Everything Wrong With TWILIGHT Fanfictions

* Bella Swan's Sister

The major cliche plot in which quite a lot of Twilight fanfics can be easily categorized is the Other Swan or the Bella's Twin story plot.

It's the third fandom for which I'm writing a helpbook (I have already done for Harry Potter fandom and The Vampire Diaries) and trust me when I tell you that it is extremely common for fanfiction writers to just pick the main protagonist from a novel/series etc and start writing about their twin sister.

For example in Harry Potter fandom, you get a lot of Harry's twin sister stories, in the TVD fandom there are hundreds of Elena's twin sister stories and now in the Twilight fandom, who is chosen to be the OC's twin?

Bella Swan of course.

Considering that there are around 48.5K of Twilight fanfics in total on Wattpad, it's no big surprise that about 28.3K fanfics out of the total are based on Bella's sister.

And also another not so surprising fact is that majority of those fanfics are simply titled as Bella's Sister. But we'll discuss that later.

First of all, let us view the similarities these plots have with one another as well as the personality and traits of the OCs used in such plots.

OC's Personality and traits:  

1. The OC is either Bella's twin sister or her younger sister, who is cooler, more gorgeous, more perfect and basically much better than Bella herself.

2. She is socially more active and is friends with everyone. Including Jessica, Tyler, the La Push pack, the Cullens and literally the whole school population.

3. But for some unknown reason, she is the loneliest person alive who has so many problems that she can't cope with it. Also she has to suffer her sister's wrath, her parent's ignorance, gets bullied and overall treated like a piece of crap.

[Which doesn't make sense at all but hey, that's what happens in most of the fanfics. Maybe it's just a plot device used to make readers sympathize with the character but in my own opinion it's a pretty lame plot device and shouldn't be used until the reasons are much more authentic than just gaining readers' sympathy].

4. In most of these stories, the OC overshadows Bella completely and is so much better than her, that Edward becomes attracted to this OC and later it is revealed that the OC was Edward's mate instead of Bella.

5. And in those few stories where Edward and Bella remain a couple, the potential love interest choice for the OC is none other than Jasper Hale.

6. I have also seen a lot of stories in which Bella's sister is already a supernatural creature such as a werewolf, vampire, hybrid or some other great mythical being that is superior to everyone else present in the story.

7. If the OC's love interest is Edward, then be warned that she is going to take over Bella's role completely. 

8. And if the love interest is Jasper then Alice somehow mysteriously vanishes and gets replaced by her.

9. I almost forgot but yes there are a few stories in which the OC ends up with Jacob Black but that is an extreme rare case. 

Effects on other characters: 

1. Usually in such stories, Bella Swan is somewhat more emotionally unavailable and detached than she was actually portrayed in the books. She is just someone who's there because the fanfic author couldn't completely get rid of her.

2. Or in other cases, such as those fanfics in which Bella's sister gets together with Edward, she is portrayed as a jealous bitch who is obsessed with Edward Cullen and would go to any lengths to be with him and to get rid of her sister.

3. In Jasper love interest fanfics, Alice takes up the above mentioned role.

[What I don't understand is that why do only these two Vampires have to be chosen as the love interest? There are clearly many more people such as Seth, Alec, Benjamin etc. Also the OC can have preferences for the other gender too].

4. Charlie Swan is completely ignored throughout the story. He's just a convenient Dad who's too busy in his work to take care of his daughters but still loves them and blah blah blah.

5. Many characters are plain invisible or just not given much attention to, including most of the Cullens, the Volturi etc.

6. The Volturi only ever turn up when there is some war or some major action scene. Basically they are just there to twist things up if everything is going too happy shiny.

7. Or in some stories in which Edward is the love interest, Bella and Tanya (from the Denali Coven) team up to wreak havoc on the OC.

8. In Jasper love stories, Alice teams up with Maria (from the Mexican Coven) and does pretty much the same as above.

9. But in the end no one gets killed, all the bad guys become good, wedding bells in the air, immediate flawless children ready for the epilogue... Basically everything turns out perfect and glittery gold for the OC. What does the author care if the plot gets horribly twisted? The OC gets a happy ending and that's what really matters, right?

***

Anyhow, these are few of the many things I have seen in such fanfictions and am honestly tired about. I also do an Exception part at the end of the chapter which contains fanfics which are worth reading but for this cliche plot, I don't think I have any exceptions so far.

State your opinion in the comments and stay tuned for the next chapter.

[I will be doing a whole section on how to avoid such cliches but that's going to come way after in the book so you will be reading this for a long time before getting to that chapter so yeah, good luck.]