Melissesages

There’s a lot of talk, when it comes to movies, music, and to some extent, television, about pirating. Illegal downloads have been around for awhile, and it’s something that’s been debated and argued and legally enforced again and again, until we’re all kind of familiar with the whole saga. There are plenty of people who still illegally download, and plenty, like me, who don’t out of fear of getting caught, but I had some new insight into the whole thing this week when something kind of sad happened in the literary world. As some of you know, I’m a fan of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. It’s a four-book series, it’s addictive, and it’s often compared to Harry Potter as a YA series that just appeals to adults and teens across the board. In fact, a few weeks ago I wrote an article for the paper on the latest and final book, “Breaking Dawn,” which you can find here.
Anyway, the series is written from the perspective of Bella, a human who unfortunately falls in love with Edward, a vampire (I know, I know – overdone, right? But Meyers puts a fresh spin on it, trust me). Now that the series is over, just for fun and for the fans, Stephenie Meyers decided to do something pretty cool: she started writing a fifth book, “Midnight Sun,” which retold the story of “Twilight,” the first novel, from Edward’s perspective. She put the excellent first chapter on her website for all to enjoy, and “Twilight” fans who were depressed at the series’ ending had something to look forward to as a little bonus.
All good, right? But last week, someone got a hold of the first, uncompleted draft of “Midnight Sun,” and posted it online for all the world to find. And lots of them did.
Stephenie Meyers was understandably upset, feeling violated and angry that an imcomplete work had been essentially published without her permission (I’m not suggesting that it’s ethical, but when someone steals a new Jason Mraz song or the Iron Man movie, they’re at least dealing with a finished work). In a powerful blog on her website, Meyers makes some really good points about an author’s work belonging only to the author until they’re ready to show it to the world. “Writing isn’t like math,” she says, “in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything.” She’s right, too: when you write, you make things up as you go along, and every idea is a different one than you might have had on a different day. The whole revision process (and trust me, it’s a big, long process) exists to make sure that everything works out the way the writer wants it too in the grand scheme of things. By publishing an unrevised manuscript online, the thief took away Meyer’s chance to do that. She was really upset about it, and I don’t blame her one bit.
So, Stephenie Meyer has decided to stop work on “Midnight Sun,” feeling too upset to continue, and afraid that her feelings would tarnish the writing. But then she did something really, really classy: instead of running around trying to legally halt the posting of her work online, she simply put the draft of “Midnight Sun” right smack on her own site. It was a smart, mature move (and a little surprising, given that she’s essentially sacrificing any money she might make from the sales of the draft – can you see JK Rowlings doing that?), and it gave all us fans a chance to read the unfinished draft guilt-free, without feeling like we’re ethically compromised.
And I’ll tell you something: it’s good, too. In fact, the draft that appears made me understand exactly why posting it online is so smart for Meyers: it proves how much we all would have enjoyed the book, if she’d been allowed to continue the way she wanted. The people who like her work and respect her copyrights get something, at least, and the people who were responsible for the leaking and spreading of the book will be made to realize that by leaking the draft, they’ve only hurt us all. Because, as it is just a draft, the book is unfinished, and while we get to read about many of the first novel’s events from Edward’s perspective (made even more fun, by the way, by the fact that Edward is telepathic), we don’t get any of the really big stuff towards the end. I’m angry that the leak happened and I don’t get to read the rest of “Midnight Sun,” but I’m impressed with Stephenie Meyers, who surely took the high road here. And you know, if she ever does decide to continue writing “Midnight Sun,” I’ll be first in line to pay my hard-earned money for it, in a completely legal sense. I just hope she realizes how much we all want her to.