Where the trouble started, and why the original version is 104,000 words and has no ending
Hi everyone,
Soon I’ll be able to add videos to my posts here on Substack, and I’m aiming to publish a video that goes into detail about everything to do with Bet Me. In the meantime, I’ve written out what you need to know if you plan to read the original version I’m posting here. Or, maybe you just want to read about about the sordid, twisted and problematic history of this book.
Either way, this post will give you all the juicy details!
2011, a controversial beginning
Originally, Bet Me was a fanfiction written about Damon Salvatore and Elena Gilbert from The Vampire Diaries. It was considered AH/AU – All Human/Alternate Universe.
Fanfiction was a way for me to explore storytelling and novel writing using someone else’s characters, and I learned a lot about serialising and grabbing a reader’s interest through writing fanfics. I also met my bestie while writing for the DE fandom.
After publishing two successful (popular and well followed) fanfics, such as Locked in a Loveless Marriage and Sweet & Sexy Mistakes, I posted the prologue of a new story, The Marriage Sham on http://www.fanfiction.net in April 2011. Less than a day later, I removed the chapter because it was too controversial. When I say controversial, I mean the term date raped was left in comments. While not everyone felt that this term applied, I never wanted to be linked to or endorse such a horrendous act. So, I posted a new, less-dark version soon after, and renamed the story Bet Me.
This new beginning did alleviate the concerns of some of my readers, but the challenges were only just starting.
Bet Me grew big quickly (maybe because of the original controversy), and the number of readers who viewed each update overwhelmed me. In fact, it was the most subscribed to story in the DE fandom before I deleted it. That doesn’t mean it was the most well liked or favourited fanfic, merely that it had a following that I’ve never managed to achieve since, not even with Lights, Camera, Kiss Me.
After the debacle with the prologue, readers forgave my error in judgement and just enjoyed the story, but while they seemed to have moved on, I began to incessantly question whether I could really write and publish the story as I imagined it in my head. The subject matter of the entire book was ‘edgy’, exploring hypnosis, mind control, drugging and forced sexual situations.
After giving birth to my second child in August, I suffered from post-natal depression, which heavily impacted my decision-making and creative processes. As my anxiety grew, I second-guessed myself more and more, until I contemplated moving the book to a different and more secure platform.
In early 2012, after polling my loyal audience, I moved the book from fanfiction.net to Live Journal, where only subscribers and readers I knew were given access.
The deletion of Bet Me in 2013
Unfortunately, moving the book didn’t magically eliminate my doubts and hesitations about the content of the story. Moreover, I began to grow increasingly frustrated with the way Damon and Elena were being written on the show. The S3 finale of TVD broke my heart and alienated me. Combine that with the ongoing post-natal depression and anxiety and I just struggled to move forward.
Not wanting to disappoint my audience, I tried to finish the story during NaNoWriMo of November 2012, publishing updates daily on LJ. (You’ll be able to read these entries along with the original chapters). With the forward momentum, I then moved Bet Me back to fanfiction.net so that all my readers could enjoy it, but still continuously second-guessed the storyline. My editor for this book was upset by at least one of the chapters I sent her, stating she felt the actions of the character were inappropriate and out of order. In my sensitive state, her feedback was enough to derail me from publishing the rest of the updates I’d written. Between the prologue and later content, I no longer trusted my moral judgement and it was easier to defer to someone else’s. The result was my decision to end all publishing of Bet Me.
I’ve included my letter to my readers below. Please remember this was nearly nine years ago. I’m older and wiser and would handle the situation differently these days. All spelling and grammar mistakes have been kept in for authenticity purposes, lol.
October 25th, 2013
I just deleted Bet Me. It is with much trepidation that I announce this fact.
It took me months to work up the courage to post chapter 17 because I wasn’t sure of the content and I wasn’t sure how I was going to finish the story when I didn’t have any drive or inspiration left to complete the project. A week or two prior to posting chapter 17, I very seriously considered pulling the story down and it surprised me how much relief and happiness I felt when I thought about it. Despite all this, I went ahead and posted it anyway because of an anonymous reader who insisted my readers deserved an ending.
