MOONLIGHT VAMPIRE SOCIETY

Courtesy of www.StephenieMeyer.com

Midnight Sun: Edward's Version of Twilight

June 2008 Update: In response to the outrageous number of emails that I have received with questions concerning Midnight Sun, I talked to Stephenie this weekend and she asked me to let everyone know that Midnight Sun is her next project. She has not yet finished writing it (and there is no timeline set up, so we all need to put a lot of effort into being patient for a while longer), but she is definitely still planning on having it published. And, after Breaking Dawn comes out, Stephenie will have much more time to focus on writing Midnight Sun.

Midnight Sun is an exercise in character development that got wildly out of hand (as do many of my projects).

While I was procrastinating some real editing work (I'm always at my most creative when procrastinating), I started to wonder how the first chapter of Twilight would read if it were written from Edward's perspective. There is so much more to his side of the story than there is to Bella's in that first chapter. After all, Bella only knows that an incredibly gorgeous boy is looking at her funny. Meanwhile, Edward is suffering through one of the most momentous days of his very long life! First there's the shock and frustration of not being able to hear Bella's thoughts, then the wild, monstrous reaction to her scent, followed by the incredible expenditure of self-control that it takes to not kill her... His side of Bella's first day at Forks High School is a hundred times more exciting than her own.

Though I didn't have time to work on it right away, the idea of letting Edward have his chance to speak stuck with me. I couldn't shake it. I found myself thinking his words in the middle of the night and jotting down phrases he would use while I was waiting in line at the post office. As soon as I finished my real work, I sat down and let Edward get his say.

Writing chapter one, "First Sight," from Edward's point of view was an exciting experience; I actually had my pulse racing as I typed. When I finished, I was truly pleased with my creation. Here was the other side of the story that no one knew. Here was the truth of what Edward had been through. I felt like I knew my Edward even better, and I was sure his dialogue would be more insightful in future novels. The end. Exercise over.

Ha ha. It wasn't long before I was thinking about Edward in Alaska, Edward upon his return to Forks, Edward's side of that fateful conversation in Biology... Chapter two started to write itself in my head, while I kept telling myself that I didn't have time to write a book for fun when I had real books to write. (My mother seconded that opinion—she thinks I work too hard).

But when a story demands to be written, there's no way to resist. And the more I wrote, the more I became convinced that Edward deserved to have his story told. At first I was planning to post it all here on my website, but I changed my mind for two reasons, the most important being that Edward's version is much longer than Bella's—Edward over-thinks everything. I'm not even half way done, and the page count is near three hundred. The second reason that I changed my mind is a little bit silly—I just would really love to have a pretty, matching, bound version of Midnight Sun to put beside Twilight on top of my desk. So I'm going to try to have it published as a complementary novel to Twilight. It will take a while, because I can only work on it between editing stints, but I hope that someday I'll be able to see Midnight Sun on the bookstore shelves next to Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and etc... (Fueling my belief that Midnight Sun is worthy of publishing is my mother's about face—after reading the first eleven chapters, she thinks it's magic and says I should go for it.)

And here I was going to write just a short paragraph of introduction. You see what I mean about things getting out of hand?

Because I just can't wait out the years it will take to reach publication for people to begin to understand Edward, here is my original character development exercise, Edward's version of Bella's first day at Forks High School, the first chapter of Midnight Sun*:

Midnight Sun Chapter 1 (if you are having problems viewing it, please click here.) This material is copyrighted by Stephenie Meyer. Any retranscription or reproduction is illegal.

***Please remember this is an unedited rough draft. It is full of typos and all the other flaws that unedited manuscripts have. Enjoy it for what it is, but know that the final copy will be infinitely superior.

Wow, this woman is endlessly creative! This series could outlast Harry Potter if she continues to have great new and fresh ways of looking at the story and the characters! I'd love to read Edward's perspective on the events of all three books! Thanks for sharing this Candy!

I would too, but she says she will only write Twilight from Edward's perspective. She said it would be too depressing to write New Moon from Edward's POV. Although, even though they keep saying Breaking Dawn is the last one in the series. I've heard SM say that she's working on book 5 and she has an outline for book 6. She has hinted they may be from another POV, maybe Edwards?????

WELL NOW.....this just sucks and I do not mean the good kind of vampire love sucking....

Apparently, some total a@@hole leaked a partial draft of Midnight Sun and now SM is so upset she has put it on hold!!!

Quote -
"So where does this leave Midnight Sun? My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math; in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything. If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely"

You can read the whole story on her site.

She says on the post that she can pretty much narrow it down to who did it...they need to pay. Thanks to them we may never get another vampire/Cullen book and this one from Edwards P.O.V. sounds SO GOOD. I loved the first chapter she has online.

She has posted the leaked draft but I for one am NOT going to read it out of principal....although I am dying to!

Okay, I have read the chapters (I've had it for a while...) and I can agree that the person who did it does need to be punished, but the fans do not.

A friend took the words right out of my mouth so I'm gonna quote her.



While many people may not agree, this is how I feel (just looks nicer than what I would have typed out) about the MS situation.

I'm a fan...but I feel the same way Harm. She's punishing the whole for the actions of one and it's not fair. I get the hurt...I'd be hurt too...but to punish the loyal fans this way, is just very upsetting and rude.

Mel --- We AGREE (LOL...I say that b/c of our differing views on Breaking Dawn)

It does seem like a crappy way to thank all the millions of fans who made her rich & famous.
I get the feeling the almighty dollar will win out & she will finish & publish MS. Let's face it, there are millions to be made with it.

I don't think she sold it to Little Brown yet so maybe they have no say.

Could also be a huge publicity stunt...honestly, BD got raked across the coals by more fans than any of her previous books so it could be them trying to charge up the fans to write -- OH PLEASE, PLEASE publish this.

I do feel for her but it does seem childish to pull the rug out from under your fans when you said it would be published and don't tell me SM does not know how much people were looking forward to it.

And if she knows who did not, why not go after them with both barrels and take legal action -- if this was MY work -- damm skippy I'd be talking to my lawyers.

I am a huge fan too and I will be ticked off (to put it mildly) if I don't get to read the rest of it. I loved the first 264 pages. Edward is very interesting. I loved seeing all the things we didn't get to see in Twilight too. I know I have a bad temper and usually after I have time to cool off and reflect I make better decisions. Let's hope she cools off and decides to finish it. It doesn't seem fair to ruin it for all of her fan because of one idiot.

Anyone knows if she changed her mind about this, and will write MS??? Any news about this or the other books??? I will love to know, cause I really, really like the Twilight saga, and want more!!
xoxo

I check her site daily and she hasn't posted anything about Midnight Sun since this summer. If you haven't read the first 264 pages on her site you should. i loved it. I read somewhere that if she does finish it she doesn't plan to tell anyone until it's done and ready to come out so that the rest of it does not get leaked. I think it would be the best book in the series.

Read the first 12 chapters and loved it.. Now I just feel jipped though..
Also Edwards POV for New Moon is gonna suck without Bella.. That had what?, a total for 20 pages together?

I would however like to read his POV for Breaking Dawn.. I'll go to that thread to give my take on it..

After reading MS, I felt like it would be THE BEST of the series. I don't think she could do Eward's POV with New Moon....he's gone for too much of it. Instead of just flipping the POV she would have to almost write a whole other book showing what he was doing while gone. She said once in an interview she didn't think she would b/c it would take her to much too dark of a place in her mind (paraphrasing)

I will be seriously ticked if it never comes out. BUT we have been down that ranting road before so no need to