Twilight ReVAMPED - Ch 1 First Sight Rewrite Development

Update 4/22/12 - HOW IS THE STORY DEVELOPING? I am having WAY more fun than I thought I was going to rewriting Bella; and it is ALOT easier than I thought it would be - the story is really practically writing itself. I now know what Stephenie means when she talked about Bella & Edward having incessant conversations in her head. They are starting to do that to me, too; and I'm finding it difficult not to RUSH to those conversations. Just fyi - THIS is the reason why Twilight is probably like it is, and it is also the REASON why we women can forgive this silly story so easily - Stephenie Meyer was probably too obsessed with her characters (or more likely, with her silly sexual fantasy) to slow down long enough to 1) get to know them; and 2) take the tedious time it takes to flesh them out and tell their story.

Btw, I am ALSO just "writing this off the top of my head" like Stephenie - although, to be fair; I have at least two advantages over her - I already know how the story goes and I also already know about VAMPIRES (generally speaking, believe it or not - I am NOT an authority on them, ha!). I'm not changing the basic storyline - in fact, I'm trying to keep it parallel to Stephenie's Twilight. You can expect the same basic things to happen in each chapter, although it will read alot differently. I'm just trying to fix Bella's too-shallow character and maybe - even though it seems like it would be a damn near impossibility - see if I can fix the Vampire aspects of Edward and his family, as well.

I do need to give you a heads-up about something... Since I'm fleshing out Bella more in this rewrite, I am adding a girlfriend from Phoenix to help fill in her background. I hope you like Meredith, she seems like just the kind of oddball Bella might take in as a friend, ha!
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Update 4/25/12 - After quite a bit of thought, I've decided that Jacob is going to be coming in at this point instead of when Stephenie has him coming into the books. IF I'm going out of my way like this to fix Bella and the Vampire storylines - I'm not going to get around Jacob without cutting this story practically in half. But, since I'm going to be reading about him eventually anyway, I am going to assume that he will tell me his story along with how it ends as I go - just like Bella & Edward seem to be doing. Bella has already inserted a few really cool ideas for herself; and Edward has the most brilliant explanation for his pretty sparkles! (Yes, I realize I'm talking about them as if they are real - I'm not THAT crazy, ha!) Bella has even come up with a WAY cooler power than Stephenie's and one that you probably haven't even thought of! (I'm not sure anyone has ever thought of it yet, ha!) It is one that makes more sense for her, however...

One of the things I LIKED about Stephenie's Vampire story was that it wasn't intertwined with a bunch of heavy magic and heavy Goth themes. It seemed so simple and plain and sweet. Not that I have a problem with those stories at all - I was also a huge "Charmed" fan, I love all that kind of stuff. Twilight was a breath of fresh air for awhile, but the air turned stinky fast. So I'm going to try to keep this as fresh and magicless as possible (although honestly, if I get to the baby; I'm going to have to get awfully creative if I don't use magic - I have a couple ideas, we'll see if I get that far.)

I know I sound pretty obnoxious in here toward Stephenie Meyer; and I will admit to feeling an inordinate amount of righteous anger toward her at the moment - which is a very rare treat because, let's face it - how many times in your life to you get to throw a hissy fit like this in public and be in-the-RIGHT about doing it whether anyone else agrees with you or not, LoL?!

But, it wouldn't be right if I didn't acknowledge that Stephenie has inspired all this. It is HER wonky, creative brain that dreamed up this beautiful fairytale; and then she took the time to write it all down and share it with us - even if she got it SO wrong that it's SO painful for so many people out here to admit it.

I'm sure there is a compliment in there, somewhere - at least, there was meant to be. How much do I get for good intentions? LoL! I'm feeling more and more evil by the moment... Who knows how evil Edward will turn out by the time I get done with him in here! Muuuaawwwhhhh!

Update 4/26/12 - OMG, we're LEAVING THE BABY IN, I JUST FIGURED OUT HOW she is able to be conceived (but, YEAH, we're throwing ALOT of other silly things surrounding her out) - and, NO, we're NOT GOING TO USE ANY MAGIC!! The idea was inspired by another fellow estranged Twilight fan whose idea I took and meshed with another one I had been thinking about. I would LOVE to give that person credit RIGHT NOW - except, if I do that AND some of you are actually reading through any of the rest of my blog; you might figure it out for yourselves beforehand.

And how boring would that be? KNOWING the end of Twilight Breaking Dawn? Ha! I'll give credit when credit is due - and frankly, I can hardly wait!

I now have a reason to continue writing. I've paused for a bit to figure out a few things - but I wasn't expecting to have this issue worked out this early. At the moment, I'm thinking about Jacob and wishing I knew more about him. It'll come. But gosh, you REALLY DO get excited about things when you figure them out - to the point that it's HARD to slow down long enough to tell the story until you GET there, LoL!

