Cover of "New Moon" book. She did so with only one trick up her sleeve: just being a good writer. Now wait, and let me explain myself. If you do, I will at least be considered a martyr for a good cause. What makes it so attractive is the whole forbidden love concept. Meyer should have been reined in after the first book. Jacob imprints on Renesmee? Oh, stop. There are continuity errors literally from page to page. Bad research : It bugs me when Meyer writes that Edward grips the handles of two steamer trunks in one hand.
Steamer trunks? It annoys the snot outta me when Alice bribes a guard in a foreign city with an American one-thousand-dollar bill, when those bills have been out of circulation since I could go on and on , but my point is an editor should have questioned every single one of these details. Meyer breaks the laws of her own universe in the last book. Worse, she breaks the rules of good YA, the first of which is the story stops at the wedding.
What were Meyer and her editor thinking? Twilight et al should have been better books. They should have been books that made girls think and grow. Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. The only decent scene in the entire series came early in the second book—when Bella got a paper cut opening her birthday present and the vampires destroyed the house.
If only the series had ended there. But it was a hard, arduous slug. But my daughter loved them all, as did many of the teens and young women at church. So…what do you think she did right?
You say she connected emotionally. Any clues on how she did that? I thought her description of the two protagonists falling in love as an intellectual process as opposed to a physical one, since Edward kept his distance quite engaging. I always thought that was interesting. As for the fame, her success is about as impressive as the creator of pillow pets. Take something kids are obsessed with, such as stuffed animals and taking naps. Next you simply draw the premise out in a series of more moderately tweaked products sharing the exact same theme, such as these books.
I am much more forgiving of poor proofreading than I am of neglected developmental editing. I have a lot of ideas about why it is that quality and emphasis on craft and excellent editing has diminished, but I think most of it goes to money.
Publishing houses pay people like me not-a-lot-of money to proof and copy edit, and senior editors are doing double duty as networkers, author schmoozers, talent scouts, AND developmental editors. I think that as book publishers shift their business models and do more epubbing and less trad pubbing, some of these issues will normalize.
But I also think, and I can totally see this rationale, too, even though I disagree, that publishing houses have little incentive to publish polished books if amateurs can self-publish books without any kind of external editing at all and make scads of cash. Nicely considered response!
Most of my developmental work is done for publishers. But not all. I meant to add a link to this. I have to admit I did not read the books until recently after watching the first movie on TV.
Then as a writer and reader I had to read the book because the movie did not make much sense to me. Like a lot of us ladies the romance angle really got me. I mean its what we all want right? Unfortunatly for those of us who have fallen in love with the bad boy in real life, the ending is not so happy.
What i noticed in her writing though is that she got a lot of her ideas from the classics. I kind of figured she has read Shakespear and Jane Austin one too many times because the first book reeks of the classics. We have to give the girl props for writing a simple novel that appeals to teenage girls emotionally.
On the whole as much as I liked reading it I cannot help but think how she set up some poor girls for a lifetime of hurt by encouraging such absurd behavior from boys and young man.
A lot of girls are out there right now looking for their Edward but for them the story will end a lot differently because in real life obssesive , stalker older boyfriends are very bad news. She definitely hits a lot of notes for a lot of women including me, as noted above. But so much knowledge or not-knowledge is absorbed through fiction. Everything I know about writing and editing I learned by reading. I just hate that girls will read this and learn the wrong things about writing and about being human.
So its most likely her editors were lazy because those word counts are long. I stumbled on this post because I also struggle with understanding how the Twilight books are so popular. They need to be strong or at least grow into their strength. I am horrible at grammar so I know I will need the help come the editing stage. And I should add, an editor does a lot more than correct grammar. There are different types of editors. I read all of them back in highschool, and I absolutely loved the story.
However, she is a terrible writer. I could not in good faith recommend anything she has done to anyone. On a side note: I am so happy you used Reasoning With Vampires as your examples.
I have been following that blog for ages. The girl who writes them does such a great job picking apart each and every flaw. I could think of a million things, but the main thing that irked me was how utterly unlikeable Edward and Bella were. Bella was weak, clingy, and selfish. Edward was obsessive and insanely jealous. I am so thrilled to hear from you, Katherine!
Stick around—we talk about them here. I think this is a straw man argument, dude. But the writing is atrocious and the editing is bad too. Would it be clearer to say that, the writing is of a standard which you personally would not write and therefore cringe at?
If they sell extremely well, something that appeals to masses, so many people want to tear them down for their poor writing. Here is why I threw the book across the bookstore — on the first page alone, I ran into at least 8 or 9 sentences that start with It was. What gets me is that all of these books went through the editing process through the publishing house, yet they came out so poorly. I would cut off my writing arm before I released anything — adult or young adult — that poor in quality.
A good story covers a multitude of […]. Do you offer guest writers to write content available for you? Again, awesome weblog! I tried to email you regarding my policy on guest posts, but received a bounce-back. Feel free to contact me through my website. I pitched a copy of Twilight across Half-Price Books after reading two paragraphs.
Publishing professionals know how to shepherd a book from raw manuscript to a finished product […]. Anyone wanting to write good sex scenes should read Anais Nin. Anyway I hurled Succubus Revealed across the room before getting to the end of page one. It gave the impression that the writer was a semi literate 12 year old. Love to hate it, perhaps. Did you read my post on 50 Shades? My two y.
I keep hearing that the reason these books are even in existence is because Meyers knows how to connect with these girls through their emotions and fantasies. Basically it seems like she is the exact opposite of what women should aspire to be. My biggest complaint with the movies and the books is one part in Breaking Dawn pt 1 where they discover Bella is pregnant and the first thing Edward does is immediately say abortion.
Calling a miracle of life an unholy abomination. Am I the only one that feels this way about the story? I do still firmly believe these books could have been better written and better edited, as noted in the post.
And, in the end, the publisher can simply choose NOT to publish. I find it useful as I am trying to write a book myself. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet. Meyer's fans have rushed to her defence. He's just a bloody guy who is jealous of Edward's good looks," wrote poster Kiki Alice Cullen. This article is more than 12 years old.
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