Sasha Cameron, a Twilight fan I met on my blog some time ago, has dived into the fan fiction world in a big way, both reading and now writing stories based on Fifty Shades of Grey. The fan fiction world is something I’ve only been slightly aware of, having come to it from a different, oblivious-to-the-world angle, as a writer frustrated by finding that the second half of Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun remained unwritten. I searched for another author who might have finished the book and immediately found the site fanfiction.net, whose vast collection of writings overwhelmed me to such a degree that I backed away from it in favor of “rolling my own” website. I’ve since learned more about the fan fiction world, what a crazy free-for-all it is and how lots of Twilight-based fiction has been published since Fifty Shades of Grey went “viral” and saved Random House publishing from near-certain bankruptcy.
Sasha has put together a smart analysis of the phenomenon of “pull-to-publish” (P2P) fiction, that is, fan fiction stories that became so popular as free online offerings that big publishing houses offered the authors contracts to publish them. In order to avoid copyright infringement liability, the fan fiction works are altered prior to publication to change the names of the Twilight characters. Hence, Edward and Bella became Christian and Ana in Fifty Shades of Grey, though those books are just the tip of an ever-increasing iceberg of published fan fiction. Sasha Cameron examines the controversy of P2P fan fiction in a highly enlightening post, which you’ll find here:
Keep Calm: Read Twilight Fan Fiction.
If, like me, you’re a fan of Fifty Shades of Grey and fan fiction derived from it, you can check out Sasha’s FSOG stories here.
Acknowledgements: Dear Author, A Romance Review Blog for Readers by Readers
Twilight: The Missing Pieces 
This was a great read. Thank you for sharing. I too stumbled upon ff by accident and haven’t looked back.
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Reblogged this on Daphodill's Garden and commented:
I’m still finding my way through the social aspects of fandom. This article, although several months old, is quite the handbook to newbies like me. It gives a bit of history and discusses the controversy of P2P. Very insightful read.
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Thank you! I found some interesting info on your blog too, particularly about beta services. I want to write a post about them as I didn’t know such existed and I’m sure lots of other writers don’t either. PAL
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I’m not sure how I found out about them, but they are a great benefit.
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It’s hard to see the motivation for these sites, because editing someone else’s work is a true gift (and people get paid plenty to do it). For fanfiction fans, I guess they get to read lots of fanfiction, but some of it is so raw that I wouldn’t imagine it to be a lot of fun. Perhaps the contributors are compulsive editors (like me) or teachers or…maybe they are just shining angels in our midst. 🙂 PAL
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The first fics I read were so well polished that it spoiled me. I have read my fair share of messy stories, particularly once I signed on to FFn, so I stick to my few go-to authors. I have mixed feelings, because some of those services reject requests because there are too many errors–Go figure. I like the community that comes along with it, but with anything, there are good and bad aspects. I beta/edit for others, and it is sometimes a chore, but most times is an honor to help refine a work, particularly a story that speaks me. The worst part is that the ones with the roughest stories have the most difficult time taking correction, swearing that they have the next 50 Shades on their hard drive.
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So you are an angel. God bless you.
In my experience, true writers strive, because it’s not truly about them at all. PAL
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Thank you so much. Like you, I knew nothing of fan fiction until I read Fifty Shades so I have had my eyes opened in a big way over the past year. I appreciate the shout out you have given here.
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It’s a great post…sums up the issue perfectly. And your blog is lovely too. 🙂 PAL
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Thank you so much.
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