At the time I agreed with her, so I did my best with the chapter and posted it regardless of how I felt about it. I also published a note explaining my long absence away from the story. Most comments were extremely encouraging, but there were a few comments and PMs from people who were concerned I was going to “rush” the ending in the same way I “rushed” the KMBMH ending. At first I was annoyed. If you have no faith in the author, don’t read what they write. It’s that simple. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided they were right to be concerned.
The style of romance I write relies on my ability to feel emotional about my characters (Damon and Elena are, of course, not my characters, but you know what I’m saying). And I stopped feeling emotional about Damon and Elena a while ago. I don’t get the same feels when I think about them or see them together on the screen anymore. I used to live them, breathe them, and even dream about them!
Finally, after many conversations with my inner circle, I decided to put the story on hold permanently. A couple of reviewers were quite accepting of this while another said they wouldn’t read anything else I had to write since I couldn’t finish the story. They talked about how disappointing it is to invest in characters and a story and not know how it ends. I hated the fact I’d upset and disappointed this reader. The fandom has always given me so much support and the thought of letting them down was just…too much to handle. Thus I removed the “permanently on hold” and told my twitter friends I’d complete Bet Me in November for NaNoWriMo.
To begin preparing for this challenge I pulled the story out, I re-read it, I watched TVD and DE clips and tried to get ready to finish it. Instead of feeling excited about the challenge, however, I just felt more and more anxious about what I was trying to accomplish. I started thinking about the people who were unhappy with the KMBMH ending and the people who thought I rushed the LCKM ending, amongst other things, and these comments began to eat away at me because I’m afraid their complaints are all valid. I’m afraid I can’t finish a story well anymore and maybe even a little afraid I can’t write anymore.
The amount of pressure I feel (both internally and externally) to finish Bet Me isn’t helping. While I’ve been contemplating removing Bet Me from my profile for a while now, the decision today was impulsive and came after a conversation with my husband in which he told me I could not expect to write while putting myself under so much pressure. Most of the pressure is self-imposed since many of my readers tell me all the time they are happy to wait for an update on this story, but I had to find a way to take the pressure off, and the only way that felt possible was to remove Bet Me from FF.
I do hope that in time I can finish it. I don’t intend to delete it from LJ. In fact, I might just finish it here, but I make no promises. If I decide to start writing it again, it has to be because I want to, not because I’m afraid of disappointing people. I have to learn how to write for myself again, instead of writing for everyone else. When I write to please others, I just worry about letting them down and the stress is too much. I need to get over that hurdle.
Winning at Love is my current story on Wattpad. It’s a project that’s close to my heart. I wrote the first 40,000 words in a burst in February this year, when everything was falling down around my ears and I needed something to hold on to. I’m going to keep working on it because it makes me feel good and I enjoy it. I need to know whether my recent inability to finish a story is because I haven’t been writing stories I love, or whether it’s become a problem I need to spend some time figuring out.
I know many of you will feel disappointed and let down by my decision to discontinue Bet Me, especially after I said I’d work on it this November. I just ask that you give me some time on this. Again, I hope I will feel like coming back to the story at some point. I’ve always felt incredibly supported by the DE community and I’ve always tried to be honest about my thoughts and feelings on things in return. I really hope some of you will continue to read my work on Wattpad as I love your comments and familiar faces, but I’ll understand if you decide not to.
I’m going to try and move forward from here. You guys know where I am if you need to contact me, though I do have to advise that I don’t receive alerts for any PMs or reviews on FF anymore. I have loved this fandom and loved being part of it.
Wishing every one of you much love and happiness always,
Michelle
The challenges of returning to write Bet Me
Wow, does it take me back to read that!
And while I didn’t delete it from LJ, years ago I made it viewable only to me.
Okay, so as you can see, when I removed Bet Me, I always hoped to finish it. After the successful completion of Winning at Love, Let Me Be the One and Shatter for You on Wattpad, and then I Love you, My Neighbour on Radish, I felt extremely connected to my audience and readers and wanted to give them an ending to Bet Me. My anxiety as a writer seemed conquerable at that point. I’d also plotted the rest of the book; I knew how it was going to end. I could totally do this.