This is going to be good... I PROMISE! :)

Update 4/28/12 - A couple of things are happening with the Twilight rewrite... First, I'm starting the harrowing part of the story in this first chapter instead of later. Second, I'm going to stick with Bella's POV as often as possible; but on occasion, you'll see other character's POVs, as necessary.

Also... This is turning out to be a very organic story. If you came in here and read this the first day I had it up, you might notice that this is now almost twice as long and far more fleshed out - even though I've only gotten a little further in the story.

This is because ALL KINDS OF THINGS are starting to bring themselves up in my brain at the same time - its kind of fun, actually - and the possibilities seem ENDLESS, ha!

I will be continuing soon, I'm starting to get antsy - I just need to listen to the characters tell me their story for a little while longer, first. :)

Update 5/1/12 - If you're following along, you'll notice that I've finally managed to get through to Jacob and Bella's Truck. I made them a little closer from the beginning instead of them being such strangers. I think it will make the love triangle that we all know will develop later more believable.

Update 5/2/12 - So now I'm thinking about Edward, of course... And it's kind of funny, I thought you fanfiction fans out there might find how these scenes are developing "off the top of my head" interesting. I'm not sure what Stephenie's technique was, but so far, this has been mine:

I kind of have an idea ahead of time before I'm going into a scene surrounding what I want to accomplish in that scene and (roughly) how it is going to be accomplished. I work the details of it out basically by playing the scene in my head over and over again until I start to hear the characters voices within it.

Sometimes, the scene gets moved to a different setting than where I originally thought it would be - this next scene with Edward is one that moved around alot. PLUS, there is the question of "at what point does this scene start" to work out. So far, once I get them started, they write themselves pretty smoothly.

This scene didn't really start to solidify itself until early this morning - about a day and a half, altogether - not including the preemptive-thought-time I put in.

During this time, it's almost like I'm "sinking" into these characters as I'm thinking about what is happening to them; until their voices/personalities start to "feel right" (I guess, I don't really know how else to describe it).

It's during these times that Edward & Bella's conversations have been coming up; and now that Edward is coming into the picture, I'm seeing conversations with the rest of the characters - including alot of Bella's future interactions with them.

It's almost like you have to wade through all this stuff that comes pouring into your brain before you can start to write the scene, ha! AND these little bits and pieces of interactions are filling out the story as I'm writing it.

So far, this has been a really fun and cool process. I have a couple of days off, so I expect to have this scene up for you in a day or two - more "pouring" will be happening as I write it, ha!

BTW, it's not like I've never made an attempt to write a novel on my own before; because I have lots of times. But I've never tried to write with anyone else's characters or storyline before - it's interesting.

I must have more of a make-believe boost with this than I usually so - because I've both read "Midnight Sun" which is filling in alot of the background on ALL of these character for me as I'm writing this; AND because I've SEEN these characters brought to life up on the big screen by the actors & actresses who portray them...

I could HEAR the voice of the actor who plays James (Cam Gigandet) in my head when I wrote that scene; and while Kristen's voice may seem a little less obvious in here, I think you can still hear it - maybe sometimes moreso than others. She's a little more generic in my head when I write Bella. I'm trying to focus more on Bella's voice - which, to me, includes ALOT of things, not just the sound of it or the words Bella might say.

PLUS, I AM reading the books ahead a few chapters before I'm writing this. As a result, these characters are probably ALOT more fleshed out to me (and to alot of us) than they EVER were to Stephenie before Twilight was published.

I've heard her say somewhere that after she was done writing Twilight she started writing epilogues (I think that's what she called them); LOTS of them. She said she knew at that point that she "wasn't ready to let go of her characters".

YOU WERE STILL LEARNING ABOUT THEM, STEPHENIE - and GOSH, don't you think a little Literary RESEARCH might have went a long way towards that goal?

This SAGA shouldn't have been written until after all those were practically done - after you both knew them and your "beautiful little fairytale" ALOT better.

I suppose I should be grateful that I get to correct it like this, now; I am having ALOT of fun, I'll admit... But, it's NOT like *I'm* getting paid to correct your ignorant, amateur mistakes, Stephenie (and yes, I realize that no one is asking me to).

So yeah, it would be different if I was of the opinion that you deserved your POTS & POTS of gold. (Sorry, it is very difficult for me to keep my personal opinions of SM and her writing out of here, at times.)

Edward is up next!

Update 5/3/12 - Ok, this chapter is (relatively-speaking) complete. I may need to come back and tinker with a few things as I get further into the story. But for now, I'm moving on... Enjoy! In my opinion, this is getting REALLY GOOD!

You'll notice that both Bella & Edward are in the beginning stages of becoming obsessed with each other NOW instead of a little later. Simply because Edward is a VAMPIRE - that would (most likely) start to happen IMMEDIATELY and in a much more direct way than in SM's version.

Twilight ReVAMPED: Chapter 2 - Open Book Rewrite is on deck, and Bella's first day of school is coming up!