th-century Iowa farm. Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal is basically Bible fanfic. So, for that matter, is Milton's Paradise Lost. Virgil's Aeneid is fanfic of the Iliad; Aeneas, a Trojan prince, is a minor character in the Iliad but becomes the hero of his own story in the Aeneid.

In fact, here's an entire list of works that are, effectively, fanfic of works in the public domain. Would you call those plagiarized? I wouldn't.

And speaking as a writer both of original fiction and of fanfic, I'm proud of my work. I don't consider my fanfic to be lesser or to be "less respectable" because it's fanfic. No, I can't get it published by the conventional route because the world and characters are under copyright to someone else...but does that mean that the story, the plot, the character interpretation and so on can't be something that the original author never thought of? Of course not.

[carmyn]

My apologies, that was not what I intended to say. I did mean copyright infringment, not full-blown plagarism (which, you must admit, does happen). I didn't mean insult on anyone, I just slipped up my words. I am sorry.

My entire point was that, fanfic writers are given more leeway when they write in this type of style because the expectations are not as high as someone who writes original fiction. I was attempting to say was: It's one thing when a fanfiction writer develops characters like this, they are BORROWING characters/settings/themes from someone else to (I hope) develop their writing skills and get a better grasp on writing and everything that comes with creating a story without learning every aspect of it at one time (which can be very daunting for people and overwhelming), especially since a lot of them are young(er). Sometimes fanfiction can encourage someone to become a writer and strengthen some of their weaknesses (or identify them). It's a good tool and a good way to slowly introduce yourself into writing, and maybe inspire you.

But with Meyer, who wrote original fiction, I have higher expectations for her. She has no one else's work to lean on, no one else to blame, everything she writes must stand on their own two feet (which it doesn't). Plus, she has a DEGREE in ENGLISH, so my expectations are even higher for her as compared to a fanfiction writer. She should be writing at a higher level than what (I consider) a beginner is.

I wasn't trying to bash fanfiction writers, I was trying to bash Meyer for her...I won't call it ameteurish, because that could mean non-paid for writing, so I will say BEGINNER-LIKE quality of work. (I don't have italics, so I'm using caps to emphasize, not to be insulting.)

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

Well, that and the fact that fanfiction is usually free (besides when it is, in fact, published like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), so if you find bad fanfic, it's no big deal. Just go leave it. It's a lot more irritating to shell out money for something of the same quality.