Three problems with continuing confronted me, however, when I finally pulled out the old draft. They were:
I’d started writing original fiction and now connected more with my own characters than someone else’s. I had also moved so far away from TVD and writing fanfiction that the challenge of writing about a couple I didn’t create and no longer loved seemed insurmountable.
I’d stopped using the head-hopping technique for my books. What’s head hopping? Changing the point of view throughout a scene (see Lights, Camera, Kiss Me as an example). This way of storytelling is an excellent way to create and build tension and was a popular way to write for a long time, but people don’t write that way anymore, so I stopped doing this.
I’d also started writing in first person rather than in third and didn’t have a desire to return to third person storytelling.
There were so many times I consulted with my inner circle about how to return to Bet Me, or even whether I should return at all. Many times, I vowed to just let it go and allow the story to be part of my history. I often described it as the albatross around my neck. But while I desperately wished I could let it go, I couldn’t. Readers still contacted me about the book, hoping I could deliver an ending. Every time I started writing a new book, I would remember all the readers I let down by not returning to the story, and it eroded my confidence when it came to finishing projects. Eventually, I had to tackle Bet Me even if the problems I faced were daunting.
To resolve the challenges, I knew I would need to heavily rewrite the book in first person. I would also have to use characters of my own creation instead of Damon and Elena. Rather than starting from scratch with the characters, I grabbed a couple from one of my never published books – Too Hot for TV (sequel to Lights, Camera, Kiss Me). Reese Cameron and Knox Casey had plenty of chemistry in my head, so I made the decision I would use them. Swap one couple with another.
The return of Bet Me in 2017
With Reese and Knox as the new leads, I published the first episode on Wattpad in May 2017.
The success of the first chapter on Wattpad confirmed that Bet Me was still very much a story people would engage with. Readers that had been with me from the beginning of my writing journey were thrilled to see its return. I should have been set from there. Bet Me should have been a cake walk.
So, why is Bet Me still in progress?
I could go on to list a variety of reasons, including busy home life, busy work life, anxiety, depression etc. But the truth is that I now face new challenges. Sure, I’ve stopped the head-hopping, am using my own characters, and write in first person, but I have continued to move it from platform to platform due to its steamy and controversial content. One of my readers commented that Substack is now the 6th platform Bet Me has been published on. And can I guarantee it will be my last? With the way I change my mind, I’m reluctant to answer that.
Also, the more I rewrite Bet Me with the new leads, the more the story changes. The tone is different. I feel like I’m trying to duplicate something, and I honestly can’t tell whether it’s working. I ask constantly, is the chemistry right? Did swapping the characters help or hinder the story?
There are times when I think Kiss Me, Break My Heart 2.0, which is set in the same universe as Bet Me and follows a similar plot, should just supersede Bet Me, but I always find a reason to return to the old story. Case in point, a few weeks ago I swore yet again I was done with Bet Me, then I went back to working on the story the very next week, posting the chapter on Vocal.
So, I can’t say with any guarantee what will happen moving forward, I can only promise that I will not rest until Von Gruber has been brought to justice.
In the meantime, I thought I would dust off and publish the old chapters of Bet Me for anyone who wants to read them. After its removal from LJ a while back, Substack is now the only place on the web you can find this controversial version. I’ve changed the names to Reese and Knox and the cities to Melbourne and Magpie Grove to make it readable for all, and you can see all the head-hopping, grammar problems, spelling mistakes and old author notes from 2011-2013. There will be some substitutions I’ve missed, so if you see any TVD names or references, please just ignore them.
If you decide to read the original, welcome to my own 50 Shades of Gray, without all the BDSM. Well, without too much BDSM, anyway. Maybe you’ll understand why people are willing to wait 11 years for an ending. Either that, or you’ll scratch your head and wonder what on earth I’ve done to deserve such loyalty.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on the new Bet Me.
Or the old Bet Me.
All my love,
AKA Michelle/LoveEpicLove
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